Mother Of Sri Lanka’ (Part 02)

(March 01, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) "They are silent. The children may not remember anything about Sri Lanka, just like the children in the hall who were trying to commemorate the deaths back home. She cries for the children and the mothers of Sri Lanka, her children cry with her without and real understanding of what is going on in Sri Lanka."
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Continued from Part One

How simple a question for Samantha, but giving an answer doesn’t seem to be easy. The telephone is ringing. One of Devika’s sons is on the phone and she can hear her little fellow Ravi wailing away very loudly in the background.

“What is the matter?” Devika is panicking as she hears her son crying. She always worries about them when they are at home alone during the holiday, although son Segar is about fourteen and very sensible.

“Mother the cat has been hit by a car, I think we ought to take him to the vet……..can I take some money from the kitty?”

“ Of course darling, you take some money for the cat but make sure Ravi is ok, and calm him down a bit, otherwise he will be crying all the way to the vet.”

“Yes mother”.

She puts the phone down. The children love their cat and the little fellow wouldn’t even eat if the cat is not at home as he is very fond of that animal.
“Some of the Tamil fighters are same age as your little son” the words from her sister’s letter echo in Devika’s head!

The poor children of Sri Lanka have been denied their right to be children in Sri Lanka, the poor Tamil boys are in the battlefield, some poor Sinhalese boys are at the beaches to sell sex to the foreign paedophile who has no hesitation or moral restraint against exploiting innocent lives for their perverted sexual desires!

Have the politicians in Sri Lanka a conscience about their subjects or that is the way they want the country to rot?

These questions often come to Devika’s mind but no one will give her an answer.
“Are you alright?” Caroline asks Devika again when they are alone. Devika tells her she has to go and help a Tamil refugee in North London.
Devika would rather not talk about the news. Caroline often asks Devika about Sri Lanka and the political situation. Some of Caroline’s questions are too complicated to answer, such as ‘why are these Sinhalese armies killing the Tamils in a frenzied way?’ or sometimes she will read of the attack by Tamil militants on the Sinhala villagers and would ask ‘why are the Tamil militants killing the innocent women and children?’.

''caroline the atrocities done by many groups including the government,the government have no language or religion, they will send their armies to kill any who oppose them, they did in the 1971 to kill nearly 60.000 poor Sinhala boys and girls in order to eliminate revolutionaries, there are lots of arrests and murders who does it? is it a work of criminal gangs or the officials who wanted to discredit the nation's good name abroad''.

Caroline may not understand when Devika explains that the Sinhala governments regardless of their party political point of views wanted to continue the war to stay in power and would not give the Tamils or the poor the right to live in Sri Lanka like any other citizens in the world. All these violences are the creation of the people who wanted to keep up theircontrol on power, not just of the militants alone.

When Devika reaches the Tamil woman refugee’s place the social worker is awaiting her at the estate. The estate is a massive concrete jungle with over a thousand families from all over the world. Unemployed, refugees, drug users, criminals, people with mental disorders all put in one block! A hell of a life to experience.

The estate looks very untidy and littered with all kinds of rubbish, like a slum in Colombo. Children are playing loud and rough, young men are standing and staring at the passers by. A group of young women with provocative outfits are flirting with one and other.

The weather is hot, the heat practically burning the skin, the humidity makes the atmosphere stuffy. Devika fans her face with a paper. The social worker gives more notes to Devika; the details of that young mother. Her name is Luxmy Sundaram, she came with her husband to come to UK and stopped in Africa and the agency sent her first to England as they couldn’t send both together. She has no relatives in London. The social worker has been trying to find someone who could speak Tamil in the block but she couldn’t find anyone yet. They walked the stairs that are scattered with rubbish including dirty needles and used condoms, smelly faeces and urine.

Devika feels nauseated.

“What is the matter with the lift?”

