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Send a letter to old Blighty

Well, here I am again. I know, I know, you don't have to apologise. It is not easy to get stamps in the Wanni and the only sub-post office you fellows run has a chap who does not know how much it costs to send a letter to Old Blighty. After all he is only used to distributing letters from the You Kay with a five pound note here and a ten pound note somewhere else. But who sends letters to Blair country from the Wanni, no?

I can quite understand that poor chap's predicament. If he charged you too much, you would tell your boss and he would tell one of those greeze ball-looking fellows always hanging round him and the poor sub- postmaster will be submerged in the Iranamadu tank- you remember the place, aaah?

Anyway you could have called me on your satellite phone or one of those contraptions you use to call your spindoctor. Never mind, man. After all you would have been busy what with having to think up funny answers to keep those press fellows happy in Kilinochchi. Since I last wrote to you many things have happened no. But let me tell you a couple of secrets. Please don't mention my name. Otherwise those RAW fellows, you know the ones you were buddy- buddies with in those days in Yindiaar when you were tucking into their dosais and mutter paneer.

There are some angry Indian journalists walking around muttering what they would do to you and the Big Boss if ever you set foot that side of the Palk Strait. Chee, chee Bala Annai, those fellows can't be pressmen no. You know we don't go around threatening to break anybody's legs with baseball bats or throw any tiger seen in Thailand to the crocodiles at the crocodile farm.

Some spooks from MI5 and MI6-never mind if they cannot look after their own secrets and let those IRA chaps run away with them- are going around saying that the fellows who turned up in the Wanni pretending to be Indian hacks were police and intelligence guys from New Delhi.

That is why they kept asking your boss and you why you had to blow up Rajiv Gandhi. They were hoping that after all these years you will tell what happened. Because every time they talked to some fellow he swallowed something cried amma and dropped dead.

But then both of you really tricked the fellows no, wily chaps that you are. What an answer, what clever strategy, what an epoch-making statement. Myeee Bala Annai where did you learn that aaah? In the British Museum, sitting where Marx sat and working out ways to get your own back on Mani Dixit and Hardeep Puri who took you guys for a ride- I mean all the way to New Delhi and free too. Sorry I wasn't there to record the looks on those Indian fellows faces. Aah, but I could not have recorded anything. These press fellows are telling your chaps took away their tape recorders, cameras, pens, pencils and even the earring one guy was wearing. Serves him right for wearing earrings like women. But Bala Annai, you know what fellows here are like- they even wear earrings in their nose.

One press fellow was heard saying-I am getting this third hand hearsay as that hip hip Cooray fellow was yelling about the other day- that your boys had taken even his pack of peppermints. I had to come to your rescue no. I told all those fellows hanging round in the corridors of that Commonwealth place that your boys were used to biting anything that looked like a pill that they found the peppermints quite nice.

Anyway did you think of the answer to the Gandhi question then and there? Or had you been practising what to say in case one of those silly fellows asked you?
"Don't dig into the past", you said. I'm sure you were not thinking only of how your chaps murdered Rajiv. Digging into the past can be quite a sensitive thing no Bala Annai, especially after all those theories about homelands. The more you dig, the more you unearth and you don't want too many rattling skeletons do you? And other lands that you so cleverly used to cheat these dumb white fellows into taking over their land and even charging them for it.

The more you dig into the past the more so many myths that go bang like the bomb that got poor Rajiv. Anyway I am writing to you again, not because I have nothing else to do and my regard for you is as constant as the Northern star. Myee how I suddenly remember that bearded fellow Shakespeare- by the way was he from Chunnakam- whenever I write to you. In fact I was reminded of that chap Cassius too, you know, the one with a lean and hungry look. But let these thoughts remain until I finish with the ones raised by the brethren you left behind when you flew off to the blue yonder without even telling them.

Anyway one of your chaps was telling me over a vadai and plain tea that you always came up with clever answers. According to him, your boss would have immediately called his wife Mathy and given her several bundles of money and told her to go launder them. He says there is no laundry closeby in the Wanni and that she would have gone to the stream behind the Presidential Palace, washed them and given them to you as a salary hike, particularly since Gordon Brown has pushed National Insurance up by a penny or some such thing.

"Whaat aiyyarr," I told him "whaat presidential palace in the Wanni?"

"You newspaper fellows know nothing,", he says, dipping his vadai in the plain tea, " you fellows don't read your own papers no. Bala Annai said that Velu was both prime minister and president in his area. So how can you have a president without a presidential palace?"

My goodness. His logic hit me like a rocket propelled grenade. There is some truth to that of course. But don't worry about him. He was one of those TELO boys and he is angry because your chaps bumped off his leader. Still it got me thinking. How can Velu be president and prime minister? I mean he was not elected or something like that. He does not even have a country or a territory that is legally created or diplomatically recognised.

So some of the boys here are asking how Velu has become two rolled into one when ven that Douglas Devananda fellow doesn't accept these titles? What am I to answer Herr Doctor because they are also quoting history. They say that Hitler chap in Germany, he went through a legitimately established parliament, something called Reichstag- nearly dislocated my jaw trying to pronounce that- was elected and then having got himself inside he captured power. He became Fuhrer. In fact sometimes some of your actions-not yours personally of course- are compared to dear Adolf's Nazis.

But he at least waited to do things legitimately before giving himself titles. So how come Velu P is prime minister and president of acres and acres of jungle like that Tarzan fellow we used to read of as students. A former EPRLF fellow was asking how if VP is president he does not have a presidential security division. "Wait, wait," I said, " Didn't you see those terrible looking chaps in Christian Dior dark glasses standing behind Velu".

"But two or three fellows, cheee. See Chandrika she can summon 3000 or so at a gallop. That is real power." "You come from Tellippelai. You fellows are always saying nasty things about the VVT chaps. Wait till Velu gets his own thottam, then he'll send you fellows to Colombo," interrupted Raju who ran from Talawakelle to escape Thonda and ended up here in Wembey.

And that former LTTE major you fellows let through your fingers, he is having a good laugh after two bondis and a paan. He is telling if Velu is president he should pay an official visit to India. He says Jayalalitha will be waiting with a mole gaha.

I don't know why you fellows are fighting so far away from the peninsula. All I want is for you to quickly open the A9 so that I can come there for some good toddy in the morning and Jaffna kool for lunch. What say you Herr Doctor? Now don't fail to write.
I won't need a visa, would I?

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