Gamey Pariah or Colomba Pakaya?
We live in a thoroughly classist, yako society. There’s no pretending really. All one has to do is take a look at how the so called elites, the wannabes and those from less affluent families behave. You see this in schools, at the workplace and at social events.
Colombo being the so called epicenter of the country and the home of the privileged, has its rather sanctimonious all knowing middle class with typical bourgeois values. This includes some notion that one is educated and therefore intelligent and by default, knows the solution to all problems on Earth. This covers but is not limited to politics, environmental issues, sustainability, psychological issues and the general way of the world. Being an insufferable know it all is the malaise that the Colomba minissu suffer from. What this façade hides is domestic violence, sexual abuse, sexism and a general disregard for law and order. The greatest perpetrators of crimes are not the ‘kudu karayas’ in the slums. It’s the Colomba Pakayas and their stinking privilege which sees them get away with murder (literally), drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse and a plethora of other crimes. This you notice when you travel out of Colombo and listen to the men talk about how Colombo men come to tourist locations, misbehave and give all the Sri Lankan men a bad name. But because the suit and tie offer a coat of veiled ‘civility’ these crimes go unpunished and unhighlighted.
Take for instance the Gamey Pariah. The village yokels that the urbanites dismiss and despise but use shamelessly to get their work done. From maids to drivers to gardeners to drug agents to thugs, the Gamey Pariah is the tool or the pawn of the Colomba Pakaya. Yet the Gamey Pariah is looked down on for being the oppressed whereas the perpetrators sit in capitalist, elitist luxury. Hence the Gamey Pariah’s greatest ambition is to be like his employer – the Colomba Pakaya – because he recognizes that to become like the master is the only way to overcome one’s situation in life. Hence this lovely toxic cycle perpetuates.
And now one is left wondering – who is really civilized? Who is really ‘progressive’? It’s a question that begs an answer from the outside of the epicenter which is right now reeking of the very things its accusing others of being – corrupt.