“ Oh those things never work properly in the council estate, do they,” the social worker replied. When they reached the fourth floor, Devika feels giddy as well as nauseous as she hasn’t had anything to eat all day. They knock on the door a few times and it is opened reluctantly. There is a thin young woman with sunken eyes, dull expression, uncombed hair, with a baby in her arm.

“ Hello Luxmy, I have brought someone who can help you.”

Luxmy looks at Devika.

Devika asks, “How are you,” in Tamil, within a second that Tamil refugee mother has burst into tears and is weeping uncontrollably.

Devika puts her arm around the mother.

“Please don’t let them take my baby away from me…” she sobs.

“ No, I won’t let them if I can help the situation get better”. Devika takes the little baby from the mother. The baby is well covered with a soft blanket.

“ Can I remove the blanket…it’s very hot…the baby is sweating heavily,” says Devika to the mother. The social worker exchanges a glance with Devika that tells; ‘you see, this mother has no idea how to cope with a baby.’

“ I don’t want my baby to catch a cold, my husband wouldn’t like me if I don’t care for the baby properly.” Luxmy says nervously.

“Not to worry, the baby won’t catch cold in this weather.” Devika says gently while making the baby comfortable.

“ I lost everyone in one shell blast in Jaffna, now my husband is in Africa, I’m here, they are going to take baby away.” Luxmy’s body is trembling with pain when she cries. Devika spends two or three hours with Luxmy, as she has to go with her to the psychiatrist and bring her back to the flat.”

“We must find someone who can speak Tamil in this block” Devika persists, as she thinks Luxmy needs constant support as well as good observation.

“There is a Muslim family upstairs, I don’t know whether they are from Sri Lanka”, the social worker says, and they go to the tenth floor to look for the family and by this time Devika has nearly fainted with tiredness and hunger as well as worry about her children at home.

The Muslim family is from Sri Lanka, ‘I hope they are not from the North’ prays Devika, as a few years ago the minority from the North were expelled as they were a security risk for the majority Tamils in that area, and since then if Devika meets and Muslim in London, they are not hesitant to express their anger. Who wouldn’t by angry? If someone lived in an area for generations and was forced to leave because of their ethnic origin any normal person would feel humiliated and discriminated against.

Mrs Karim is a kind lady from Kandy – the midland of Sri Lanka and she lives with her two sons and a daughter in London. The children are students at the nearly college. Mrs Karim lost her husband in a car accident and she couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage and so she moved to a council house recently; she told them, “At least we are safe in this country, whether there is financial hardship or not, I feel really sorry for people, particularly the mothers in Sri Lanka, who are losing their loved ones.”

She gives them home made ‘vadai and sambol’. Devika observes Mrs Karim’s gentle manners and Devika can tell that she is a woman with a genuine sympathy for others. Mrs Karim sits in front of her visitors to listen to what they have to say.

Devika explains to her about Luxmy on the fourth floor and asks her whether she could help the young mother. “ Of course my dear, after all we all are Sri Lankan. We should help each other, I’ll definitely go down and do whatever I can, and I’ll tell you something else, my seventeen year old daughter is fond of children, she could be more than happy to help Luxmy.” Mrs Karim says cheerfully.

“ You Sri Lankan people are very kind. You come all the way to North London to help and this Muslim lady is going to help the mother. I think your people are very kind”, smiles the English social worker when they are coming to the bus stop. Devika does not say much.

Sri Lanka, shaped like a tear drop, in the Indian Ocean, with the most splendid natural beauty on earth. But today the beautiful landscape is decorated with the decaying bodies of the next generation, demolished ancient buildings and temples, the rivers carry headless corpses, from the lamp posts are swaying away so called ‘traitors’, femininity is facing constant abuse from all sections, mothers with no children, women with no husbands, the land in some places bare and ruined, the price of a piece of bread is going up every day to meet the cost of the war which brings nothing but destruction!

To Be Continued

(Rajeswary Balasubramaniam a leading Tamil writer who lives in London)