Tamils - a Trans State Nation..

"To us all towns are one, all men our kin.
Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill
Man's pains and pains' relief are from within.
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !."
- Tamil Poem in Purananuru, circa 500 B.C 

Selected Writings by Sachi Sri Kantha

A Garland to My First Love

10 April 2001

She is my first love. Today, she reaches 65. By current demographical yard-stick, she enters the senior citizen category from today. I will be 48 next month. There is a generational gap between us. It has to be, because she is my mother (Amma). Thus I write this ethnographical sketch about her - snippets of her moments of joy and anguish in her life. Thousands of Eelam Tamil women in the diaspora are in my mother's situation now. I write about Amma since I know her story best.

After a gap of more than 13 years, I met Amma in Hamilton, New Zealand last month. Before that, our last meeting was in Colombo in late 1987 - when MGR was alive, J.R.Jayewardene was the President of Sri Lanka and Rajiv Gandhi was the prime minister of India. After my sister and I left the nest, she was living with our father in the unit of government flats, Bambalapitiya, then owned by us. During the 13 years which lapsed, her health has taken a beating too. She complains of high blood pressure and high cholesterol. She also has survived a gynecological operation in 1992, carried out in Colombo. 

Sometimes I ponder that teenage marriage and motherhood has been a bane for Amma. First and foremost, her nominal schooling came to be stopped.

But, Amma's biographical record was not unusual for young Tamil women of Eelam of her age. When she completed the 7th standard by 1948, her schooling was interrupted to look after her sickly mother and to carry out household chores. She was asked by her parents to marry my father at the age of 16, in 1952. My father was then 28 plus - an age difference of 12 years. The marriage was fixed by the elders of the both families, since my maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather were cousins in Point Pedro.

Amma handed to me an unusual gift in Hamilton, a gift, which is older than me - a 49 year-old wedding invitation, the only remaining memento of her wedding day. It is a curious piece of ethnographical source material for a Jaffna wedding - a wedding invitation, printed on a postcard, only in English, with the bride's name spelt wrong. My maternal grandfather was then working in a coconut estate as a store keeper, and he probably would have liked to show off the auspicious event of his family to his British bosses who manned the estate. For the record, I provide what this wedding invitation states.

"Mr. & Mrs. A.Thiyagaraja request the pleasure of the company of ....at their residence on Monday the 21st April 1952 at 10.30 pm on the occasion of the Marriage of their daughter T.Pooneswary with Mr.S.Sachithanantham (Clerk, Hospital Clerical Services).

Arthiady,
Puloly West
Point Pedro."

The glaring spelling error was that the bride's name appeared as 'Pooneswary', whereas the correct spelling is Puvaneswary. Despite the proof-reading error and lack of professional esthetics, this now-yellowing wedding invitation has become one of my most cherished possessions - almost equivalent to my birth certificate and passport, since it tells about my origin. I value this printed document originating from Point Pedro, which has survived quite a number of family moves within Ceylon, catastrophes which befell on Tamils like the Sinhalese-induced riots of 1958, 1977 and 1983, and finally the trans-oceanic passage to New Zealand.

There is no photograph of the wedding of my parents. I guess that my maternal grandfather who organized the event had not thought about recording the event on camera, though such a service would have been provided by a couple of photographers in Point Pedro in 1952. 

I was born in Chilaw, where my father was working at the Base Hospital in the government clerical service, when Amma was barely 17 years and one month. So, she gained the status of 'clerk's wife' [in colloquial Tamil, 'clarker pompillai']. She then moved with my father, living in Vavuniya and Mullaitivu, until 1958. Then she lived with her parents for an year assisting farming in Thachchadampan (a village in the trunk road between Mullaitivu and Mankulam), while my father began working in Colombo. Following that, for an year she moved to her dowry-house in [Hartley] College Road, Point Pedro, living alone with us (me and my younger sister). Then, my father brought us and Amma to Colombo, where she had lived since 1961 until the end of 1998.

As is usual with any mother-son bond, since my teenage days, I have had tiffs with Amma on quite a number of issues. To recount a few:

1. In the mid-1960s, Amma didn't like my infatuation with MGR's movies.

2. Also, in the mid-1960s, Amma and I argued strongly on the worth of astrology for life. She is a firm believer in astrology, while I (influenced by the writings of E.V.Ramasamy Naicker alias Periyar, and polemics of rationalist Abraham Kovoor) opposed her belief.

