Sri Sri Seeks Fame Peace In Sri Lanka Again

File under: The Siddhi of PR

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the war-mongering guru who's up for a Nobel Peace Prize this year, has gone back to Sri Lanka in a second attempt to bring an end to the ethnic war raging there. (It will also probably help remove some of that tarnish off his burnish he got lecturing Indian army cadets recently.)

If Sri Sri somehow manages to bring peace to that clusterfuck, even we might think he deserved the prize. But whether or not this comes to pass, in the end, it's always and only about Sri Sri:

"Change of opinion can only be brought about by spiritual people," Ravi Shankar told IANS on telephone from the Katunayake airport near Colombo shortly after landing from Kilinochchi, where he met representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for a couple of hours.

The last time he was there, he told the Tigers they just needed to be less irritated. That didn't go over too well, as the conflict raged on to the tune of several hundred more deaths, most of the them on the Tigers' side. But since he apparently has the respect of both sides in the conflict, Sri Sri seems somewhat well-positioned to get both parties to the table once again.

It's another well-played move by a man hellbent on world renown who has the PR muscle to make it happen. If he fails to bring peace, he can blame it on one or both parties. But if he actually has some success in Sri Lanka, he's got crowing feathers to last a lifetime, not to mention the tremendous boost it will give to his celebrity and chances at that Nobel.

He's a juggernaut of ambition hiding in humble white robes, a quintessential self-aggrandizing politician operating under the cover of spirituality and philanthropy. Like the Madharishi, the Babaster and the Kracki, Sri Sri wants to rule the world. We're beginning to worry he's got the best shot out of the bunch.

Nah. His missing hypocrite suppression gene is going to see to his eventual fall from the pedestal he's built under himself. And you know we can hardly wait to gleefully describe the pieces and their dispersal.