Yes. It’s popular and easy to remember.

• What surprises me is how relaxed you sound with so much fighting going on.

Yes, you have to be relaxed. You can’t take all these things into your head. Then you won’t be able to think. Now we have faced this situation (fighting with the Tamil Tigers) for long. You can think and take a decision if you are relaxed. When you are excited, the decisions go wrong.

• Give us a sense of what’s going on in the north.

If you speak about the north, you have to speak about the east also. When I came to power in November 18, 2005, (that was my birthday), I invited the LTTE for talks. Even before the elections, I was the only politician who said I’m ready to talk to them, talk to their leader. But within two weeks they started killing people, civilians, and unarmed soldiers. I pleaded to them for six-seven months . . . and till they attacked the army commander in Colombo, I was silent and was trying to get them to talk, and we managed to get them to Geneva, but they backed out. Then again in Oslo, they didn’t even meet my people. When they stopped the anicut that goes to the canal, I had to call in the army to open it. We tried to discuss and negotiate with them for one week. But it all failed. Then I ordered the army and we started clearing the area because they were attacking us.

... contd.