3. In the mid-1970s, Amma did not like my entry into political writing in the pages of Sutantiran and Tribune weeklies. Not that she was against Tamil nationalism. But she was more concerned that I would become a 'marked person'.

4. Being a strong believer in the compatibility of horoscopes for marital happiness, since 1970s, Amma strongly opposed me in getting into romantic involvement, with young Tamil or non-Tamil women.

I had briefly described these tiffs in the titular essay of my 1995-book 'MGR Movies Revisited and Other Essays' (printed in a limited edition of 100 copies). Some excerpts:

"I was introduced to MGR in 1962 via his movie titled, 'Thai Sollai Thattathe', a Thevar Films production. I was just 9 years old then. We were living at 3, Daya Road, Wellawatte. This movie was screened at the Plaza theater. My parents felt that a movie with such a wonderful title ('Don't Reject Mother's Words') should be of great educational value to my younger sister and me....In the subsequent years, I watched one MGR movie per year with permission from my parents....The MGR 'bug' hit me badly two months before I sat for the first time at the G.C.E.Ordinary Level exam in December 1966....Since then, watching all the movies of MGR (old and 'new') became a sort of my passion. Of course I had to leave the school early to be in time to join the queque for the 2.00 pm matinee show. And after the end of matinee, I had to creep back to my home, not to be 'caught' by my mother. But I always failed in this mission. The accumulated cigarette smoke in my hair, shirt and vest during my three hour ecstasy with MGR inside the theater always informed my mother where I have been to. But I always denied what I have done.... One day, after I have tested my mother's patience by coming home unusually late (after enjoying a matinee show), she had grabbed my suitcase of collectibles and disposed into garbage can all my worthy collections related to MGR. She added insult to injury by asking me, 'Will your MGR come and feed you in the future, if you are starving?' This unwarranted invasion of my privacy hurt my sentiments badly. I vouched secretly that she had underestimated the loyalty of a true MGR fan.... After I joined the University of Illinois in 1981, I realized that my idol MGR had even attracted the attention of academic researchers from the USA....Even before MGR formed his Anna DMK party in 1972, [Robert] Hardgrave had published academic papers on MGR's influence in Tamil Nadu politics. Furthermore, another American researcher Norman Cutler published an academic paper on the 1981 Madurai International Tamil Conference, which was organized by MGR and where I met my idol for the only time. So I could claim that my mother was wrong in admonishing my juvenile infatuation with MGR. If MGR has been of value for American academics to publish research papers, why was I punished by her? With years, my love for MGR has not diminished at all. As with other Sri Lankan Tamils, I came to admire him more as a man of great heart and indefatigable leadership qualities in the post-1983 period.... However I'm sad that I breached one of his cardinal advices: Thai Sollai Thattathe (Don't Reject Mother's Words), the movie which made me a fan of MGR. I went against the wishes of my mother to marry a Japanese girl Saki, with whom I fell in love. I wonder whether MGR and my mother will forgive me..."

I wrote this essay as my penance for overstepping Amma's parental authority. But for the past 13 years, she maintained a guarded silence - no direct letters and no phone calls. However, I continued to inform her about my progress in life. I could well understand her mind. She was miffed that I betrayed her trust.

Amma's emigration to New Zealand in December 1998 and the new realities had evaporated her anger on me. When I saw her last month, she welcomed me, my wife and our two children with open arms. I was deeply relieved that she had forgiven me for marrying a Japanese. But I could read the sense of property loss in her face. When she decided to emigrate to New Zealand, with reluctance she had to sell her dowry house in Point Pedro and the resident unit we had in Colombo. The ancestral Point Pedro house was sold for five lakhs rupees. The one bedroom unit she owned in the Bambalapitiya government flats fetched a little more than three times the worth of her Point Pedro house. A well known Eelam musician (Thavil vidwan) had become the new owner of our Bambalapitiya housing unit.

