The north I loved and lived !


An answer to those who want to shed darkness over a healing nation. 
a note to say NO to racial divisions ! 

In July 2018 I saw a poster on face book which said “Dear friends, we are deeply sorry!”
I saw many of my friends posting or sharing their view on this poster. An elderly who didn’t agree to this statement on 83 riots, said “ it is easier for your generation to say so because you did not bare scars or memories of it”. He argues, that it is hard to let go of those painful memories.

What I have learnt during my years of service in post war areas in north, is that, even though apologizing and forgiving does not erase the pains or thoughts, it will surely decrease the intensity of hurt and the mind would find it easy to reconcile with present. and it will definitely dissolve the silence. 

This is not about the past but the present and the future of a nation which was shattered time to time with ethnic, religious hatred towards one another. 

I my self is not a perfectionist. I also feel agitated and angry, People do get hurt with my actions and words. But I always realize it and find my faults within. I act on them to fix my mishaps. In this way it would be ideal for us to find peace with the past and accept our mistakes.

I remember traveling to north on dusty – un carpeted, bumpy roads with check points every few kilometers. Yellow tapes tagged along the side of the roads signaling us that there are live mine bombs which are yet to be explored.
 At the beginning of my carrier in north end of the country, My first appointment was to obstetrics and gynecology wards . Mothers and grandmothers of all ages were seen by us, a few doctors and majority were Sinhalese. We did not speak or understood a word in tamil. Young mothers, who were teens, under aged, came there to deliver their babies. None of them spoke Sinhala and the new doctors couldn’t speak their language which was tamil. The distance the barrier it created was huge.
 It surely did not look pretty, as we were so alienated in the other end of the same country we lived for 25 years. We had to learn tamil, the language spoken in this area super fast. We chose the right path to collide these two worlds  and the communication gap which was lengthening for 3 decades.

"Mukkunga amma, Pulla Puranda Neram Epaddi than... Vairapatha Mukkanga." These words helped us to give the help they needed during child birth in labor, and create a friendly environment.
“Words “ yes , words were the ultimate solution to end most of the confusions between us.
These youngsters have only seen the brutal war and the armed struggle in North. Us, who were born and bred in Colombo, have felt it from all that we went through, we were raised in a war torn society, and we adhered to these aspects and views of our society but we had no memories of the Black July in 83,which holds the key components to this country's 30 years of war, some of us were not even born back then.

In Medical wards I met many of those who were struggling to gain the life they’ve withheld for so long. Snoozed due to terrorism and weapons. Most of the minds were flocked with memories of war. Scars scattered throughout the body and mind. Those who were mentally wounded and beaten by the past. Those who gave up weapons and embraced life. Those who gave up life with the weapons they held, all wounded in the same manner. They’ve lost their lands homes and livelihood. Some found shelter in camps like manikfarm, and some never walked again.
“Why didn’t they kill us ?”  the disabled, paraplegic or quadriplegic, ex-combatants questions us, while staring at the ceiling with their wide opened eyes. They were placed on water mattresses due to spinal cord injuries, they could barely move their head. Soldiers who fought in the government forces had the same sad ending. Most of them were my age, the children born in the Darkness of the black July and yet we held on to the side which was visible to us, and them likewise. None of us had any memories of the 83 pogrom and riots.
Ex combatants, and military soldiers ended up in the same fate , starring at the ceiling with their limbs paralyzed. Some were in my age and had no clear vision about what will happen to them. Some had their loved ones with them, wives who sat in a bench next to their beds and wept.
“year ago, all I was worried was eelam…now It’s the fear of losing my wife and kids, fear of thoughts of betrayal cause I no longer can do anything with these limbs which has gone numb. What if my wife finds a better man, that’s the worst kind of thoughts I have right now doctor, I’m actually getting angry at her because of these thoughts.” An excombatant tells me and asks me to write about their lives and how they switched rapidly during months.

While living and working in north I've collected all these post war memories of grievances, heart throbs, mind battles of wanni and along with the smiles ,laughter and their sturggles to survive and I compiled them in 200 pages naming my book Anith kona meaning “the Other end”.

For some of my patients I was "Chinna Pulle" (the little kid), some called me, Tangchachchi (sister) or Doctor amma ( goddess ),  but none of that bothered me, as all these forms were wrapped with love. the Hospital in the heart of Wanni, was their sanctuary to take a break from their life at the camps and the doctors were gods.

