Monky business and pretentious crap.

The monky without an e is an intentional spelling error. Sadly this is the kind of cheap stunt most of us in the advertising fraternity resort to in order to generate interest. Especially when suffering from a lack of talent and huge bout of Sunday laziness which is far worse than the Monday to Friday kind I might add.

I was saddened and angered to read this article when I woke up this morning about Kapila an elephant who died due to neglect in a temple. The post mortem has revealed that he was in such a bad state that his bones could be broken by hand. I must confess at the start I do not know anything much about this situation other than what was written in the paper. But I think it is sad that a temple can be accused of such cruelty. I am a Christian and therefore out of my depth about Buddhism but one thing I know for sure is that it does not advocate cruelty in any form. I have heard of monks sweeping the ground before they walk in order to avoid killing tiny creatures. It seems not everyone is cut out of the same cloth. This is just one instance of “elephant abuse” in the recent past. Of course, the other famous incident being the one concerning the “diyawadana nilame” which you all know about by now. All I want to do right now is express my sheer disgust for the way that piece of fecal matter behaved. He will get his just punishment one of these days. Mark my word.

But what I really can’t understand is why temples need elephants. Is it a symbol of prestige? A marque of respect stating that finally the temple has come of age and is considered a big boy? Or is there more to it? Could it also make good business sense? Not only is an elephant a crowd puller it can also be a source of added revenue by hiring them out to various processions as well as for hard labor. Actually if you look at it from purely a business perspective it makes great economic sense. Your cash outlay is minimal. You don’t have to invest a lump sum upfront because you can get some idiotic minister to donate one to you in order to look good to his constituents and get his mug in the news. And then if you don’t look after the big fellow the way one should and scrimp on the food and nutrition it needs it all adds up to more money in the kitty.

I personally think priests of all religions should stick to what they do best which is preaching. And not get their hands tarnished by going into business.

Whilst one article in the leader saddened me there was another article which delighted me no end. It was a brutally honest review of the Colombo Art Biennale titled “pretentious crap” by Fredrica Janz which was written so well that I felt like standing up applauding and shouting Bravo till I lose my voice. You see I think it is really easy to take crack shots at politicians. After all you know that they are inefficient and corrupt and no good. It is as obvious as accusing a member of the KKK of being a racist. Duh!!!!! But on the other hand it takes great guts to write about and trash the petty values which some of our up market society types uphold. Well there were three articles about CAB this week! Further down the same page there was another very interesting article by Ashok Ferry where he mistakenly thinks that two covered up air conditioning holes are an art installation. Guess anyone could have made that mistake.