Miracle potion’s week from hell

25 Jan 2021

Miracle potion’s week from hell

25 Jan 2021

Nothing succeeds like success, it is said, meaning that one success leads to other successes. Then surely the converse must be true as well, that nothing fails like failure. When the dominoes start falling, they tend to keep falling. This was seen in action over the course of last week, when fortunately or unfortunately the anti-Covid-19 miracle potion by Dammika Bandara, better known as the “Dammika Paniya” or Dammika tonic, was struck by a rather severe case of Murphy’s La – a week from hell that contained nothing miraculous. Sri Lankans got their first taste (metaphorically) of the Dammika potion nearly two months ago in late November. Its unveiling was greeted with much fanfare and nationalistic fervour, billed as Sri Lanka’s homegrown Covid-19 vaccine and a testament to the possibilities and indigenous sophistication of the island’s eastern medicine culture. Everybody, from the Speaker of the Parliament to the raconteur of the village, wanted to test it out in the hope that it could help bring some normalcy to their Covid-ravaged lifestyles. The attention and credibility given to the potion by its high-profile consumers, which included MPs and even Minister of Health Pavithra Wanniarachchi, resulted in a large crowd, completely ignoring all health guidelines, gathering in Dhammika Bandara’s hometown in the first week of December. The size of this crowd led to even more publicity for Bandara and his so-called miracle cure, granting him near-god-like status in the rural heartland of Sri Lanka. This region already has a long and storied history of being afflicted by another social disease, that of sales reps masquerading as charlatan-godmen afflicted with a Messiah complex, pandering their snake-oil charms to their preferred prey – the helpless and the hopeless, the guileless and the beguiled, the ignorant and the stupid – who are bounteous, despite one of the world’s highest literary rates. Common sense, unfortunately, is in short supply during these times of pandemic-induced hysteria, and this phenomenon of touting Covid-19 wonder drugs is something discerning and more educated members of the public should look out for and expose as a civic duty towards one’s fellow man. Riding high on his newfound fame, Bandara arrived at the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura in mid-December to make an offering of the tonic to the sacred tree. Denied permission to enter, he proceeded to speak in a raised tone to Atamastanadipathi Most Ven. Pallegama Sirinivasa Thera, claiming he was Goddess Kali. This was the first sign that something was not quite right. A few days later, he was seen being verbally aggressive with a large crowd that had gathered outside his residence. Yet, people just kept coming in large numbers, their faith in the tonic’s miraculous health benefits unshakeable. Enter last week, which began with the news that State Minister of Primary Education and Education Services Piyal Nishantha De Silva tested positive for Covid-19. This in itself would not be bad news for Dhammika Bandara, had Nishantha not been shown to have consumed the tonic on TV and social media just a few weeks earlier. Then on Wednesday, the news broke that Bandara had allegedly assaulted a medical doctor in Kegalle. A few days later, he admitted to the charge, albeit saying it was not him but “Kali” who carried out the assault. He even released a video to the media, in which the doctor excused his actions and claimed to have seen the light in his philosophies, but this cure was short-lived – Bandara later admitted that he had forcibly obtained the doctor’s confession. Luckily for him, the doctor then agreed to settle the matter without pressing charges. However, the biggest setback of the week for the Dammika potion came when the Health Minister herself tested positive for Covid-19, leading to a rather embarrassing situation for both Bandara and the Government. Bandara responded by claiming that the Health Minister had not taken the correct dosage and had not followed his instructions properly, and therefore he was not responsible for her testing positive. However, judging by the number of laugh-reacts, along with sarcastic and critical comments on his social media page and elsewhere in response to his reasoning, most people, at least on the digital space, are not buying whatever he’s selling anymore. In the week’s last act, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa announced on Saturday that the first batch of Covid vaccines would reach Sri Lankan shores as soon as Wednesday, 27 January, maybe striking the final nail in the coffin of the Dhammika miracle potion saga. Better late than never. Eastern medicine, which predates western medicine, is widely believed to have solutions to problems that western medicine may not have answers to. However, the faith in eastern medicine built up over centuries must not be allowed to be diminished by underqualified and dubious medical practitioners touting miracle cures that have no track record to speak of. If 2020 showed us anything, it was that science must trump (no pun intended) myth, logic must come before faith, and safety must come before normalcy. Hopefully, this saga will teach Sri Lankans these lessons in 2021, without the need for national death tolls numbering in the hundreds daily.

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Miracle potion’s week from hell

Miracle potion’s week from hell

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