We saw the divergence which was deep enough to sink a whole country and destroy all life forms from it. So we wanted to end it, the 30-years of distance! the split ! the conflict ! we wanted to put a stop to it at least from our generation and some of us, worked for it.
It wasn't easy as we thought cause there were people who were well prepared to find faults or light up the burning hearts with flames of hatred.
There were many times and situations which were hard to tolerate. There were times we were asked to leave.  We just had no choice but to be patient and tolerate it for the sake of the society and humanity. The wanni was finally free from bombs guns and tears of war and we could not let the diversity play its tune of hatred once again. We knew what was going to happen if we react to the unwelcoming hatred the political movements wanted to share.
Ruthless Sinhala doctors, go home !” the poster on the quaters door shook us an shattered our soles into million pieces. But the north end sisterhood-brotherhood wrapped us with their wings of love, and we decided to bear it and stay.  Amidst the try outs of racial bigotry we decided to bear all that with the love, kindness and understanding which we felt through our colleagues. Elderly nurses and junior staff who treated us like their own children,told us that they will die for us if something or some one came to harm us. The minor workers who would bring a parcel of Dosai, uppama or idli for the doctor working the night shift were our relatives in north. That’s the kind of north we lived in soon after war. The terrorism tried to change their minds but our true nature of kindness, compassion and love brought us together.
“Sinhalese ! we were fooled about you all , you are kind!” they would say to our face while our hand held the wrist to check the pulse.
Years went by, tv shows, documentaries, news paper articles of the Black July riots appeared time to time, but none of us knew nothing about it as we were new borns in 83.  We knew nothing about the flames or the political propaganda which led to it and all of us, in our 25- 30's became victims of it for 3 decades.
Once in a while I meet old grannies with sunken eyes and wrinkled skin. I can still remember their hands with tremors due to age and tattoos on the skin which portrayed thousand stories. Some of them spoke to me in sinhala my native language and told me stories of their lives in south before Black July, 83.
“Sinhala doctors in north !” a grandpa said in surprise when I told him I wasn’t from north but spoke tamil cause im working here. “I had 2 wishes in my life, first was the war to end. And it did ! second was to have Sinhalese doctors here” a tamil who was in his 80’s had lived most of his life in south, made my day ! simply because of the love and warmth he shared.
The July 1983, remains a conundrum in my mind, as I was just 10 months old, but I’ve felt the flames and breath taking fumes of it and suffered its consequences for the next 3 decades of my life. I remember the tears, of these elders. The time they’ve lost. The loved ones they never saw. I remember the fears I’ve been through for the past 30 years before 2009. The bombs, the deaths and the paranoia in our minds.
I remember the Check points at each and every junctions. The blasts the bombs and many more. We are the generation who grew up amidst all this. I remember the bomb which took the lives of many students of Gothami balika school. One day ago, we were there passing by for the same purpose as the gothami balika school children, traveling to the Sugathadasa stadium for our sports meet. We never had a sports meet in the glorious sugathadasa sports meet after that. Always chose the much smaller NCC grounds next to school simply because of the security reasons.
I do not like those decades, the past, but I love the “present” in which we aren’t destroyed or shattered into pieces by some bomb in seconds. I love the present in which our children could go to school without being dragged to hold a weapon! (yes I have met those child soldiers of LTTE) I love the present which is some -what bearable.
I always wanted to say that "I'm sorry for the tears and fears and the conflicts inflicted by our older generations, I will make sure that I will not be the one who would tear this country again nor I would let anyone do that" and I thought I would remind it through my write-ups time to time because we are a society who forgets these matters easily.
I love this present, where we can work at our maximum capacity to build a better country.
I know these apologies will not end all conflicts and make this a super extravagant country but I think we can bring a peaceful soothing to end the hatred of the burning north. We can at least make the effort to let our brothers and sisters know that we feel their pain and vice versa. Yes they had to go through a lot as well as the south.

Mothers of all races feared that their kids will never come home and yet, some didn’t. I have held hands of mothers from medawachchiya to mullativu, Sinhala and tamil mothers who never saw their sons. Not even a death certificate but gone missing somewhere in deep mullativu jungle. They both shared the same grief, the sadness and ended in depression. The pills the words the care of family membered couldn’t bring any piece to their dying souls. The vanished sons, one a military soldier, the other a terrorist did not matter to their hearts to ponder on their loss. Incomparable to any victory !

 What makes you a better Sinhalese, A muslim or a Tamil is your own actions and love towards another human being.

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