Short Story

Sharing a mother’s grief

by Rajendra Peeris

Surath passed out as an Army Cadet Officer from a camp at Diyatalawa. A couple of months later he was about to leave his parental home at Passara, his six year old sister Subani wished to have a teddy bear as a toy from her elder brother. The brother was on a suicidal dangerous mission to a terrorist infested area. Little Subani was too tender to understand the gravity of her elder brother’s mission.

The Army truck had arrived to its schedule to pick him up and by that time he had already got his parental blessings to leave. He planted a kiss on Subani’s forehead and thereafter quickly left.

Surath had to report for duty on a Friday, February 8, 2009 at a place closer to Visvamadu in Northern Sri Lanka.

Loved

Saturday, February 9, 2009 was a dreadful day. A female suicide bomber had sent shudders down the spines of most people in the vicinity. Civilians were crossing the border with their loved ones in the war-torn area.

Soldiers with their female counterparts virtually unarmed, continued to perform their duty, paving the way for civilians including women and children to cross the border.

Suddenly, at a spot close to a transit welfare Centre in Visvamadu,a female suicide bomber detonated a bomb strapped to her body. More than ten civilians were killed and sixty four were injured. More than nineteen security personnel were killed including two officers.

At that moment, Surath had walked in. He knew that most of his batchmates perished in the blast and to his utter dismay three female soldiers too had died in the blast.The bodies of the young and old were strewn all over.

Arms

Surath’s eye caught the body of a six or seven-year-old girl who resembled his sister Subani. Swiftly he bent, took her into his arms and gently placed her body on an open carriage kept just close by. Her eyes were open and gently he touched the eyelids to close them. His eyes welled with tears and in the rush he heard a weeping mother coming close to him.

She was witness to this act, perhaps he paid his last respects to this little one.At once she stopped her crying, wiped her tears with the edge of her torn sari and in clear language said “Son, do you have a sister?”

He turned to catch a glimpse of who was talking and found a grief- stricken woman. \ “Yes aunty, she resembled my little sister. By the way what was her name?” \Promptly she replied “She was Subhashini, my only child.”

“Oh!what a coincidence. My sister is Subani who resembled her. Aunty what made you to inquire whether I have a sister?”

“Son, I fathomed from the way you behaved that you have a tender heart and that you felt the sorrow of a mother’s grief…”