Of Ponnayas, Sri Lankans and a Mission to Civilise

There’s been quite a response to the ‘Maxwell ponnaya’ signboard. I’ve been also accused of not having a sense of humour, which to me is an insult far worse than being called fat, ugly and/or stupid – all of which are true in varying degrees.

Let’s make one confession. I’ve used ‘ponnaya’ on people often enough. Mostly under my breath while driving, and largely at bus or tuk drivers. But I have used it also in face to face confrontations usually on the sports field. There is a certain leeway sportsmen give each other. Somehow calling someone a ‘ponnaya’ when you’re both getting up from the bottom of a ruck allows the other person to retaliate, and also sets an all’s fair in love and war parameter in a game where your sole purpose is to beat the other person and his team. The adrenalin rush of battle blurs the line that it is in fact a deeply derogatory term. I am unapologetic about it, and given the incentive in an intense competition will still, resort to targeted insults. If it gets under my opponent’s skin, so be it. I studied at the school of mental degradation that Steve Waugh is the principal of.

No doubt international sportspeople are no different. Almost certainly worse. Shane Watson is very likely to have said ‘fuck off’ etc., while I’m pretty sure Mahela screaming blue murder at the selfsame Glen Maxwell on the last tour to Australia, didn’t consist of him asking about the weather. On the field, it happens. And it stays there. That is the sporting code. Similarly, any SL Army soldier who has seen action, will tell you of the immense respect they had for the LTTE cadres, as combatants. Your job is to kill each other, use any means to do so, but somehow a vestige of dignity and respect manages to hold its own among the blood and tears. That’s why Michael Clarke, whose team swore and cussed at the Sri Lankan batsmen in Sydney doffs his hat to Kumar Sangakkara after the game. It’s respect.

In that backdrop, excuse me if I don’t find the offending placard funny. There’s a lot of reasons why.

The legendary story of Glenn McGrath and Eddo Brandes comes to mind. Glen asked the paunchy Eddo why he was so fat. A completely acceptable slight in a sports field. Not a dinner party. The Zimbabwean is said to have replied ‘because every time I fuck your wife she gives me a biscuit’. Hilarious. Witty. And gives as good as it gets. Now Eddo Brandes is never, even for a laugh, going to put ‘I fucked McGrath’s wife’ on a placard. Not to get under the Aussie’s skin, not to win a game, nothing. What happens in the heat of the battle with one player trying to go one up on the other is not something that needs to be crystallised and displayed, although this particular incident has been valourised because of it’s comedy value. Shane Watson is unlikely to caligraph ‘Fuck off, you twat’ and hold it up every time he takes a wicket, although he probably does say it. There’s a difference.

The Maxwell banner was not something like this. It didn’t give the player a chance to retaliate, and was very much an inside joke. The ‘Maxwell’ was written in English and the ‘ponnaya’ in Sinhala so the Aussies in the crowd couldn’t understand it. I dare the punter to write ‘Maxwell is a fag’ and try to hold his own in an Australian stadium. Try telling them he’s just having a laugh. Don’t take it so seriously. In my book, ridiculing someone in a language they don’t understand is just plain cowardly. If you’re having a go at the opposition, have a proper feckin’ go. Don’t hide behind the vernacular.

Someone on facebook tried to explain it to me as ‘expat humour’, where Sri Lankans like to say things about people in their own language and have a giggle. I’ve talked in Sinhala abroad, we all do it, especially when shopping or bargaining or something. But if you use it as a tool to specifically insult people when they’ll probably beat the crap out of you if you do it in English, then that’s just cowardly. And just plain boorish. No wonder the rest of have to go through hell in visa interviews. You chose to move there, don’t cuss the natives.

I’ve also been told I’m missing the point, that it’s just a bit of fun. But that’s the thing. Writing ‘Maxwell ponnaya’ is not a work of literary genius. It’s really not funny, and it’s a little sad we think it is. Is our expectation of a standard of humour so low, that we find this funny? Of Aussie immigrants in Australia, JehanR is funny. He’s made a phenomenon of himself and puts some effort into his jokes. A guffaw at ‘Maxwell ponnaya’ is the sort of three wheeler stand humour [their’s is actually better] that you’d think people at the SCG were above. So it’s a qualitative thing as well.

It’s also a little about personal experience. I’ve lived on Dickman’s Road most of my life and unfortunately been privy to several ‘ponnayas’ hanging out in the vicinity of Anderson Road. They get picked up by fancy cars and police jeeps. I’ve heard the police beat them, I’ve heard the people in the fancy cars shout all manner of expletives at them, I’ve heard random joyriders hooting at them and yelling ponnaya. Once, while turning into my gate, I noticed a bloke in a Honda Civic propositioning a hooker on Dickman’s Road. The conversation seemed civil. Next thing I heard while parking was the guy in the car screaming about what he’s going to do to her [presumably what he was willing to pay for], and calling her a whore before screeching his tyres and driving off. Apart from the indignity, the bloke failed to realise the irony of a dude in a car, screaming at a prostitute. We mostly think we are a lot better than we are. Life for transvestites is pretty horrific. But that’s not something a lot of people know. Or maybe they do, and just aren’t telling.

Which is what annoys me about the psyche of the Maxwell banner. There is no doubt that as a player Maxwell is in the form of his life. A front runner for player of the tournament, he is batting brilliantly and adding immense value to this Australian side. Instead of applauding a guy who is doing well, we do the Sri Lankan thing of ridiculing him. As I asked previously, if the guy who is mauling your bowlers for 52 ball century is a ponnaya, then your bowlers must be the ponna rajwaru [King of Fags]? Don’t you get it that insulting a guy who’s better than you makes you worse than the said insult? Don’t you get it, machan?

