{"id":47577,"date":"2015-09-03T17:39:05","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T23:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=47577"},"modified":"2015-09-03T10:36:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T17:36:44","slug":"when-you-have-wept-your-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/09\/03\/when-you-have-wept-your-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"When you have wept your grief\u2026\u2026\u2026.."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles.S.Perera<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

When you have wept your grief, and smothered the last drop of tears you are completely exhausted, lifeless, and nothing seems to matter.<\/p>\n

What is left is only the \u00a0smitten body of once a proud nation in a bier,\u00a0 four\u00a0 terrorists in their\u00a0 fatigues\u00a0 stand silently on guard at the four corners with their hands resting on the steel rod of the T56 assault rifles kept standing before them. The red flag with tiger head in a circle of bullets covers half of the bier. Some one had thrown on the ground under the bier a half burnt lion flag. On the bier is a black hand glove of the Queen Elizabeth which she took off to shake the hand of a leader who is also responsible for the smitten body lying in state inside the bier.<\/p>\n

The people sad and grief stricken were walking away.\u00a0 They knew that on the third day the fallen nation will not rise again with the glory that it was before the 8th<\/sup> January, 2015. They were returning to their homes\u00a0 to meditate and pray . Sadly they pursued their evening walk talking over the events that led to the unredeemable loss. Never had they been\u00a0 so utterly disheartened hopeless and faithless, they were walking in the shadow of the once victorious , peaceful and a fast developing nation, today lying in a bier.<\/p>\n

Their grief could not be restrained and they wept as they walked on .\u00a0 They went together into their homes and closed and fastened doors knowing that the fate of the nation might any time be theirs . ( with apology to\u00a0 Luke 24-The Walk to Emmaus)<\/p>\n

At the bier readied for state funeral.<\/p>\n

There are Catholic Bishops with their immaculate white gowns with the purple belt, Mullahs with their long beards, and half naked Hindu pujaris in attendance.\u00a0 The once fluttering lion flags are no where to be seen. What does it matter now .<\/p>\n

It is the TNA leader Sampathan the leader of the Opposition in charge of the\u00a0 burial ceremony.\u00a0 It is C.V.Wineswaran the Chief Minister of NPC who is to deliver the funeral oration. Rauf Hakeem is waiting to take away whatever would be left when every thing is over<\/p>\n

An important delegation with the USA State Secretary John Kerry representing the President of USA along with Biswal and Robert O\u2019Blake\u00a0 and many others occupy the front seats.\u00a0 The Sri Lanka leaders are\u00a0 in the second row, Maitripala Sirisena \u00a0behind Biswal, Ranil behind\u00a0 Robert O\u2019Blake and Mangala Samaraweera behind John Kerry.<\/p>\n

Also occupying the front most seats are Modi Indian Prime Minister , Jayalalitha seated next to him along side Hillary Clinton. There is also David Cameron with the flag with which he\u00a0 flagged off the LTTE torch relay to Geneva demanding awareness of genocide in Sri Lanka which started from 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper has still not turned up.\u00a0 David Miliband\u00a0 and\u00a0 Bernard Kouchner\u00a0 are expected.<\/p>\n

However, the people are not expected at the burial ceremony. Chandrika , Champika, Sobhita Thero and Ratana Thero will come back when every thing is over hoping to resuscitate a phantom Nation.<\/p>\n

At the funeral oration Wigneswaran, will not speak of democracy or separatism\u00a0 because they have got what they wanted.<\/p>\n

Those who\u00a0 voted for a change perhaps did not expect this sudden turn\u00a0 of events.\u00a0 They still do\u00a0 not know that it would be worse than it was when\u00a0 terrorism was assailing the nation. But it is that Nation that survived the terrorist attacks that is now being prepared for a state funeral. Bugles are already playing the Last Post.<\/p>\n

Adieu Sri Lanka I have no more tears to shed \u2026\u2026\u2026..May you be reborn again\u00a0 with the glory that was yours before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charles.S.Perera When you have wept your grief, and smothered the last drop of tears you are completely exhausted, lifeless, and nothing seems to matter. What is left is only the \u00a0smitten body of once a proud nation in a bier,\u00a0 four\u00a0 terrorists in their\u00a0 fatigues\u00a0 stand silently on guard at the four corners with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}