GO TO GALLE FACE

 GO TO GALLE FACE

 

Some of you know that I have been ill during the last period. Around October last year I felt unsteady on my feet. I was also feeling dizzy and faintish. I needed someone to hold on to. A couple of times I have collapsed. The family doctor suspected vertigo and referred me to a consultant neurologist who confirmed that I am suffering from vertigo.

Yet, no change was felt with the medicines he prescribed. So I contacted my friend and consultant cardiologist at King’s Hospital. He is aware of the work we do and he is familiar with my writings. He asked me to come over and gave a thorough checkup including an echo test, lung x-ray etc.

At the end, he asked me to sit down beside him and explained to me the outcome of his investigations. He said that I’m not suffering from vertigo and that I have no physical illness. He said that I have been involved in social struggles of one type or another all my life. He said that, for a long time, since returning to Sri Lanka, I have been encouraging others through my writings, zoom discussions etc. to no avail. Like a few others, I was just a lone prophet shouting in the wilderness. This caused not so much a clinical depression but a mental attitude of hopelessness. This he has seen in few other activists too.

But luckily he said, “The answer has come. Our beautiful youth have responded. They have come forward to rescue our motherland. So I’ll stop all your medicines. Your medicines are to be found and seen at Galleface Green. After work, I go home, do a quick change, get on my bike and go to Galleface. So, never mind about your unsteadiness and all that, get on that three wheel that you came in and go to Galleface. If the Police stop you, say that you are carrying out doctor’s orders.”

I did just that. Without getting down from the three wheel I clapped and shouted back their slogans at these peaceful warriors. They are creating a beautiful motherland for all of us.

Ranjan Fernando