Smile, the beautiful nation!
The
LTTE was militarily vanquished more than a year ago. We are a war-less
nation now at least in the sense that clash of arms, blood soaked
bandages and soils, wondering if Podi Putha will come home in a box,
treating every parcel, box, bag etc with suspicion are things of the
past.
One notices that check points are being removed one by one, ‘slowly,
slowly’ as our English Our Way pundits would want our children to say
even though they would not. Keppetipola Mawatha, closed for years due to
security reasons, was reopened recently, for example and for those
living or working or having to get about quickly among locations in the
area it is as though a magic doorway has opened. Time saved.
Frustrations alleviated. Smiles on faces. These are the intangibles of
the peace dividend.
Question mark
I took a walk the other day down Keppetipola Mawatha. As I turned the
corner towards Jawatta Road, I almost bumped into an elderly gentleman
walking in the opposite direction.
Security checkpoints no longer a frequent sight. File photo |
I would put his age somewhere close to 55. He was carrying a
briefcase; not the James Bond type, but one of those old leather bags
common in the 70s and early 80s. Neatly dressed. We both smiled. Moved
on.
Two seconds later, I looked back to find that he too had half-turned.
There was a quizzical look in his face which I believe mirrored the
question mark that I felt had materialized on mine. We both stopped.
I went up to him and said that he looks familiar.
‘I work at the Identity Office,’ he said, referring of course to the
Registration of Persons Department.
I laughed and said that I hadn’t been in that office in over 15
years. I reiterated that I am sure we had met somewhere.
‘Do you live in Pitakotuwa?’ I heard him ask. Thinking back, I am
sure I heard him wrong. Not many ‘live’ in Pitakotuwa even if they spend
most of their lives there. He must have said ‘Pitakotte’.
‘Kottawa’.
He smiled. I did too. Went out separate ways.
As I walked towards Jawatte Road, I remembered something that a
senior officer in the Army had told me years before.
‘Malinda, do you know that some countries have special modules to
train their soldiers to smile?’
He told me that one of the biggest challenges for military personnel
operating in foreign soils it to build rapport with native communities.
‘We are a nation that doesn’t have to be taught to smile,’ he observed.
True.
Military operations
I remember a story related frequently by Jayatillaka Bandara of Sadhu
Jana Raava fame. He was a member of a group who advocated a full stop to
military operations, probably in the naive belief that the LTTE
understood the word ‘negotiation’. The intent, however, was pure. The
group was clearly a pawn of LTTE-loving NGO operators, but that’s a
different matter.
Jayatillaka Bandara related a story of the Army clearing up after
some operation. A lot of LTTE cadres had died. Their bodies were being
tossed into a tractor. Among them was that of a very young girl. A
soldier had commented, aney pau (untranslatable but roughly an
expression of sympathy with undertones indicating ‘should not have been
this way’).
I haven’t heard any such stories from the other side of the war-line,
but from what I know of the Tamil community I am sure that there would
have been instances when commonalities pertaining to the human condition
were recognized in the lives, bodies and corpses of ‘sworn enemies’.
We can smile. We can cry. Effortlessly. This is perhaps why our
poverties don’t keep us down. We laugh through tragedy and don’t go
overboard with joy over those rare moments of triumph.
The other day as I was driving, I almost hit a three-wheeler. I was
taking a left turn. He was turning into the road I was on. I was slow.
He was fast. I was hugging my left, he was hugging his right. Braked. He
swerved. Eye met eye. I must have been thinking happy thoughts, for I
smiled. Had I screamed or even glared, he would have had to stomach it
and go his way. I smiled and was greeted by the widest grin ever.
Smile-story
Reminded me of another smile-story. This happened more than a decade
ago. Four young men in a car. Swung into Galle Road without looking.
Almost crashed into a three-wheeler. They had not waited for comments
but had sped away. A red light had stopped them. The rear-view mirror
showed the three-wheeler racing towards them. Expecting an earful, they
had determined to scream back, counting on superior numbers to secure
silence. The three-wheeler had pulled up and stopped parallel to their
car. The driver had looked at them, given a thumbs-up sign and said (in
English): ‘Nice driving!’ They got their silence. And perspective.
These things happen all the time. To all of us. The day is 24 hours
long. I am sure there are many smile-moments that present themselves to
all of us, every day. I am sure we all smile enough and perhaps more
than people in those nations that need to teach smiling. There’s always
one more reason to smile. Even through the most transparent of tears.
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