Plus
|
|
|||
| It’s
tsunami times two for Nihal Here is one more then: Last week, some of us in a group met some of the tsunami victims in Induruwa - - which fits in to the clichetic description of any resort town - - sleepy, and idyllic. Last week, Nihal was feeling sleepy too. But his was an overworked, overburdened kind of sleepiness. He is a soldier counting 13 years of service with the Sri Lankan forces. He was to an extent almost enjoying the peacetime idyll offered by a three year ceasefire, serving in the Eastern coastal island of Kinniya. This idyll was broken on December 26th, not by Prabhakran despite all his thunderous threats, but by a force much bigger that than Prabhakran, who his followers sometimes referred to as the Sun God. The Sun God paled and looked like a 25 watt light bulb compared to the waterworks unleashed in Kinniya that day. Nihal says he escaped clutching a tree, and swimming a little. An all too familiar story - - the typical Tsunami-survivor story. Leaving wrecked Kinniya behind for the global television networks to dissect, Nihal came home: to Induruwa and that was like leaving a madman's embrace to be cuddled by the devil himself. When he came to Induruwa, despite all that he has heard about the Tsunami's dubious work along the Southern coast, he wasn't prepared for what he was about to see. What used to be his house was now a pile of fallen brick walls stacked around like a giant jigsaw. His wife and child were missing. But Nihal typified the remarkable resilience of the Sri Lankan rural spirit. Despite losing a comfortable dwelling by any standards, having later learned that his wife and kids were safe with relatives, Nihal now takes the philosophical route around his misfortunes. He laughs, for good measure. He says, "they struck us really good here'' - - and adds "in some towns close by, buildings are still standing.'' He laughs again: "I can build another house - - even out of cadjan…..but considering what happened to many others, I am lucky to have my family around.'' It's a simple question that's intriguing us. To what can this resilience be sourced? Most of the people in this Induruwa village have lost everything - and if their houses are still standing they have still lost a lot. Nihal's house is pulverised, but his resilience is born out of a philosophical sense of fate, or wait a minute, is it borne out of the practicality of relative luck?? They say that among beggars on the street, a blanket is a sign of wealth. A rough-hewn comparison, but the point is, in a community which has lost so many lives, the man who lost a house thinks he is really lucky. It's a little bit of that that has rubbed off on Nihal and appears as his resilience. It might sound as if that takes something away from the courage of people such as Nihal. No --- but as discretion is the better part of valour, reality too can be the better part of resilience….? In another house, an album with family photographs lies in an open space in what used to be a garden. It's a mocking epitaph for a house that's no longer a home. The young are young. A small boy asks for more helpings of a popular brand of cake we distributed - - - but his eyes retain that eerie mix of coming to terms with reality too soon, and of childhood insouciance. In another Induruwa house, a young man is in a hurry trying to get his house back into shape. He laughs too, and says ''all my certificates were consumed by the water.'' Then he gets busy squeezing the sea water out of his room, and his spirit is yet another example of resilience as thanksgiving: thanksgiving, for a devil that stooped so low as to rob him of his hard earned certificates, but was yet magnanimous enough to let him get away with his life….. -Rajpal Abeynayake |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
