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| Sunday, 11 December 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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'They are alive, help me find them' by Aditha Dissanayake
Warning: If you wish to be happy today, I am afraid this article will do you no good. But do read it to the end because you might be the one we are looking for. One year after the blackest of black Sundays history has ever known, Shanthi Gallage is full of hope that her husband and youngest daughter,who went missing after the tragedy, are still alive. She believes her husband has not contacted her because he has lost his memory and that her daughter thinks everyone in her family, died in the tsunami. Shanthi recalls the morning of December 26, 2004 in a clear voice, devoid of grief. There are no tears in her eyes. It is obvious that her pain is beyond tears. "You must have seen on TV, when they showed clippings of the train caught to the waves, a single compartment broken away from the train, but standing up-right. I was in that compartment. I survived by hanging on to a luggage rack". Shanthi had boarded the train heading towards Matara at 7.28 a.m. with her husband and two daughters, having celebrated Christmas with her sister in Moratuwa. "The second class compartments were so crowded it was difficult to get in. I got separated from my husband and two children. My youngest daughter Inosha, tried to get into the same compartment with me, clutching the sandwiches my sister had made for our journey, but the entrance was too crowded. So she too got into the other compartment with my husband and elder daughter. If only Inosha had got in with me..." Shanthi had seen the first wave sweeping the compartment with her husband and children, inshore. When the three of them stepped out of the train she had waved to them and tried to console the crying Inosha. Then, she had heard people shouting from behind her. When she turned she had seen another wave coming towards the train. This is all she can remember. When she regained consciousness the water had receded and there were bodies, specially of small children lying on the floor. Shanthi had discovered her husband with his leg trapped under a trunk. "Our children! We have lost our children" he had begun to wail when he saw her. She had tried to lift the trunk with the help of a young man but it had been too heavy for them to lift. He had urged her to leave him and go in search of the children. That was the last time she had seen her husband, for Shanthi says when she returned the rescue workers had told her that the trunk was removed and he was taken away, but to where, no one could tell her. "He was alive when I left him. He thinks we lost both our children..." Shanthi believes he might have lost his memory and hopes someone reading this article will help her to trace him. She has the same hopes for Inosha. Continuing to describe the events of that fateful day Shanthi says "I left my husband where he was because he insisted I go in search of the children, and made my way to the Thelwatte Raja Maha Viharaya.I was told that a girl answering to the description of my eldest daughter Senali was taken to the Karapitiya Hospital. I was so relieved to find her there". Moving on to talk about Inosha, Shanthi says she had met a person at the Thelwatte temple a few weeks later who had said he had carried Inosha to the temple and left her with a family who had taken refuge there. When he returned the family had disappeared. Shanthi and Senali believe Inosha is alive because Senali had seen her clinging to a tree before she lost consciousness. "I saw nangi holding on to a tree after the waves receded. So she is not dead" insists Senali. Could it be that Inosha thinks she is an orphan? Could it be that she is living with someone thinking she has lost her family? Could it be that Inosha has lost her memory and does not even remember she had a family? Brimming with hope for Inosha, Shanthi begs whoever is looking after her now to "Please tell her, that her mother and sister are alive and are searching for her". Inosha, a talented child artist, had won the Grand Prize at the 7th Niigatha Biennial International Children's Art Exhibition in Japan in July 2004 and was featured in seveal newspapers including the Junior Observer where she talked about how she created her award winning paintings. This is how Shanthi describes her husband and daughter when they were last seen on December 26, 2004. Kithsiri Chandrakumara Gallage, age 50 years, dressed in a light green shirt and ash coloured trousers with a scar on the left side of his neck spreading from the left ear to the base of the neck. Inosha Umali Gallage, age 13 years, dressed in a white T-shirt and light green shorts, slim, fair with shoulder-length hair. If you have information about Inosha and her father, Kithsiri, please write to 83/8, Agulana Railway Road, Lakshapathiya, Moratuwa or 216/1, Sri Darmavansha Mawatha, Walpola, Matara or call 2612195/041-2220396.
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