That horrible Sri Lankan [and maybe other nationalities, I don’t really care] trait of dragging others down, was blatantly obvious to me from that placard. Having a laugh at someone who’s doing well, giggling behind their backs, belittling achievements by not giving them the proper respect. It’s all stuff that pervades our society. Every day, everywhere. So forgive me if that banner was a tipping point which reminded me that it’s really difficult to take the resentful, envious bumpkin out of lotus eating islander. “Oh he’s good at something, let’s slander him”.

It is also homophobic and likely to insult a lot of people. ‘Fag’ is not a word we call people, and we shouldn’t be using its translations either. I’m not one for political correctness, but there needs to be an aspiration to correctness for its own sake. ‘Political correctness’, to me, smacks of disingenuity. Of keeping up appearances. Like white Americans who get righteously indignant at the use of the world ‘nigga’ and don’t even update a status when black people are victimised by law enforcement. That’s bullshit. I’m not saying don’t insult people – I can hardly afford to talk – but make sure there’s a good reason, and as far as possible keep it above the belt. Keep it relevant, and try to make it funny. I will readily admit to falling well below that standard often enough, and if someone yells at me I will acknowledge it. Nevertheless, aspiring to these standards is not a terrible thing in itself.

I wonder what would have happened if a Bangladeshi fan held up something in Bengali, when Dilshan and Sanga were decimating them. Something on the same lines. I’m not sure SL fans would have taken kindly to that. Would we have had a laugh, and said ‘oh it’s all in fun’? Highly doubtful. So what’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander eh? If, during the England game someone held up a banner saying ‘Thirimanne is faggot’, I don’t think we’d have taken it very well. Sri Lankans are really quick to laugh at others, but not very quick in admitting our own weaknesses.

That yellow piece of bristol board was symbolic of so many more things than just one chap’s bad taste.

Another one of my facebook friends took it to the extreme. He asked – probably facetiously – whether yelling ‘umpire hora’ is banned in my supposedly new and sanitised cricket watching culture. Not in the least. I’m not aiming to sanitise your sports watching. I’m only asking that we don’t make an ass of ourselves, because a guy in a Sri Lanka jersey is bound to give the entire country a bad name. That’s just the way it is. If someone in a school uniform at the Royal – Thomian was holding that banner up about a rival school player, it would cause an uproar. So why should it be any less if someone does it in a Sri Lankan cricket jersey? When football hooligans misbehave and vandalise in the replica jerseys the whole team gets a bad name. The last match I watched with my aforesaid friend, his mates were involved in a completely unnecessary punch up in which one of his buddies took a pretty serious beating to the head. That shit can get ugly. Goading people and drunken disorderly behaviour rarely ends well if you’re not careful. A lot of things get excused on being drunk. They shouldn’t.

However, shouting ‘umpire hora’ while smiling is probably alright. Because it’s unlikely the umpire hears you in the middle. But having been a rugby referee and having to deal with some of the crap spectators spout, is really ridiculous. I was sitting commentating a rugby game on the touchline one time at the CR. I was at ground level. Play was on the other touchline about 70 metres away. The linesman put his flag up and one spectator in particular screamed at the touch judge while sitting next to me, saying it wasn’t out. You couldn’t even see the touchline on the other side let alone know where the ball or player crossed. But you think you have a legitimate right to yell at a guy who’s on the spot. That just makes you a cock. If you’re being serious about it.

Where do we draw the line? Is it okay to grab a girl’s bottom and then have a laugh because the grabber didn’t mean to like, rape her, you know. Is it okay to call someone’s mum a slut? Because you’re just having a laugh? Unlikely, no? Should the girl who got her butt grabbed just see the funny side of it and stop being a righteous turd? Would you laugh and high ffve me if I met you in public, and go ‘ah ponnaya, kohomada?’

Yeah…didn’t think so.

There’s also a bunch of people who are saying that if the Aussie crowds could call Murali a chucker, why can’t we do this. Two things. Calling Murali a chucker is boorish and ignorant. Exactly like the bloke with the sign. He wasn’t any more a chucker than Maxwell is a ponnaya. Two wrongs never make a right. Secondly, in 1995 I was 17 and had to worry about A/L’s and stuff like that. Also there was no internet. If there was you can bet your bottom dollar I’d have been as pissed about that as I am about this. People writing then were quite pissed about that too. But they’re Australians, I have no vested interest in seeing them behave better. It may have taken 20 years, but they did hire him as a spinning coach in the end.

Is the Maxwell ponnaya sign a good thing? In my book, no. It is indicative of a lot of things wrong with Sri Lanka. Why did he hit the second fastest World Cup century against us? It’s because he’s a ponnaya, not because the Sri Lankan selection was appalling. We avoid the problem, by deflecting attention. Ridiculing others – especially those who are better than us – doesn’t help us grow as people, or a nation. I’ve done my fair share of ridiculing so I know. And yes, I am ashamed of it. Is it something to laugh about? Maybe it is, for some. And to each their own. But just like the biscuit ad that many people found funny and others found deeply discriminatory and offensive, opinion will always be divided. Kids laugh at other kids’ infirmities, until they’re told not to. Someone needs to tell them though.

My friends accuse me of being on a Will McAvoyesque missing to civilise. There’s nothing wrong with that is there?