If, as someone said, “Comedy is tragedy plus time”, evidence in the last few months tends to show that it takes about a week for us Mauritians to turn tragedy into comedy. And we seem to be in a permanent state of readiness to turn the page every week and forget about the tragedy of the previous week once we have turned it into a comedy. It is our way of coping with tragic events.

Last week, we were in a state of shock at the revelation of how much of our hard earned money went into the pockets of one lawyer who was reaping the benefits of his loyalty to one of the parties in government.

Suddenly, we were told that the most expensive lawyer on earth and the still chairman of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) had received his passport in the nick of time and left the country while very serious allegations against him were being made by a detainee in a very serious criminal case. So the most expensive lawyer and still chairman of the FIU has hired another lawyer while rumours of his imminent arrest are rife when/if he comes back. The tragedy turned into a comedy as the police started investigating the most highly connected man on the island, who probably has very important information about every powerful person in this country.

This comedy made us forget last week’s tragedy of Minister of Financial Services Roshi Bhadain, who reported the minister of finance’s adviser to the police for conspiracy. As we were waiting for someone to resign in this major scandal, Bhadain came out looking serious and stared at us straight in the eye and told us all was well and that there had never been any problem between any of the protagonists who, in fact, get on very well. It is all the fault of journalists and their fertile imagination! In the same way that there was no problem between Bhadain and Vishnu Lutchmeernaraidoo either. It’s the ruddy journalists who went to the ICAC and accused Bhadain of operating like the KGB! In this logic, it is the journalists who leaked information about the former minister of finance to themselves!

The good thing about the last two weeks’ comedies is that we could turn the page on the previous tragedy-turned comedy of Mary-Jane Gayle Yerriah  – who had forgotten that she was not qualified for the position she was nominated to. And since everyone else – from prime minister to president – seems to have been affected by the same Alzheimer’s attack, she tiptoed out of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) but kept all the money she illegally obtained, leaving the institution to start every single case from scratch.

But we should be grateful to our dear Yerriah as she made us turn the page on Youshreen Choomka, the lady who decided she was the most qualified person for the position the organisation she was chairing advertised.

It is a good thing that we have this ability to turn a tragedy into a comedy and shelve it as soon as we have laughed to our heart’s desire about it. This allows us to forget the most important tragedy of all: that there is no one in charge and that every single scandal is brushed under the carpet by utter silence and mouths kept shut. So everyone remains in place and all is well, thank you. What a comedy!

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