A poignant tale of a child soldier
Vinod Joseph reviews the new novel Gorilla by Shobasakthi, a former
LTTE child combatant
There are various ways in which an author can tell his story. It can
be in the first person, solely from the narrator’s point of view.
It can be through an omnipresent third person who sees and knows
everything. Anthony Thasan, a.k.a Shoba Sakthi, a.k.a Rocky Raj, uses a
third method while narrating his own story.
Most of the novel, a fictionalised autobiography described by the
translator Anushiya Sivanarayanan as autofiction, is described in the
third person, though the narrator is also the author and the main
character. Events unfold just a few feet from the reader and you get the
feeling of being trapped inside Shoba Sakthi’s head, with eyes glued to
the empty sockets.
LTTE cadres teach youngsters the mechanics of a gun |
The main story is set in a dalit colony in an island near Jaffna in
northern Sri Lanka. Civil war is raging between various Tamil
nationalist movements and the Sri Lankan Army. The LTTE is fighting and
decimating other Tamil movements. On top of all this, Rocky Raj’s father
is a violent goon who has earned the sobriquet Gorilla.
The narrator’s unsentimental and matter-of-fact language gives the
reader no respite from the all pervading violence. As I read this novel
in a single four hour sitting, my head was repeatedly dunked into a
cauldron of war, poverty, prejudice and cruelty. Everybody is cruel to
each other.
Rocky Raj runs off from home and joins the LTTE. He is stripped of
his individuality and brutalised. In a telling scene, as the new
recruits wind up their training, they are taught how to evade the Sri
Lankan Army and withstand their interrogation if they are captured. I
wondered what sort of tips they would get that would teach them how to
withstand torture. There are no tips. Rocky Raj and other recruits are
brutally beaten up as a graduation present.
Rocky Raj gives the LTTE the total dedication it demands of all its
followers. But the LTTE is not only brutal, it is also internally
corrupt. Rocky Raj’s honesty results in him being tortured and forced
out of the LTTE.
Later the scene shifts to France, where the narrator is shown
applying for asylum even though he has been rejected many times.
Ex-fighters cannot get asylum and so the applicant has to come up with a
plausible story that will hold water.
In the midst of asylum applications and story fabrications, one
starts to hear voices of moderation, tolerance and peace. The virtues of
Gandhi and Mandela are extolled. We hear Anthony Thasan being told by
Lokka, “we need to combat opinions with opinions, not with fists”
“What kind of opinions, Lokka? If I looked you and said that I wished
to ..... here Anthony Thasan says something really vulgar, something no
one would put up with.
Does Lokka live up to the noble ideals that he extols ? Or will he
succumb to a fate that is not much different from the fate of many Sri
Lankan Tamils? Do read this remarkable novel which has many references
to facts and actual incidents that took place in Northern Sri Lanka in
the 80s and 90s, and find out.
The author Shobasakthi (nee Anthony Jesuthasan) is based in France.
Once a LTTE child soldier, he has lived in France for over 10 years.
Shobasakthi works as a dishwasher at fastfood places from time to time.
He has written a second novel Mmm... (describing the way Sri Lankan
Tamils nod their heads at everything the Tigers say), a third called One
Way, three collections of short stories, and most recently, a collection
of non-fiction pieces.
I understand from various interviews given by Shobasakthi that when
he initially wrote Gorilla over seven years ago, he lived in fear of the
LTTE and its supporters in France who tolerate no dissent. Shobasakthi
is now part of a network of Tamil Diaspora writers who propose
alternatives to the fascist LTTE. All the more reason to read and
promote this book.
(Vinod Joseph is a lawyer based in the UK. Vinod’s first novel
Hitchhiker was published in December 2005.) |