 
By Padma Edirisinghe
Originally published in the Sunday Observer of June 28, 1987, four
years after the LTTE hostilities began in earnest. As its aspirations
and attitudes voiced via Tamil and Sinhala men and women, reflecting
bonds grown on Asian culture and traditions click with present hopes for
national unity, we decided to re-publish it.
As if propelled by the sudden merry laughter of the little girl the
train shot out into the radiant sunlight. And rationally or irrationally
I began to muse that in the same way the long metal lass had survived
that horrific darkness inside the tunnel, so would my land survive all
its present misery and turbulence and wade into peace and better times.
And then the super human lives and martyr like deaths of people like
Mengamma and Anandan who died in the cause of their convictions would
not be in vain.
Mengamma, that kind old Tamil lady at whose torn ear lobes on which
massive gold ear-rings dangled, at which my son gaped and Anandan, that
considerate son of hers to whom our problem became his own. Never would
I forget these two, now no more.
I remember as if it was yesterday. Anandan standing by the Andiya
well before his house, showing my son, the goats tethered to the nearby
fence.They were sleeping on all fours. It tickled my son no end.I hear
Anandan crooning loving words in broken Sinhala to my kid as he stared
frightened at the gaunt-ghost like shadows of massive trees of the
nettled jungle foliage surrounding the Medawachchiya railway station.
But this kind lad no more trod the earth for according to the
passenger before me whom I met a number of years later, Anandan who
refused to join the terrorists succumbed to an instant gunshot aimed at
him.
“Neither my brother-in-law nor my mother-in-law Mengamma could ever
understand the hatred against the Sinhala people,” said Mr.
Thangaraja.It was superfluous information for I was well acquainted with
both of them. It was this duo overflowing with human love who not only
sheltered my son and me but even fed and clothed us, one strange night.
Back to the initial event. The two of us - son and me - were
returning from Veyangoda to Medawachchiya where we were then living in
Govt. quarters. The Uttara Devi taking us there refused to budge past
Palugasweva station due to trouble in her anatomy. While I got engrossed
in somebody’s family history running back to ages and deposited in my
handbag my son began prattling to a young man seated by him. Neither
could speak Sinhala well, one due to age, the other due to community
differences.
However, soon I was included in the orbit of their friendship.
So when the Uttaradevi finally sailed into Medawachchiya station long
after all the connecting buses to the town had gone home and all the
petti mudalalis had put up their shutters it was well into midnight.
Our quarters were sited in the town and we had come unannounced, a
day before the scheduled day of arriving. The thick bushy area around
the station was noted for the tallest pachyderms in the island.
No man or lesser beast would dare the roads at that hour. The big
black aliyas, my son consoled me would gulp the two of us with relish.
Uttaradevi had again developed engine trouble and was settling in at the
station with typical female perversity.
The hoots the station telephone began to emit when I tried to
telephone my husband were only outrivalled by the hoots of jackals and
owls as they played a wild cacophonous band of their own.
The situation seemed just hopeless unless we sat on a station bench
till morn, famished and sleepless. Uttaradevi was making signs of moving
on again. My son wailed holding on to his new friend pathetically.
Anandan was en route to Vavuniya, the next halt.
Suddenly Anandan suggested that we go with him to Vavuniya and spend
the night at his house and proceed to Medawachchiya and back the next
morn. His house where he lived with his mother was just by the station.
That was his attempt at solving our problem which now had become his
very own.
While my son just revelled in the suggestion Anandan hopped back with
a ticket for me.His mother with the same presence of mind as her son
despite my protests went on to produce dinner for us. Never would I
forget how she kneaded the dough to make the thosai to feed us which
just melted in our mouths mixed in the drumstick temperadu.
And the sweet fragrance of Savandana roots that wafted from the
laundered pristine white bed sheets and pillow slips that she pulled out
of her large cupboard for our use still tickles my nostrils as I write
this.Yet every now and then looking at me, she would mumble something in
her son’s ears making me curious.
“My mother says that you are very much like her daughter, that is my
sister, who lives in Matale, Jeyrani she is. Yes. There is a
similarity.”
And strangely years later in an upcountry bound train I shared a
compartment with a Tamil family, a father and a daughter who in similar
style began mumbling something to her father.
It was definitely about me.The little one was very coy about it and I
understood the sign language with which she threatened her father not to
tell me what she said. But after she fell asleep her father told me,
“This is very strange. Laila, my daughter tells me she knows you. Of
course you are much like my dead wife. But Laila was born out of my
wife’s dead body.”
He, Thangaraja went on to tell me that when news of her brother’s
death reached her that his wife collapsed and later died. The child was
taken out of her.Not knowing what to say I said that the child must be
referring to some other female in her circle and added that I am quite
used to be mistaken for a Tamil due to my colour and features.
I went on to say,“In fact some years ago when we were living at
Medawachchiya a kind Tamil youth called Anandan took me and my son home
and his mother remarked that I am very much like her daughter Jeyrani.”
“Oh Gods” exclaimed the man “Jeyrani was my wife and Anandan my
brother-in-law.
All three of them are dead now. During the communal troubles in
Vavuniya Mengamma harboured a Sinhala family and was killed by the
terrorists who killed Anandan too later for refusing to join their
movement.”“The terrorists not only killed Mengamma and Anandan but
killed my wife too for she loved her brother and the shock proved
fatal.”Then something seemed to flash his mind. “Gods. Then it is true.
Laila recognized you.
Then that means what Jeyrani said was true”? “What did she say?” I
asked preparing myself for more shocks.
“My wife got pregnant about 10 months after Mengamma was killed and
she began to say, Thanga, I am sure it is amma who has got inside me.
Otherwise, this pregnancy after 15 years of marriage is very strange.
Yes. She was so kind and understanding that she felt my frustration
at my childlessness and would have willed to be born within me.”The
man’s tears flowed past.
Laila stirred in her sleep and smiled, at nobody in particular but
maybe at the general strange world with its mixture of bouts of
happiness and misery and again got back to her sleep.
Thanga, had advanced from tears to sobs. And then it was as if to
advance all that misery, pathos and cruel hopelessness that the rippling
laughter of the little girl started. She was laughing in a state of semi
sleep.And optimistically I thought may be this is it - this silvery peal
of laughter of Laila, ex Mengamma, that angelic human was portended of
better times to come and one day the sun would shine brightly on all of
us trodding the Lankan earth to which peace will return at last. And
then the train that was crawling inside a tunnel in darkness suddenly
shot out into bright sunlight. |
