Rendezvous with Prabhakaran

As a veteran war correspondent, covering several of South Asia's trouble spots from Northern Sri Lanka to Kashmir and Afghanistan during a career with leading newspapers, magazines and TV channels such as India Today, the Indian Express Time and CNN, Anita Pratap saw the blood and thunder of conflict. 

Her book is a personalized memoir of her war experiences juxtaposed with her everyday life.This extract focuses on one of her many encounters with LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran:

Imet Pirabhakaran in Jaffna, about a month before the accord fell apart. Throughout the interview, Pirabhakaran lovingly stroked his leopard cub Sita, who was lying on the table. It was an adorable cub. A few months later it was dead, slaughtered by Indian soldiers. That was one time when the Indians came really close to capturing Pirabhakaran. Indian soldiers claimed they had surrounded Pirabhakaran's hideout, but he had managed to escape moments earlier. He was in such a hurry that he left his pet behind, and the Indians paraded photographs of the dead cub to prove they had got really close to Pirabhakaran.

The high point of this interview with Pirabhakaran in 1987 was a dramatic physical transformation that I witnessed in the guerrilla leader. Well-built with clean, regular features and a thick, dark crop of hair, Pirabhakaran is a man whose persona and aura grow bigger the more you interact with him. He is always relaxed and easy during an interview, which often lasts as long as four hours. I ask my questions in English, and they are translated into Tamil for Pirabhakaran, who answers in Tamil. Even though I understand Tamil, I insist on having it translated back to me in English because I want to be absolutely sure that I have understood all the nuances correctly. The four-way translation is time-consuming, but Pirabhakaran has always been patient.

Halfway through the interview, Puliendran, his area commander in Trincomalee, walked in. Puliendran was a strange looking man with small, slanting eyes. He looked a bit like a prowling tiger. There was something wild and intense and controlled about him. He whispered to Pirabhakaran in Tamil. I tried hard to eavesdrop, but I couldn't decipher what he was saying. Clearly, he was conveying bad news.

I have never seen anyone's face change so dramatically. When he began listening to Puliendran, Pirabhakaran's face was calm and relaxed. But as Puliendran continued with the details of his bad news, Pirabhakaran's face started changing. By the time Puliendran finished what he had to say — which must have taken all of five minutes — Pirabhakaran's face had become dark and ominous. His eyebrows furrowed and bristled and were raised at sixty degree angles. His eyes slanted, his mouth pursed and his even, clean features seemed to dissipate. He is dark complexioned, but like a chameleon, he turned colour before my astounded eyes. His face swelled and turned even darker, becoming almost the colour of his hair. I felt the hair on my arms rise. I was scared and yet mesmerized by the metamorphosis. He looked like a thundercloud about to erupt.

But he didn't. He sat motionless and spoke softly, the words escaping his mouth in a menacing hiss, 'Tell them, if one boy of mine is hurt, I will kill ten of theirs. And if our people are attacked again, we will return to arms. I mean it.'

It turned out there had been a few clashes in the eastern areas, and some Tamil civilians and a few Tigers had been injured. The threat Pirabhakaran issued was to the Indian soldiers. His message was clear — if the Indians couldn't assure the safety of the Tamils, the Tigers would return to battle. And he would avenge the death or injury of every LTTE member. 

The large room we sat in became dead silent. There was no sound except for Pirabhakaran's hiss. I suppressed an urge to scream. In Pirabhakaran's place, I saw a large king cobra, poised to strike. If there's one thing that terrifies me, it's snakes. It's an irrational fear, but extreme and paralysing. No matter how often Zubin or my friends tell me that snakes are harmless and don't strike unless struck, I am petrified of them and have a deep-rooted biblical conviction that they are evil.

When I was a child, somebody told me that because of my scanty eyelashes and my tendency to stare, I must have been a snake in my previous life. If I have scanty eyelashes, Pirabhakaran has none. In which case, he too must have been a snake in his past life. He looked like a snake in this life too, sitting motionless, with swollen head and hooded eyes. His eyes glowered unblinkingly in his dark face. He made low, dangerous sibilant sounds. He had gone taut, all coiled up and ready to spring.

I summoned all my strength to control myself and croaked with as much composure as I could muster, that it was time to go. My words broke the spell, and Pirabhakaran stirred and relaxed. His eyes, nose and mouth fell back into place. He leaned back in his chair and in a matter of seconds, he was himself again — soft-spoken, relaxed, smiling.

But in that instant I realized with a sinking feeling that the accord would collapse.

About a month after I met Pirabhakaran, additional Indian troops who were being dropped into Jaffna came under LTTE sniper attack. Thus began the bloodiest chapter in the history of this tragic nation, with the eruption of a war that killed and maimed thousands of civilians, a war that ravaged the land, a war that tarnished India's reputation, a war that battered the Tigers, a war that plunged the Tamils further into the abyss of fear and violence.

