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During the deluge
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The Madams (Pilgrims Rests) and other temple buildings at this highest point in the district provided a secure roof over the heads of perhaps the largest single concourse of refugees at any one place in the area, estimated at over 3,000.
The majority of them were Catholics and perhaps even the Muslims outnumbered the Hindu refugees. It is no exaggeration to think that but for these buildings the casualty rate of Mannar area would have been much heavier than it is.
A Catholic farmer in Periyanavatkulam told the Red Cross Society Workers :when I heard on Boxing Day that the Giants Tank had breached I fled to Thiruketheeswaram with what I could carry of my belongings - it was a matter of hours before the waters went over my roof sweeping away everything - except three head of cattle who had themselves reached the Thiruketheeswaram heights-".
On January 8 when he related this story in between spasms of coughing, he had returned to his home-site and was putting together for a shelter what was left of the materials of his house, while nearby at another place four hefty men were playing cards to pass the "anxious" hour while their women folk and children looked on and all complaining that no one had turned up to help them.
Isolated
The Giant's Tank, which received the accession of floods from many tanks in Vavuniya and Anuradhapura districts which had breached earlier, itself overflowed on all sides on Thursday December 26 night, and the terrifying currants were finding their way to the sea throughout Friday and finding Thiruketheeswaram an irremovable object in their path took away all the approaches to it from all sides.
The writer after an 18 hours journey by car from Colombo on January 1 over hill and dale and yet un-beaten tracks, ignorant of the full extent of the devastation here, tried at dusk with a jeep to enter Thiruketheeswaram which was an ancient city fortress long before the Caesar's rule in Rome.
He found the futile angry waters still menacing the stray invader from yawning gaps in the roads from Thallady from Sirunavakkulam, from Adampan and from Pooneryn side. He had eventually to wade some miles through water, waist-deep in parts and recent mud possibly from far-off Kalawewa below the Kandyan hills.
Community camp
Situated on the mainland six miles from Mannar town. Thiruketheeswaram is the temple site of the ancient sea port of Mantota (Mahatittha of the Mahavamsa) now in the revenue division of Mantai on the shores of the river Palavi (now a lake) which according to a poet-saint of the 7th Century A.D. gave anchorage to "many ocean going ships swaying in the river's high waves".
"Although Mahatittha is first mentioned in connection with the landing of Vijaya's second wife there is no doubt" says B. J. Perera in the Ceylon Historical Journal, Vol. 1. No. 2, "that it was used as a port by the Tamils long before the Aryan settlement in Ceylon".
True to history, the large concourse of flood refugees at Thiruketheeswaram could only have been approached and food supplies provided during the deluge of December 1957 by sea from Mannar island.
The acute human distress in this refugee hill was all over in a week and by December 31st the treck back to their home sites had started with the few belongings and domestic pets they had brought and the cattle and goats which had followed them.
Some lorries and cars still lie there waiting for at least one exit road to be made up for their return. As a Hindu Temple premises, its halls and inner weedies (processional ways) its madams (pilgrims' rests) and other appurtenances are subject to certain orthodox rules, but they had to be relaxed to afford relief to human distress.
In the refugee Camp there was no distinction in treatment between Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian; Tamil and Sinhalese; Indian and Ceylonese.
In the ordinary process of expansion fate played a curious joke by allocating the Restoration Society President's private house (sharing with a Senior Tamil Officer and Family) to a Sinhalese Buddhist family their relations and friends, the head of which had figured in a violent anti-Tamil demonstration in Murunkan countering a recent Tamil language hartal and come to the serious notice of the Police.
When the President himself arrived with his own family, it was all just one large family which occupied the house and the parting lunch came out of one pot.
Feeding during the height of the 2nd or 3rd rush days when rain continued incessantly was a sight for the Gods.
There were community kitchens in each of the large four Madams from which a sufficiency of two rice meals a day with one mixed-grill of a curry was freely served. Refugees, however sat in family groups in verandahs occasionally cooking their own food often to supplement what was provided from the central kitchens.
