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To
Sinnamma on Women's Day "Why are
we packing them, nona?" she asked. I said - “to send them
to a gentleman in Peradeniya." “For what?”
“To be given to those big schools in Kandy and other places.”
I said briefly as Sinnamma didn't know one school from another,
leave alone the difference between a school and a university. This
faithful woman 'of mine' doesn't have the vaguest idea as to what
their contents are. But she is dusting them well, thoroughly one
by one. Little does she know that they contain poems, short stories
and articles on various serious subjects. A poem by Jean Arasanayagam
called 'A woman I once knew: The survivors', articles such as Lalithambika
Antharjanam; the Conservative Rebel in Malayalam Literature by B.
Chandika. The nature of language inequality, the case of English
and Sinhala from a functional point of view, by another professor,
Shakespeare and myself by Gamini Salgado. None of them would make
sense to her. She is not literate in any of the three Sri Lankan
languages. She speaks Tamil and Sinhala but she can't understand
even the news reader's Tamil. Tamil letters are as strange to her
as to me. The only difference is that I am ashamed that I can't
read Tamil and she is not. She doesn't blame her parents or the
Periya dore or the government for her illiteracy. To her, it's a
fact, that she has had to live with. “We didn't go to school,”
she would say in a matter of fact tone. And she has not heard of
adult education. When she came
to me she said, ''I know to cook the Sinhala way nona”; her
cooking is indeed good. “I have picked tea and tapped rubber
for the last thirty years," she said. "Now my back aches,
I can't carry those heavy latex buckets down the hill any more,
that's why I asked Perumal to find a good place for me. Four mouths
to feed at home and 'our one' drinking all the time; and sons not
liking estate work.” Sinnamma is
a neighbour of Kala (Sashikala) my daughter-in-law's maid - Kala
has been with my elder son's family for the last five years or more.
Unlike many other girls from the estate, Kala is not interested
in early marriage. Sinnamma tells
me, “Kala is a good girl, she is not in a hurry to marry. For
that the girls that my two sons have married. Neither of them works.
They don't work on the estate or anywhere else. None of my sons
work in the estate - they go to collect sand from the river. Dangerous
work - second son has already started drinking. I advised him -
but - what's the point if he doesn't listen?" A few weeks
after Sinnamma had arrived our son and his family went out of Colombo
for a long weekend leaving Kala with us. Saturday morning, a telephone
message came from the....Kanda Estate Kade mudalali to say that
Kala's father had died. Now, it was our responsibility to take the
weeping Kala home as soon as possible without waiting for her master
and mistress to come home. Being the only daughter and the only
sibling doing a job and earning money it was urgent that Kala reached
home immediately to help her mother. The mother was sick too, Kala
kept on weeping and saying in her fluent Sinhala 'monva unnada dannena,
bade amaruwak witharai thibune - beema nisa thami oka wenne atthe'.”
(don't know what happened, he only had a stomach upset. May be because
of drinking....). We had to get
there as fast as possible because the only source of cash was Kala.
When we got there we found many aunts, cousins and uncles crying
and lamenting the death and vying with each other to narrate the
events that preceded death and to praise the dead brother. The uncles
were all drunk, some were squatting outside and the others crowding
the line room, which was Kala's family, abode. Calenders that Kala
had brought from Colombo adorned the walls. Well-known film and
teledrama stars grinned from all four sides in sharp contrast to
the lugubrious scene in the room that had now become suffocating. The mother
and a couple of others had gone to hospital to bring the corpse.
