The wheel of life hasn’t been too kind to him
Plying a passenger across Jaffna-- it’s a tough life for Ratnam. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
There is hesitancy but a quiet dignity as he walks into Hotel Tilko in Jaffna.
His weather-beaten face breaks up into numerous wrinkles as he shakes hands accompanied by a broad smile, with hope held close to his heart that with the dawn of the New Year around the corner, life would meander in a different but better direction.
As the evening shadows lengthen, we had missed the only ‘cycle-rickshaw-man’ in Sri Lanka on the streets of Jaffna and asked him to meet up with us at Hotel Tilko.
We are in a quandary, for regrettably our fluency of Tamil is zero and wonder how we may interview him. But wizened Ratnam Iyampillai, 68, greets us in flawless English (he is also fluent in Tamil, Sinhala and Malay and knows “a little bit of Chinese”) and as his life-story flows forth over a glass of orange juice, also does his struggle for survival.
He is the last of the vanishing breed of cycle-rickshaw-men in the country. Ratnam’s day starts at the crack of dawn – helping his wife to cook a simple meal, before he attends to eight regular hires from homes near the Nallur Kovil.
Five children he takes to primary school at 7.30 in the morning and three tinier ones to montessori at 8.15. Their parents are doctors, bank managers, textile shop-owners, a post office worker, a nurse and the kovil’s poosari. “They trust me because, I give discipline,” smiles Ratnam, adding, “I teach the little ones to say ‘Good Morning’ while in my coach.
I also tell them a poem or a joke to make them laugh.” When his school-drop is over, he does a round of the hotels seeking to take tourists around Jaffna and also double up as their guide.
Saturdays and Sundays are devoted to tourism with Ratnam being more or less a permanent fixture near the Kailasapillayar Kovil, come rain or shine.
This is where he strives to make money because the costs are huge. The battery for his cycle-rickshaw is Rs. 20,000, he laments, pointing out that it lasts only about a year.
His childhood years though were in Malaysia, for his father was Sri Lankan and his mother Malaysian. While his father worked in the railway, it was Vivekananda School in Kuala Lumpur that Ratnam attended, later joining the Government School in Pasi Panjang, Ipoh.
Life took a different twist in 1960 when they returned to Sri Lanka to pay a visit to his paternal grandmother who was living in Chunnakam.
There was no return to Malaysia, for his uncle hid their passports. School for Ratnam resumed at Skandavordiya College from 1960 to 1969, after which he joined his father who was a lathe-man, manufacturing spare-parts, working in the family business up to 1970.
Later Ratnam joined the Marketing Department, having a steady job there until he too walked out with the 1981 strikers. No employment and no money, he was desperate, doing odd-jobs as a lorry cleaner for a few months, before heading for Singapore in search of greener pastures, to work as a machine operator in a plywood factory for two years.
Next it was a “joint venture” with friends back home undertaking polishing at an aluminium factory at Kaiththady.
It was only in 1985 that he tied the knot with beautiful Kala Ranjini whom he had met and fallen in love with at the Marketing Department where she was a clerk.
Setting up their tiny home in Chunnakam, life has been a challenge for the couple from the beginning, with their parents opposing the marriage, not even having a perch to call their own and having to rent a house.
Their first daughter, Dharshika, came in 1986 and they were overjoyed.
The very next year, however, the couple and their baby were confronted by a different set of challenges, when the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPKF) arrived in the north in 1987.
Shattering their contentment and making them flee hearth and home, leaving behind the precious stuff that filled their home that Ratnam had brought back from Singapore after leading a Spartan life there.
“We lost everything and fled to Kilinochchi,” says Ratnam reliving the horror of those times. The attacks began around Deepavali time and they escaped with just the clothes on their backs and a few valuables, carrying their baby with them.
Pooneryn too was another stay before they were able to get back to their home, through Elephant Pass in two weeks.
There was nothing left in what they had called home earlier and they picked up their broken lives, with Kala getting back to the Marketing Department and managing work and home.
Handy with his hands and desperate to eke out at least a meagre living, Ratnam in 1990 designed a cycle-rickshaw, dropping off his wife at work and then haunting the streets of Jaffna for hires.
Their family too expanded with Shalika, the second daughter, being born in 1991, followed by sons, Sayoraj and Dhanoraj, in 1993 and 1995.
As the government battled the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, petrol was scarce in Jaffna and Ratnam’s services were in demand, with doctors and patients seeking transport.
He recalls that whereas earlier there had been a thriving business with around 30 cycle-rickshaws, by this time the number had dwindled to five and more were going out of business as tyres for the cycle-rickshaws were difficult to come by.
Ratnam would be a familiar sight around the Jaffna Hospital, at the beck and call of people, a majority of whom were doctors.
A ride would generally cost about Rs. 500 and some of them would pay around Rs. 3,000 to keep him as their ‘personal chauffeur’ for the whole day.
Then fate dealt a blow – with the closure of the Marketing Department in the Northern Province, Kala was out of a job and an income, rendering the family kitty half empty.
Their woes doubled with the cost of living sky-rocketing and by 1995 they were displaced from their home in Chavakachcheri, forcing them to seek shelter in Jaffna, rent a house and send their children to school there.
This is where they have been since then.
While the four children are still not settled, it is Ratnam’s earnings and the Rs. 2,500 monthly Samurdhi payment which with difficulty meets the rent of Rs. 5,000 a month and keeps the home-fires burning, barely warding off starvation.
Yes, he has eaten rice and curry for lunch, he says, when we ask, but does not elaborate how many curries. We suspect that it may be just gravy and protein has not been part of the family’s diet for a long time.
In the night, would be bread with some left over dhal. On a rare day, he takes home small, bony fish and on a rarer day about 250gm of gal-malu.
When we joke about the big and delicious lagoon “isso” (prawns) Jaffna is famous for, there is only a sigh from Ratnam as he says, “they are for expatriates, mama duppath”.
He hastens to add…….“smoke ne, bulath ne, drinks ne” and he loves his wife dearly for they are a “perfect” match numerically.
Even amidst the hardship and struggles of daily living, Ratnam is content with his lot.
“No one else in Jaffna or for that matter Sri Lanka has a cycle-rickshaw,” he says, adding, “That is a pride for me.”
| A plot of land for poultry and homeRatnam and his family have lost much and struggled against numerous odds. As the twilight years descend upon him, he is seeking help to start up a self-employment project.This will ensure some income for him, when he is no longer able to ferry men, women and children across Jaffna for a fee on his cycle-rickshaw.“If someone donates a small block of land, I can start a poultry business and build a little home for me and my family,” he pleads, lamenting that jeevithe amarui and vayasata yanawa (life is tough and he is growing old).All those who wish to help this one-and-only cycle-rickshaw-man in the country could send their contributions to: Account No. 8600924678 at the Commercial Bank, Jaffna Branch, in the name of Ratnam Iyampillai. |