With apologies to William Shakespeare - Friends, Romans, countrymen (from Julius Caesar)

Friends, Sri Lankans, countrymen, lend me your CASH! (Sorry I meant ears)

I come not to bad mouth Sakvithi, nor to praise him.

The evil that men do doesn’t live after them, if they get away with the loot!

The money isn’t oft interred with their bones;

But probably interred in some Swiss Bank Account!

So let it be with Sakvithi. The noble Edwin Ariyadasa

Hath told you Sakvithi was an ambitious bastard, greedy for cash, a con man ect;

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Sakvithi stolen away like a thief in the night,

Leaving me, the Noble Edwin and the rest to face the music!

For Edwin is an honourable though naïve man;

So are they all, all gullible men and women,

Come I to speak about Sakvithi’s disappearance.

(abducted by a ‘White Van’ or ‘Aliens’ so they say)

I thought he was my friend, faithful and just to me, as I was to him,

(What silly old coot I was!)

But Chinthana says he was ambitious;

And Chinthana is a miserable man.

(remember ‘Helping Hambanthota?’)

He hath brought many lands in Sri Lanka

And the land value of these properties

Have increased throughout the years!

Did this in Sakvithi seem ambitious?

(It bloody well did! If you ask me!)

When the poor have cried, Sakvithi hath smirked:

These ‘Gullible Sri Lankans’ should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Chinthana says he was ambitious;

Because Sakvithi did not cut him into the deal!

And Chinthana is a miserable man.

You all did see that on the Full Moon Poya day,

Chinthana thrice presented him a ‘Deshabandu Award’,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Chinthana says he was ambitious;

And Chinthana is a miserable man,

Because the UNP and JVP say so!

I speak not to disprove that Chinthana spoke with forked tongue,

But here I am to speak what I do know. (or was made to believe!)

You all did love Sakvithi once, and trusted him with your cash:

What cause withholds you then, to curse him, and his mother and his ancestors?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, you ‘Dumb and Gullible Sri Lankans!’

And men and women and policemen and sports stars and film stars have lost their reason. (and their Cash! Hoo! Hoo!)

Bear with me;

My heart is with Sakvithi, were ever he might be.

(Probably on a sunny beach in the Bahamas!)

The ‘Dirty Dog,’ didn’t take me with him,

Left me holding the can, when the ‘Shit hit the Fan!'

And I must pause till it come back to me.



The End (or is it?)