That would naturally involve money. I later found that the money
was lent by the kade mudalali, at interest, of course. But the alms
that had to be given after 40 days alone would cost more than the
six thousand rupees Kala brought. When Saraswathi, Kala’s mother,
saw us she started weeping anew and describing the circumstances
of the death and thanking us for bringing her 'kella' home. The
doleful uncles and grand uncles were quite drunk and were making
arrangements to get more supplies. The loud exchanges among them
were not comprehensible. “There's
not much work these days - not like in those periya dore days. On
free days they get together and get drunk, whispered Kala's aunt
Selvi in Sinhala. She was fluent in Sinhala, having stayed at a
Sinhala household in Horana for three years. She had now come home
with the intention of going to the Middle East. All her savings
from Horana - she had parted with - to an agency in Colombo. She
was understandably in a state of anxiety. There was a
terrific outburst of weeping and a rickety old dark blue van was
manoeuvering the hill. It stopped at the point where we too had
parked. Because the road beyond that was not motorable. The shiny flower
- bordered coffin was carried up the hill path with a great deal
of drunken enthusiasm by the mourners. Selvi told me what my quietly
generous daughter-in-law had never revealed. It was Kala with Manori
nona's extra help who was bearing the burden anyway. She used the
Sinhala expression - 'mevata karagahanne denuth Kala thamai'. This
man spent whatever he earned on kasippu, didn't even feed the woman
properly. She got only the beatings. “Koi minihath ekai,”
she said hinting at her own part. It was best that Kala also did
not marry, much better to remain a spinster. She spat hard through
the small window. The betel spit drew a garish red mark on the gravel. That was a
week of incidents and coincidences. It was a busy work for me because
I had some writing deadlines to meet. Had had to dismiss our cook
(cum butler) because he had turned from occasional drinker to habitual
drinker. He had started stealing money and running to some kasippu
joint where a drink was only 20 rupees. Everytime he went home to
Nawalapitiya at the end of the month, it so happened, (according
to him) that he had to beat his wife. “She spends so much on
snacks from the kade and doesn't give the boys a proper meal. And
she runs a huge bill with the mudalali. In Sinhala he would say
‘in the estate everybody beats his wife’.” He knew enough
English to write a marketing list or a menu. He read English newspapers
and even asked me one day what 'women liberation' meant and whether
it was like the JVP. At this time
my youngest son and his wife were looking desperately for a servant.
The daughter-in-law had a good job offer and she could only take
it up if they found a trustworthy domestic. They wanted
somebody capable of looking after their five-year-old daughter.
It was then that a family friend called and said that there was
a 25- year-old woman, returned from Saudi who was willing to come;
but the employer had to help her to admit her son to a refugee home/orphanage. Samanthi, my
daughter-in-law agreed and it was then that the friend dropped a
bombshell. Only thing.
She - Somalatha is terribly burnt, looks a horror." 'How did she
get burnt?' "Her husband
threw a kerosene oil lamp in her face. Because she had no more money
to give him three months after her return from Saudi.” "Anyway
let us see her," said my brave young, daughter-in-law. “Don't
know how the baba will react. The man must have run away,"
she added as an afterthought. Somalatha is
now at my youngest son's place and my talkative five-year-old grand
daughter has taken Somalatha's looks and the ever present scarf
i n her stride. She finds a very active playmate in Somalatha. The
difference between 25 and 5 seems little. Somalatha never
tells the baby that any one threw a lamp at her. She says that the
bottle lamp fell on her face when she was asleep. After all Somalatha
has to save face. Sinnamma's cousin Perumal came last week to say
that her husband had to be admitted to hospital again because he
started drinking again in spite of doctor's strict warnings. Sinnamma said
resignedly, "these things can't be prevented, men are so weak
and foolish he too will die of the liver trouble.” She took
a broom and started sweeping. "Yet I must go and see him,”
she sighed. "My man no, all the same." By Laila
Nasry "Negative peace needs to be coupled with positive peace if there is to be lasting peace in a country," she states adding that positive peace in effect requires the parties to the conflict addressing the causes, symptoms and consequences of conflict. In her opinion the causes of conflict are not necessarily limited to poverty but more or less border on the distributative injustices with regard to resources, sharing of economic, social, cultural and political power etc. that occur over a period of time. During her brief visit here, having toured Vavuniya, Kilinochchi and Jaffna, Dr. Mani was struck by the lack of recrimination among the people. Having met a cross section from army personnel at security points to LTTE cadres, academics at the Jaffna University to farmers who had returned to their original places of dwelling, she states, "There was no bitterness or rancour. The people of the north have nothing against the Sinhalese. Of course, they want to see the army leave but there is no sense of revenge. They don't name a specific political party but see the war as part of politics." In conflict
