Open Happiness...................

Switzerland  is the happiest country in the world in 2015.But Mexico is the number one consumer of coca cola in the world which comers to 225 liters per person. The Mexican has surpassed the inventors. In USA is only 200 liters per person. Either Mexico or USA not even among the ten happiest countries in the world. In Mexico Coca cola can be found in places where you don’t find water even, My understand is happiness is not really about drinking Coca Cola…

That could be a one reason  of course it is not the reason for happiness.

 Making grand children happy-Leo Tolstoy...

“Happy families all alike, each unhappy family un happy in its own way….”even if Leo Tolstoy said  that happiness will come in  similar reasons I have never heard of Leo Tolstoy is a fan of Coca Cola or that he encouraged  Russia  be happy with Coca Cola.

But Russia was unhappy at a time without Coca cola and that time Mikhail Russian President Gorbachev Russia can borrow happiness from USA with Coca Cola and cow boy hats. But again Russia was unhappier after those political reforms.

 Again as per Leo Tolstoy we can be unhappy in our own ways. If we don’t have a particular reason to be unhappy, but don’t worry we can find it by hard, we do it most of the time.

In Sri Lanka we do drink Coca cola, not like in Mexico still we have freely available water than Coca Cola hope it will be the same in future, also we have Elephant House Cream soda and Ginger beer. But still Sri Lankans drink Coca Cola. I know very famous Architect; certainly he is not a very happy person but loves Coca Cola. There was a story he was invited to come to Myanmar and he asked form the travel agent “Are there Coca Cola in Burma “Still some Sri Lankans called Myanmar as Burma.

I of course like the Old glass Coca Cola bottle. Now in Sri Lanka we often get plastic Coca Cola bottle think which is horrible, it is a disaster to the design of the original glass bottle as well the environment. Actually I stopped buying plastic Coca cola bottle. The changes of the coca cola bottle like changes of a woman.starting in a simple way shaping up her body in her youth and ended up in being bulky after middle age.
As Sri Lankans we are not very unhappy nations either, but we have issued straighten up, we are trying over 2500 years…

We have four main rivers which starting from Mount Adam’s peak. Out of All Mahawali River is the Longest River In Sri Lanka,Since I’m from Kalutara District I’m very familiar with  the  river Kalu.it is the river  which I learnt to swim and riding boats.

But my favorite river is Kelani River. It is the most dramatic river in Sri Lanka.Even Film Director David Lean identified it.His academy award winning movie the bridge on the river Kwai was filmed on Kelani River. Near Kithulgala, Even I have cherished memories in Kithulgala, I love white water rafting. 

This is the place where we can do most fascinated water rafting in Sri Lanka.

Kelani River passing through different landscape and meet the Indian Ocean in a very urban area in Mutwall.Not only the Kelani River even the Kelani Bridge in Colombo was subjected to very popular Sinhalese stage drama “Kelani Palama” (the Kelani Bridge).

It is that much connects with people. More than all of this Kelani River is the main water source to city of Colombo. Over 80 % of water supply is based on Kelani River. Clean water is a good reason to be happy. We have unhappy large number of people without clean water.it has turned into an epidemic of Kidney damages mostly north part of the Sri Lanka .

the climax  of the movie-the bridge on the river Kwai (filmed at Kithulgala)

The Coca cola company which highly advertising of open happiness since last week directly responsible of destroying millions of Sri Lankans’ happiness. We have a coca cola factory on river Kelani River banks. Their main source of water is same as Kelani River. In last week it was reported that the Coca-Cola Corporation has apologized for leaking diesel fuel into the Kelani River, and is promising to pay compensation to the victims of the spill. As per their information due to an explosion at the plant during construction carried out by a private contractor”. The statement was made just after the organization suspended the factory’s license to operate and threatened further legal penalties against the company. The thing is it was not the factory which identifies their defect first.it was people who noticed this before the factory turned into any action.
  Eventually, the Central Environmental Authority confirmed that diesel has been mixed to the water of the picturesque Kelani River. The Environmental Protection license granted to the factory was suspended. But after two weeks yesterday Coco cola company able to obtain the permission to continue their production in utmost good faith.

Somehow Sri Lankan Media were very silent on this matter, I’m pretty sure they all must have overwhelmed with the open happiness of the Coca Cola. This factory was responsible for leakage and contamination before, but it happened on Election Day when no one was paying attention. This started to a chain reaction .It was also found that the water in the Ambatale reservoir which supplies water to households in Colombo and the suburbs had also been contaminated with oil and had led to the disruption of drinking water.

The Ambatale water pumping plant has also been damaged and had to be repaired at a huge cost with the assistance of the Environment Protection Authority. The water board says repair cost of the water purification system is very expensive again there are reports that the Coca Cola factory agreed to bear the repair cost.

Some  of Coca cola plants in India was closed by court odors for charging extracting too much ground water. Well the relationship with Coca cola from the beginning was not happy in India. It was Indian Prime minister Indira Gandhi who approved a parliament act saying without prior approving of formula and the ingredients of the any imported consumable product cannot be sold in India. It says that the ingredient and the formula of Coca cola is a secret only among 10 people in the world. So Coca Cola Company refused to issue Formula and ingredients and Indian government banned selling coca cola. Still in India Pepsi cola is widely popular and available than Sri Lanka.But even in India later on allow Coca Cola.

Well as it appears to me Coca cola is not about open happiness, it is very enclosed happiness. Can we be  happy without knowing what we drink?