Fortunately there had been a recent free issue of "CARE" flour in many of the villages immediately before the deluge not in anticipation of the December-end catastrophe but to relieve the distress which had already become widespread as a result of record rains up to the middle of December, which flour came handy as an 'extra' as the people had brought it with them on their flight.
Muslim ladies
It is irrelevant and perhaps difficult as it may appear invidious to mention names of Social Workers at a Crisis like this, but one stands out that of a Senior Official who happened to be in temporary residence there when the blow fell, who took the situation in hand, organised supplies, arranged the menu and cooking, enforced discipline and health - Mr. S. V. Ponniah Asst. Commissioner of Co-operative Development.
To the writer he left the easy legacy of attending to a few villages in the neighbourhood of the Temple and the closing down of an orderly Camp and restoring normality in the Temple premises and taking a survey of the District as far as travelling became possible.
Among such a motley mass of humanity one group demonstrated certain characteristics worth mentioning; a picture from the Bible the Israelite women during their wanderings and captivities of that race must have been like them; working all the time serving their families speaking little, moving about little even keeping their limbs close together whether sitting or lying down (so that one may put 100 of them with ease in space in which 50 of the others would look overcrowded); ideal guests to cater to under any circumstances - TheMuslim Ladies.
Everyone speaks so well of them that it is hoped that the other groups have taken note of this specially good feature of a people, for the happy contact with which we have unfortunately to thank a misfortune.
Back to normal
Normality now prevails in Thiruketheeswaram which was after all only a temporary refugee Camp and which normally houses less than 30 families and about that number of persons coming in daily to work.
The 3,000 refugees have gone back and what? When will their life be normal as usual again if not better than normal as usual condition which is of sub human standard in the Wanni.
Much urgent relief, however, yet awaits the rural Social Workers; most parts of the mainland of Mannar district, except villages along the one main road, are still inaccessible by road, some altogether inaccessible, after relief come restoration and rehabilitation, if not actual improvement on old conditions.
Symbolic festival
The sights that met the first visitor after Madawach is depressing as to the future, Giant's Tank is now a large cricket field with several large gaping wounds in its bunds (in which the Prime Minister is said to have subsequently landed by Helicopter); all the village tanks have been breached; signs of water having run over the roads up to 20 ft height; carcasses of goats and debris of houses on trees over 12 ft high: a high proportion of cattle and other livestock washed away; Pioneer middle class goat farmers and dry farm cultivators are very sceptical about restarting having lost all in one blow. All the shops and houses at Madhu road have been completely affected out. There have been some human casualties but, fortunately, not many.
On December 31st night, the A.A. warned the writer against undertaking the trip to Mannar by car beyond Anuradhapura. It was nevertheless easy to go over up-country detours freshly filled breaches in roads or make bye-passes through semi-dry flat land or over railway track to avoid a bad breach in the parallel road and get to the outskirts of the flood waters surrounding Thiruketheeswaram at dusk on January 1st. But the road to recovery is not quite as simple.
The intelligent educated and experienced section of the community have to pull together with the Wanni villager and sympathetically study his problems and above all his mental make-up if the Wanni which is really the area worst affected in all five provinces is to be rehabilitated.
Rehabilitation
The Hindu Festival of Thiruvembavai is a call to a new life and a new era (spiritually) veilled in allegory. It falls in December and lasts 10 days and commenced last year on December 27th and lasted till January 5th. During this festival the life history of Saint Manikavasagar is read.
The main theme of this Purana Story is a devastating flood which threatened the destruction of the Pandyan Capital city of Madura which was brought about by Lord Shiva to redress a wrong done to his devotee and in the restoration of the river bund. Lord Shiva himself worked in human form as an ordinary labourer to save another devotee.
The Lord received chastisement from the King which blow was felt by all worlds and beings, both animate and in-animate, signifying the unity of Life.
This story in beautiful poetic form was read at Thiruketheeswaram too from December 27th till January 5th and much of it must have seemed topical to the listeners - at least the descriptions of the floods the efforts made at relief and restoration by all the people high and low working together.
It is hoped that the moral of the story - the Unity of Life, one humanity, one world will live in their memory.
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