Amma told me the darkest moment of her life, when my father (then aged 72) was arrested on the night of November 5, 1995 by the police and remanded behind bars at the Bambalapitiya police station. I had briefly written about this harassment episode (not unusual for Tamils living in Colombo), in two letters to the Tamil Times magazine of February 1996 and April 1996, while commenting on the selective descriptions of human right abuse by the scribes belonging to the University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna). Last month, I heard directly from Amma what happened then. Some unscrupulous elements residing in the same housing unit had informed the police that quite a number of Tamils were visiting our housing unit regularly and funds were being collected for the Tiger movement. On the strength of evidence and valuable support provided by our then Sinhalese neighbors Tissa and Chitra Ekanayake, all the allegations against my father were disproved and the police officer in charge of the Bambalapitiya police station was forced to release him. 

During the interrogation, my father did not deny the fact that quite a number of Tamils were visiting him regularly, but he had stressed that they were his astrological clients. The punch-line for this scary arrest story had humor tinged with irony, suitable for an O.Henry-style ending. Once satisfied that my parents had regular astrological clients, the police officer-in-charge himself became curious to learn his 'astrological predictions' from my parents! We had a hearty laugh on the triumph of astrology and despite my reservations, I had to concede to Amma that on that occasion her specialty in astrology saved the day (and probably life) for my father and her.

When my 13 year-old daughter Sachiko asked Amma, what made her to like my father, to marry him at the young age of 16, she chuckled. She liked that question, originating from her grand daughter. She replied, 'belief in the wisdom of my elders and trust in astrology'. I felt that she gave a diplomatic answer to Sachiko. Though due to circumstances her formal studies were interrupted, I have admired Amma for her pluck and intelligence.

She is learning English now to adopt to the new environment. She has come to  grips with the reality that she cannot return to Colombo or Point Pedro in the near future. Even if she wished, she cannot stay anywhere in Sri Lanka, without being a burden to someone. Now her best friend is Svetlana, another immigrant to New Zealand, from war-torn former Yugoslavia. 

Amma yet clings on to her deeds to the small plot of land, in the trunk road between Mankulam and Mullaitivu. She savors  her one year excursion into farming with her parents. That is her only property link to Eelam now. She has some peace of mind that that land is now under the control of  the 'Iyakaththu Podiyankal' [Lads of the Movement]. She told me, that when occasion becomes feasible, she would like to make a trip to Vanni and see what is happening to her land in Mankulam.

Memories still linger in me also about that piece of land. I was a six year-old in 1959. We had exotic pets in the farm (a turkey and a baby monkey) in addition to dogs, cats, poultry and cows. I remember counting the number of vehicles passing along the Mankulam-Mullaitivu road to the annual Vattrapalai Amman Kovil festival. And my first memory of a political event in Ceylon was when my grandfather came home to tell the sensational news of the day that 'Someone had shot Bandaranaike, and he is in critical condition'. I had one year schooling at the Olumadu Madhya Maha Vidyalayam too.

Amma also gave me an update on the recent activities of her beloved Mano Akka (a maternal cousin of hers) - sprightly, 78 year-old widow, who was married to an apothecary. This old lady is now staying in Vanni with the Iyakkam fighters, serving as a consultant 'doctor', nurse, chef and surrogate mother for the past 10 years or so. In our family circles, Mano aunty's exploits are talked about in epic proportions and her biographical sketch deserves a separate treatment. She has been a veteran explorer of Vanni region for nearly five decades. In Eelam, the trend has been for the sons to join the Iyakkam leaving behind the mothers. Mano aunty is an exception. Having seen all the suffering of Tamils in Jaffna, she left behind her only son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren in Jaffna to join the Iyakkam and work full-time for Pirabaharan's goals.

There exists a professional breed of Tamil women in Colombo, who boast about their studies in Harvard and other western universities in air-conditioned conference parlors, and then - in a class of their own, there are doughty women like Amma's Mano Akka in their late 70s who work to bring some smile to Tamils against all odds. In my esteem, the reality gap between these two categories of Tamil women is akin to a mud horse and a live horse.

Just before I left her, Amma told me that she is interested in learning driving now, since she feels restrained by the immobility imposed by her current lack of driving skill. I nodded in agreement. She is like a bamboo tree - swaying to the strong winds - full of inner strength - to survive calamities in life with courage. I salute her.