Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai, Dehiwela

There is this story of a king who had a minister who used to say for everything, that there must be something good in it. Once the king happened to cut his finger off by mistake while cutting a fruit and the minister said there must be something good coming out of it. The king got angry and put him in the prison and for that too the minister said  there must be something good coming out of it.

The king went on a hunting trip and got imprisoned by some primitive people  and when they were going to slaughter him to their god they found his finger missing and let him go.

The king came home and called the minister and told him that what the minister said was true, after all he escaped from sure death because his finger was cut. But then he asked the minister, you suffered in the prison and how can that be good?” to which the wise man replied If I was not put in the prison, I would have accompanied you and they would have slaughtered me!”

Imagine this child who was rejected due to a HIV scare could never have got into Trinity College on his own. The mother could never have even dreamt of moving to Kandy and looking after the child. Who knows, this child might do Trinity – even the country proud! So all in all, everything did happen for good!

However that does not absolve the parents of the school who – en bloc  put up a resistance for the admission of this child. Amazing how ignorant the people can be of such a vital matter in today’s context– infectiveness of HIV and transmission to children. Amazing how even one single parent did not resist this inhuman action, in spite of definite assurance by the medical experts.

Another curious fact is that, this whole drama happening in Kururnegala why the Kurunegala MP Mahinda Rajapakse did not take advantage of   this matter to make  political mileage. May be he has his own plate full with his own problems.