CONSPIRACY DESK

Columnists come and go. Hope this one stays!

I’ll agree to do that; if you’d let me kick up controversy, poke fun at you and distort the life out of news and gossip that come my way. The Daily FT Ed is a nice guy; he’s already let me do that. As long as I stick to a weekly spiel; he doesn’t have enough hair to lose daily. I’ll try to compensate for it with the one day I’ve got!

Just read that a new law prohibits the infamous tuk-tuk from carrying more than 14 passengers… err…3, to be precise. The Government believes that it would dissuade couples from having more than one child. Or the extra one will have to take the bus. Latest State-commissioned research shows that Minister Bandula G erred when he said a family of four could live on a budget of Rs. 7,500. It now turns out that the correct number is 3. Hence, the new tuk-tuk rule with the future in mind.

Got invited to Borderlands Adventure Camp in Kitulgala. Here are the true heroes of Sri Lankan tourism. How they turn nature’s frills and shrills into an awesome show of bone-jarring adventure is what the wonder of Asia is all about. Sliding 20 feet on a watery rock surface and plunging into a natural pool makes your hair sit up and demands your innermost fears to take a hike. You should try it!

How a handful of enterprising minds have turned Kitulgala in to Sri Lanka’s ‘Adventure Mile’ deserves kudos. No State orchestrating here, just a whole community turning pro. While white water rafting, you arrive at the point where the immortal classic ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ was filmed. What is left of what should have been a historic landmark is just a bit of concrete pillar, barely visible. Not even a sign to celebrate yet another accolade for Sri Lanka.  Mr. Doom predicted today that inflation would reach catastrophic proportions before the world ends on 21 December. The Rupee is taking a beating, but the Big Mac Index hasn’t seen any seismic activity with the popular Big Mac still selling at the old price in Colombo.

The Big Mac Index is published by The Economist as an informal way of measuring the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between currencies and provides a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in difference prices for a relatively identical good (in this case, the Big Mac burger) in different countries. The Big Mac of McDonald’s fame is used as a universal benchmark. Hoping that Mrs. Pestonjee doesn’t read this.

TGIF! TG for the Poya Days and all other holidays. TG for us being born in the land of holidays.

(The columnist is a former foreign correspondent and military analyst. He is a brand consultant and heads The 7th Frontier, an integrated communications agency which masterminded the globally-acclaimed eco tourism hotspot KumbukRiver. He can be reached via email [email protected].)