Blessed are the rain-makers for they make the earth yield hope
I was not anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon during the last
stages of the struggle to save the thousands upon thousands held hostage
by the LTTE. In fact the ‘war’ came to me second-hand, i.e. in terms of
people I knew who died, the question marks that descended like the
monsoon rains and flooded household and sensibility on account of
terrorism spilling over ‘contested’ territory and all wrecking
everything associated with the word ‘civilization’.
I believe firmly, though, that all nation and all communities are
made of roughly the same proportion of crooks, tyrants, sycophants and
cowards, and the same percentage, roughly, of kind, compassionate, wise,
generous and heroic people.
I was not anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon in May 2009. I saw
footage of people fleeing the LTTE. I saw them helped by soldiers who
were well aware that among the escapees were thousands who were either
trained terrorists, had helped them in any number of ways, identified
with their objectives and/or saluted their methodologies. I saw fear and
doubt in the eyes of the rescued. There was resignation on some faces, I
noticed. I saw gratitude too. Relief there was in abundance. Courage and
character came undisguised. And there were blank faces, blank eyes, lips
that would not move to smile and brows that did not wrinkle to indicate
any sentiment.
Housing for IDPs. File photo |
I have no idea of the average sense of fear among those who were
later rescued. I have no idea how such questions as there must have been
were resolved or got entrenched in mind and heart. I can surmise,
however, that in those last moments that I did not witness, there would
have been hard choices for those who for whatever reason and regardless
of ideology or outcome preference wanted out.
Security Forces
They had to dodge bullets from the would-be liberator, the LTTE, and
run into the arms of the purported ‘enemy’, the Sri Lankan Security
Forces.
Those with families, had to make split-second decisions about
priorities; which child to carry, for example. Some would have to choose
between mother and child, the sick and the elderly, the wife and the
father. Self-preservation or the protection of the loved, some would
have had to ask themselves and answer in the matter of a second or less.
In the rush, some would have stumbled, some would have fallen and those
who didn’t would have had to decide whether to tarry and risk death or
keep running leaving behind mother, wife, child or friend.
I wasn’t anywhere close to the Nandikadal Lagoon in May 2009, but I
am convinced that there were many who chose ‘poorly’, that is, against
all logic and all wisdom, confounding all theories about the primacy of
self-preservation.
Among them, many would have perished. Some may have stopped not to
help ‘loved one’ but total stranger, in the same manner in which
hundreds of soldiers would have died trying to save those who were seen
as ‘enemy’ or those who saw them as ‘enemy’; not only because they were
following order, but they were different kinds of human beings. And, I
am certain, there were LTTE cadres who trained gun on the fleeing but
could not pull trigger.
Pleasant dream
A few days ago, I heard an old song from an otherwise pedestrian
album by Nanda Malini (‘Pawana’ or ‘Wind’): Vahinnatahekinam (if I could
be the rain).
‘Vahinnata hekinam gigum dee viyali gam bim valata ihalin; idennata
hekinam bathakvee bathak noidena pelaka rahasin. Randennata hekinam
lamaa kela handana detholanga sinahavakvee; pipennata heki nam thudin
thuda nelaa gatha heki vana malak vee. Nidannata heki nam deneth thula
sabaevana subha sihinayak vee; gayennata heki nam dorin dora lovama
pubudana geethayak vee.’
It is a wish and a recommendation about a different kind of being,
encountering and embrace. The following is a rough translation: ‘If I
could, I would be like the rain, falling upon the parched and thirsty
earth and village; I would, if I could, boil like a pot of rice in a hut
that hasn’t seen food. If I could, I would reside as a smile on the lips
of children who are in tears; I would, if I could, blood from every
bough as flowers whose picking is not forbidden. If I could I would
sleep beneath eyelid as a pleasant dream that will turn true; I would,
if I could, be a song that goes from door to door awakening the entire
world.’
Our nation, our world, is not without individuals who are like rain
that falls on earth decorated with radiating cracks, like rice in a
hungry household, like smiles upon faces that have only known
tear-stain, like flowers that can be picked, like songs that kindle hope
and tomorrows.
I am sure that if there’s reason to hope for a different kind of
national resolve, inter-communal embrace and a tomorrow that is
determined not to return to war, it is because such people lived and
still live, because such people lived and perished so others could live
and dream.
We were a land that was desert-made and out-of-bounds for flower and
song. We were a nation that dreamt of drizzle but was given flood. We
were a people who wanted to smile but whose lips bent involuntarily into
grimace. We were a no-hope community. For three decades. In the
aggregate, that is. Through it all there was rain. There was flower and
song. There were smiles and dreams. There was giving and giving and
giving until there was nothing more to give.
Harsh earth
This earth is fertile. Its fertility breaks down and neutralizes the
poisons that ignorance, arrogance and hatred have sown. This is why we
are still a nation. This is why we can remember and yet forgive one
another. This is why, I am certain, we can talk of togetherness.
‘Togethernesses’ too, in fact. And this is why we don’t need to be
lectured to, prescribed for and made to inhabit the reality-versions
dreamed up by those who do not care, did not sacrifice and did not
embrace. The rains that will slake our national thirsts have to fall
from our own skies. No one can make us smile, except ourselves. No one
can make the harsh earth yield flower and grain, except ourselves.
There’s rice on the hearth. It should mean a lot.
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