But Pirabhakaran survived, eventually emerging stronger than ever before, though he remained deep in hiding. Due to his foresight and strategic planning, he had built a mammoth subterannean war empire that could tide over months of shortage and siege. He had built massive, multistoried underground bunkers and gigantic tanks to store fuel. Slowly and steadily, he had masterminded a gigantic war effort, and every need, right down to importing camouflage cloth for Tiger uniforms, was taken care of.

I succeeded in meeting Pirabhakaran again only when the Indian troops left Sri Lanka. I had been in touch with him during the 1987-90 period when the IPKF was fighting him and had made one unsuccessful attempt to meet him. Through intermediaries, I did manage, however, to extract a promise from him: after the last Indian soldier left, he would give his first interview to me. 

Along with Ranjan Wijeratne, a minister in the Sri Lankan cabinet, I was among the few Indians gathered on the pier to watch the last batch of 2000 Indian soldiers leave the shores of Trincomalee. It was a sad and humiliating exit - unwept and unsung, in stark contrast to their arrival, when thousands of Tamils had lined the streets to cheer and garland them. With 1500 Indian soldiers dead and many more maimed for life, on a mission that did not achieve any of its stated objectives, which instead of bringing peace resulted in the island nation's bloodiest chapter, the Sri Lankan intervention was India's biggest mistake. A day before the IPKF left, an Indian major general said, pointing to a copy of historian Barbara Tuchman's book The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, 'We can add Sri Lanka to that.' 

I sat on the pier and watched until the boat sailed out of sight. The past slipped out of the horizon and I headed for the future — a rendezvous with Pirabhakaran. I managed to meet him three days later, on 26 March 1990, in the Wanni jungles in northern Sri Lanka. 

I was pushing to meet him on the twenty-fourth, latest the twenty-fifth, because I had to return to Colombo by the twenty-sixth to file my copy in time to catch that week's edition. 

But I was told Pirabhakaran would meet me only on the twenty-sixth. No amount of persuasion would get him to meet me earlier. Finally, when he realized my problem with the deadline — that his interview should accompany my article on the Indian pull-out from Sri Lanka and not appear a week later — he agreed to meet me shortly after midnight of the twenty-fifth, so that we could head back by daybreak and reach Colombo the same night. I would then be able to squeak past my deadline.

That was when I discovered that Pirabhakaran is superstitious. The number twenty-six has a special significance for him. He was born on 26 November, but he finds twenty-six and any number that adds up to eight unlucky for him. He never conducts a military operation on the twenty-sixth of a month...

Island of Blood is published by Penguin-Viking, India and distributed by Vijitha Yapa Bookshop. Special Sri Lanka price- Rs 599/-

Millennium tribute of golden memories

A nostalgic walk into the portals of learning, especially in one's alma mater. Reliving those boyhood days, not only the days of truancy, but also those of discipline and study. To treasure such memories and the history of a school which has made its presence felt for over a hundred years, is what 'Blue and White', the Millennium Edition of St. Joseph's College attempts to do, and does successfully.

A compilation of stories from the days of yore, the Millennium Edition fittingly ends with what the school has achieved during its 105 years of existence (1896 - 2001). It includes insights on the life at St. Joseph's by the Rectors and teachers who have guided its destinies over the years and the contribution of the students, without which it would not be what it is today.

"St. Joseph's College, this citadel of education situated in the heart of Colombo has very placidly chalked through a period of 104 years under the able guidance of ten eminent Rectors and prominent teachers who dedicated their lives and energy to the upliftment and maintenance of the standards of Josephian spirit," says Fr. Victor Silva, present Rector in his message to the magazine. 

1996 gets a special mention being the centenary year of St. Joseph's, while the section on Millennium Cameos gives an in-depth account of events during 2000/2001. The story of the Sports Complex which has risen to be one of the premier sports complexes in Colombo and the photo-story on St. Joseph's Branch School at Enderamulla make interesting reading. 

It's not only the past that the 'Blue and White' dwells on. The present students have their own niche indicating their achievements, their clubs, societies, with some student contributions going into print. 

This glossy and colourful magazine's highlights, of course, are the 'Golden Memories' woven by past Rectors and students, letting the reader share those closely guarded and much treasured secrets, usually locked away in individual minds. All those lovingly collected bits of school gossip are now out in the open, shared without reservation.

The Editorial Board, headed by Lynn Ockersz should be complimented on a job well done, for 'Blue and White' gives in a nutshell the history of one of our most prestigious boys' schools. The magazine is a 'must have' for any Josephian and is available at the school office.