resolution, Dr. Mani warns against the "suitcase approach"
when it comes to addressing issues and advocates different countries
adopting varied means in accordance with the conflict. "There
are two approaches to peace negotiations. One being the traditional
approach of keeping the agenda simple. The rationale behind this,
she said, was when there were a least number of contentious issues
the likelihood of peace was greater." However later
came the realization that if contentious issues are not addressed
at the outset, peace building itself can be a difficult task and
at the worst it could get to be a tit- for- tat approach like seen
in the Middle East. "This
leads to the second approach where the co-issues, worst consequences
of the war etc. are addressed and dealt with.” Dr. Mani sees
the on- going peace process as an elitist one where only the politicos
do the talking. She cautions against this approach for she says
it leads to more agreement as less consensus is required. Then the
people have to be all the more vigilant because no diverse opinions
have been sought. In either approach,
for post-war peace building to succeed, the focus should be more
on survivors and not on victims and perpetrators. "Because
victims are seen as those who could not have done anything wrong
and the perception of a perpetrator is that they could not have
done anything right irrespective of the fact that their actions
maybe a result of compulsion, need etc." However in
the case of survivors there is no division of good or bad. "In
effect, to be a survivor is a matter of choice and there is hope,
positivity which will greatly aid the peace building process. However
there is a necessity for attitudinal change in this regard." "The people
of the north and east naturally do have concerns. They constantly
compare their slow development with that of the rapid development
of the south and feel left behind. They expect monetary help from
the government in the form of compensation for the material loss
they have suffered but are doubtful whether there will be equity
in distribution?” While the people
of the north voice concern as to whether there will be expatriate
investment to benefit them, it is up to the central government,
Tamil activists, and political thinkers to be assertive and ensure
sustainable development. "Sri Lanka is at that stage where
it is ripe for new investment ventures. All the donors want to get
a piece of it. Thus it is important that the decision makers work
with the interest of the people at heart." Taking Eritrea for
example, Dr. Mani states that the leaders refused to accept donations
of food for it would make the Eritreans forever dependent and also
kill their farmers. Instead they asked for tractors to cultivate
their land for food. In transforming
a war economy into a peace economy, privatisation maybe a favoured
option but it is important to consider whether it is beneficial
on the long run. Not in favour of Quick Impact Projects (QUIPS),
Dr. Mani says the positives of war need to be maximized for a sustainable
and equitable economy. "The only
positive thing about war is that the earth has not been plundered
and resources and the environment to an extent have not depleted.
Thus it is important to consider that the course of development
undertaken is not merely the quickest way of bridging the 20-year
backlog but one free of long term repercussions such as polluting
or plundering the land or wasting resources." Dr. Mani states it is important at the stage of conflict resolution and peace building for a country to have in the forefront savvy politicos who understand the issues and the concerns of the people. "More importantly there has to be sustained political will in seeing the contentious issues through," she says adding, "Nevertheless peace will succeed or fail on the faith of the ordinary man. Thus it is essential for all peace-makers to reach out to the public and make that trust. If the people are of the view that it is based on real political will and that there is no catch to it then the chances of such a peace succeeding is great." |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
Sinnamma is sitting on the ground near me, packing some
magazines - back copies of magazines published by the Sri Lanka
Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. What
a long name for an association. But Sinnamma doesn't know what is
in 'these books'. Some are blue and some are yellow and still others,
she says are grey.
