The New Big Boss the other day attended an official conference held at the Kachcheri on his home turf. The Kachcheri had once been a very familiar place for him because in his youth he had had occasion to call here in his official capacity to meet several Government Agents who headed it from time to time.
 

 The conference over, the New Boss went round the Kachcheri and came to a brief stop at the Finance Division. Here he took a walk down his memory lane. “It was a chaotic time that followed the 1977 general election which inflicted a bitter defeat on the SLFP- led government,” he recalled. “At that time, I was serving as a Grama Niladhari.  I called at the Kachcheri and I was making it to this Division to collect some payments due to me when a friend warned me: ‘Don’t go any further.  There is a group waiting to hammer you. Turn back and run for your life.’  I immediately rushed out of the Kachcheri, mounted my push bike and rode off like mad!” The large group that had gathered around the new Big Boss greeted the narrative with laughter.