Jaffna through my father's eyes

Aditha DISSANAYAKE

The first time my father went to Jaffna was in 1968, long before I was born and long before he got married. He knew my mother at the time though. But courtship those days meant visiting her in the evenings at her house whenever he was on leave and writing letters. So he never got the chance to show the pre war Jaffna to my mother. The second time he went to Jaffna was last week. This time too he could not take my mother with him. She was too busy looking after her brood of four grand kids to accompany him.

The Jaffna my father knew in the '60s was centred round the Kankesanthurai Cement Factory where he worked as a Trainee Chemist. Travelling from Galle to Jaffna was in itself a memorable event at a time when only CTB buses provided public transport on the road. Long distance travellers depended heavily on the Railway Department.

My father recalls getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning to travel from Galle to the Fort station by bus. The journey took two and a half hours and cost Rs 2.15. By 5.45 am he would be seated on the Yal Devi with a ticket of Rs 10.00 in his pocket, with a book in his hand which he would read till the train reached Anuradhapura. From then on he was checking his watch every five minutes to make sure the train would reach Kankesanthurai by 1.30 as he had to report to work by 2 o clock, in time for the second shift. In all the years he had travelled to KKS he had never got late for work.

The return trip was far more exciting if he managed to get onto the night train which left Jaffna at 6.00 in the evening and reached Colombo by 6.00 in the morning. The highlight of the journey was the sandwiches and two-egg-omelette served in the train buffet car.

Things were different last Thursday, when he travelled to the same destination, this time from Colombo, with two colleagues in a SUV, reading not a book, but e-mails on his mobile phone, calling my mother to share an interesting sight he had seen, instead of storing it in his mind to write and tell her in a letter as he had done forty two years ago. Now he could zoom deep into google maps to check where he was heading, find out the exact temperature outside the vehicle, switch on the TV if he wanted to hear the hourly news broadcasts and enjoy a meal at the restaurants run by the army, once past Anuradhapura.

Food as always was priority number one in the questions I asked him whenever I managed to talk to him on the phone. Did he eat Jaffna food? Was it good? "No" came the answer. "The food is the same as what you get in Colombo. You can even enjoy a Chinese meal here at almost the same price." What was different, however, was the price one had to pay for a hotel room. A triple bedroom with basic facilities and air conditioning cost Rs 4,500 per night.

As he walked in Maviddapuram, which was where the nearest post office to the factory had been, my father recalled the evenings he had spent as a young man of twenty one sipping tea with his friends, strolling through the streets, and posting the uncountable number of letters he wrote to my mother and grandmother - letters which took three to four days to reach Galle. Today with his hair turned silver, with the bell-bottom and tight figure hugging shirt replaced by the white national dress, he would have been a stranger to the soil he had stepped on, as a young man four decades ago.

Today, where ever he looked he saw rectangles of concrete as if giant hands had plucked the buildings that had once stood there.

He wondered what had happened to the people who had lived in the area. He felt the atmosphere was heavy with memories, shattered dreams and unbearable sorrow.

Little would he have known then as he typed short stories on a battered typewriter in the room he shared with two others, with beads of sweat pouring down his forehead, with the rustle of palm leaves keeping him company, one day he would write about this land in a book which would create history as the first Sinhala e-novel.

He recalled one particular passage he had written; a dialogue between a Demala Adikari and a Persian sailor in Nagadeepa, a thousand years ago. "When I was sailing, I used to watch the night sky and wonder who created all this Mirtra told Sankar one night.

"Different people believe different versions of who created everything around us" was Sankars simple response.

How was all this possible? Is there anything that is common to all that is in the universe?" "I have read that all things are made up of minute particles called Parama Anu..."

My father was brought back to the present by the voice of his companion who introduced him to a resident of Jaffna who had remained in his home town while the others in his neighbourhood had sought other pastures in far off countries like USA, Canada and the United Kingdom. My father admired his resilience and the courage and determination of his sixteen year old daughter who is offering English literature and journalism for her Advanced Level exams.

As he watched the only familiar signs he could recognize from the past, the sun setting in the far horizon and the first stars appearing in the sky my father says he felt he was on the cusp of two worlds, the world that still belonged to the past and the world that is about to emerge; a brave new world he is determined to share not only with my mother but his entire brood which (naturally) includes me. Unlike Achilles and the tortoise, if this happens, if I do make it to Jaffna one day, you will be the first to know all about it.