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Eight-year-old Kalindu recalls ‘other life’ as Billy Kers an American soldier
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Kalindu: " I was a fighter jet pilot" Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
Kalindu Thrimaal Wijewardana with his quirky smile is eight years old. He has a tale that is not commonly heard from others of his age and he is more than willing to share it with us.
“I like to study sometimes and go outside and play. It’s like that,” says Kalindu, soon after referring to his “other life”.
What has brought us to his home is a call from his grandfather about his frequent references to this other life.
“Back then, I was in the USA (United States of America),” says Kalindu, describing how he was in the war with Russia.
Gently prodded by us, he says he cannot remember where exactly in the US that he lived and when exactly the war was.
He keeps repeating though that he was an American soldier. He was not on any army base but on an aircraft carrier with “some kind of runway”. They could go anywhere in the water.
His mother and grandfather are quick to point out a red dot he has marked on a map as far back as four years ago, oft repeating the Zip Codes 70577 and 70655.
Kalindu says he was a fighter jet pilot and there were four types of jets – one was “very cool”, the second was “cool”, the third was “not so cool” and the fourth was “bad”. The most powerful was the “very cool” one.
“I took the ‘bad’ one which doesn’t do a lot of damage and was hit by a missile and died. My jet had not been tested out and it exploded,” he says.
He goes onto specifics. His name was Billy Kers, his father was Ted and his mother Bella. There was one sister and she was Delores. Billy was married at the time of his death to Mary Jane but had no children.
Now Kalindu is in Grade 2. He says he does not read or watch movies. He just lies around in his bed or jumps up and down on it but also likes to play cricket with his malli, Sadew Themaal. He loves to eat milk rice and also lots of meat and fish.
Nishani Higgoda, Kalindu’s mother, says that born on September 16, 2014, it was about six years ago that he began talking about the US. He did not start talking until he was about 2½ years old, just pointing to objects when he needed something. They took him to different paediatricians who said that there seemed to be language issues as he was averse to reading anything in Sinhala.
When his grandfather began speaking to Kalindu in English, he responded and soon after rattled off the names of various planes, insisting that he wished to see his family.
It was when he was two years and nine months that Kalindu told Nishani: “You are not my mother.” He had also mentioned that his Air Force Commander was Gordon Finkle Heimer.
Nishani says that Kalindu described how after he died his family kept his photograph on the mantelpiece and kept looking at it. It was a sudden rush of wind that brought him here to Sri Lanka……..“thallu-wela, thallu-wela”.
Kalindu points to red dot he had marked on a map
| Scientifically rebirth does not seem to be “tenable”: Consultant Psychiatrist Science and evolution which is science-based do not foster any belief in rebirth or the basis of another birth, said Consultant Psychiatrist Dr. Ranil Abeyasinghe when contacted for a comment, stressing that his training background is in science. He went onto explain that Homo sapiens (humans) are biologically not different to other animals. If there is rebirth among humans, then there should also be rebirth among other animals but evolution does not support it. Evolution is the process by which different kinds of living organisms are believed to have developed from earlier forms during the history of the earth. Referring to stories of rebirth recounted by children, Dr. Abeyasinghe said that when children become verbally fluent (talking well) around 5 to 6 years old, they tend to absorb what adults say. It is a very common occurrence among children of this age to use what they hear and also pad it up with imagination. “It is well known that children also fantasise,” he says, pointing out that it is almost like the time when Homo sapiens started speaking. In pre-historic days, there was not much fact but made-up stories that were used. He refers to Greek mythology as an example, where the Greek legends were fantasy. Stories like Oedipus (a mythical Greek king of Thebes who was a tragic hero) are some and “even we too have similar ones in our culture”. “Such stories of rebirth during children’s early verbalisation development are quite normal in cultures where there is a belief in rebirth but rare in western cultures,” said Dr. Abeyasinghe. According to this psychiatrist, researchers also find it difficult to verify such claims as there is much generalisation. If someone says he/she lived in a thatched home amidst paddy fields and had a breadfruit tree in the garden, this is a common sight in any rural area in the country. Scientifically, rebirth does not seem to be “tenable”, says Dr. Abeyasinghe, adding that people should not get too excited by such stories as it is difficult to distinguish fact from fantasy. | |
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