KAMALIKA PIERIS

Brotherless Night is well written, with nice turns of phrase.  ‘I wanted the four clean walls of my Jaffna childhood, the courtyard with its cup of sunlight, the small and dear lane where I had grown up. A home full of people who considered me precious,’ wished Sashi.

For authenticity and context, there is mention of well selected, utterly Tamil elements. What village are you from, Sashi was asked in Medical College. That is the first question asked when a Tamil meets Tamil. It is to find out the caste.

The Pillaiyar kovil where the family worships is mentioned beautifully. Villagers went to the temple to see people, watch each other, and to gossip. Shashi like the rituals, the sounds, the fragrances, the familiar gods, the familiar faces of the worshippers. Priest came around with kungumum, the vibhuthi, the prasatham.”

There is mention of food. The book speaks of maampasham, mangoes and vaaz hai pasam the special small sweet bananas . Oodiyal kool, a rich soup which was a treat. Vadai, murukku, pittu and fish curry.  Egg plant poriyal, murungakkai curry,  bitter  gourd.

 The book described the vegetables in the market, sinuous heaps of yellow green snake gourds, burnished eggplants , long  green beans, hot chillies, toasted cashews, betel leaf, king coconut halved and ready with spoons carved from their shells, neat rows of uncracked eggs,  gingelly and coconut oil, various kinds of rice, lentils, curry powder, flour.

Tamils were known for their resourcefulness. They stretched the rationed kerosene.  Use salt in the lamp, keep the wick short and use less oil but still have light to make it last. They studied under street lamps. Weaknesses are  also mentioned. Sashi failed her first try at University . She was told  ‘ no one will admit it, but failing is a Jaffna tradition. I sat my exam three times to go to Peradeniya .

Sashi’s Tamil relatives in Colombo lived well. Sashi’s grandfather has been a gynecologist in Colombo. The house had two large brass lamps at the entrance, a piano, a  carved mahogany desk  and a carved bone and ivory chess set.

The link with Tamilnadu is emphasized. The short distance between  Jaffna and Tamilnadu is shown. A practiced man can swim from the northern tip of Jaffna to the southern tip of Tamilnadu, 25 miles across said the book. When Sri Lanka government tried to starve us, India fed us.

The usual propaganda items are mentioned. Government runs Sinhala colonization schemes in traditionally Tamil areas. Tamils were told learn Sinhalese or leave your job. Schools in Jaffna had stopped  teaching Sinhala in protest . As a result Tamils in the north  did not know Sinhala and did not want to learn it. No more second class status for our language, said Sashi. 

There are references to Jaffna Public Library. The burning is described, also the DDC elections where the UNP government had send Sinhalese police to Jaffna. Atmosphere tense in Jaffna. During the DDC election time, the police went on the rampage in Jaffna, said this novel. Targets had been chosen carefully,  office of a Tamil newspaper, a Hindu temple, the Jaffna market,  they beat up a young boy. There are people in our country who would burn what we love and laugh at the flames.  

The anti Tamil riots are reported.  Her grandmother  told Sashi about  the  Tamil riots of 1958 and  1977. The  1983 riots were described in first person as Sashi experienced it in Colombo where she and her brother went to visit grandmother. They had burnt Tamil shops, restaurants, hotels, factories. They had set on fire a car with three Tamils  inside. The Sinhalese men who had done the rioting in 1983 had voter rolls, it was organized.

 Sashi and grandmother  escaped to a neighbor’s house, the  Jayasinghes. But  it was the Waduges who  had told the rioters that the  two  were Tamil. The refugee camp was described,  they were all strangers,  not enough toilets.

The book then discusses the rise of the  LTTE .After 1983 there was open talk of recruitment to the LTTE. The young Tamil boys craved action and had many liberation groups to choose from. By early 1984 several month so after Black July, the ranks of boys in Jaffna town began to thin. All round me, boys I had known were vanishing, said Sashi.

 LTTE was recruiting persons from tuition classes . There were robberies at this time. The book records the defeat of TELO in the hands of the LTTE. They shot them in the head. Those who critiqued LTTE disappeared. Men were tied to lampposts and killed. LTTE  behaved with unabashed cruelty. The book speaks of torture and  the  pits in which the LTTE   held their prisoners.

Who thought the war will go on in this way for this long said Sashi. Around 1986 or so they started to build bunkers in their gardens. Sometimes there were cobras in the bunker, the deeper you went the darker it got. Continued)