I was not anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon in May
2009. I saw footage of people fleeing
the LTTE. I saw them helped by soldiers
who were well aware that among the escapees were thousands who were either
trained terrorists, had helped them in any number of ways, identified with
their objectives and/or saluted their methodologies. I saw fear and doubt in the eyes of the
rescued. There was resignation on some faces, I noticed. I saw gratitude too. Relief there was in abundance. Courage and
character came undisguised. And there
were blank faces, blank eyes, lips that would not move to smile and brows that
did not wrinkle to indicate any sentiment.
I have no idea of the average sense of fear among those who
were later rescued. I have no idea how
such questions as there must have been were resolved or got entrenched in mind
and heart. I can surmise, however, that
in those last moments that I did not witness, there would have been hard
choices for those who for whatever reason and regardless of ideology or outcome
preference wanted out.
They had to dodge bullets from the would-be liberator, the
LTTE, and run into the arms of the purported ‘enemy’, the Sri Lankan security
forces. Those with families, had to make split-second decisions about
priorities; which child to carry, for example.
Some would have to choose between mother and child, the sick and the elderly,
the wife and the father. Self-preservation or the protection of the loved, some
would have had to ask themselves and answer in the matter of a second or
less. In the rush, some would have
stumbled, some would have fallen and those who didn’t would have had to decide
whether to tarry and risk death or keep running leaving behind mother, wife,
child or friend.
I wasn’t anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon in May
2009, but I am convinced that there were many who chose ‘poorly’, that is,
against all logic and all wisdom, confounding all theories about the primacy of
self-preservation. Among them, many
would have perished. Some may have stopped not to help ‘loved one’ but total
stranger, in the same manner in which hundreds of soldiers would have died
trying to save those who were seen as ‘enemy’ or those who saw them as ‘enemy’;
not only because they were following order, but they were different kinds of
human beings. And, I am certain, there
were LTTE cadres who trained gun on the fleeing but could not pull
trigger.
A few days ago, I heard an old song from an otherwise
pedestrian album by Nanda Malini (‘Pawana’
or ‘Wind’): Vahinnata heki nam (if I
could be the rain).
‘Vahinnata hekinam
gigum dee viyali gam bim valata ihalin; idennata hekinam bathak vee bathak
noidena pelaka rahasin. Randenna hekinam lamaa kela handana detholaga sinahavak
vee; pipennata heki nam thudin thuda nelaa gatha heki vana malak vee. Nidannata heki nam deneth thula sabae vana
subha sihinayak vee; gayennata heki nam dorin dora lovama pubudana geethayak
vee.‘
It is a wish and a recommendation about a different kind of
being, encountering and embrace. The
following is a rough translation:
‘If I could, I would be like the rain, falling upon the
parched and thirsty earth and village; I would, if I could, boil like a pot of
rice in a hut that hasn’t seen food. If
I could, I would reside as a smile on the lips of children who are in tears; I
would, if I could, bloom from every bough as flowers whose picking is not
forbidden. If I could I would sleep
beneath eyelid as a pleasant dream that will turn true; I would, if I could, be
a song that goes from door to door awakening the entire world.’
Our nation, our world, is not without individuals who are
like rain that falls on earth decorated with radiating cracks, like rice in a
hungry household, like smiles upon faces that have only known tear-stain, like
flowers that can be picked, like songs that kindle hope and tomorrows. I am sure that if there’s reason to hope for
a different kind of national resolve, inter-communal embrace and a tomorrow
that is determined not to return to war, it is because such people lived and
still live, because such people lived and perished so others could live and
dream.
We were a land that was desert-made and out-of-bounds for
flower and song. We were a nation that
dreamt of drizzle but was given flood. We were a people who wanted to smile but
whose lips bent involuntarily into grimace.
We were a no-hope community. For three decades. In the aggregate, that
is. Through it all there was rain. There
was flower and song. There were smiles
and dreams. There was giving and giving and giving until there was nothing more
to give.
This earth is fertile. Its fertility breaks down and
neutralizes the poisons that ignorance, arrogance and hatred have sown. This is why we are still a nation. This is why we can remember and yet forgive
one another. This is why, I am certain, we can talk of togetherness. ‘Togethernesses’ too, in fact. And this is why we don’t need to be lectured
to, prescribed for and made to inhabit the reality-versions dreamed up by those
who do not care, did not sacrifice and did not embrace.
The rains that will slake our national thirsts have to fall
from our own skies. No one can make us smile, except ourselves. No one can make
the harsh earth yield flower and grain, except ourselves.
There’s rice on the hearth.
It should mean a lot.
msenevira@gmail.com
2 comments:
Beautiful beyond words.
Then when the night is upon us,why should the heart sink away
When the dark midnight is over watch for the breaking of day.
Whispering Hope
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