Pursuit Of Revenge Is Not Path To Justice
Prof Mahesan Niranjan
In our favourite bar yesterday (21 July 2013) afternoon, I was having a beer with my usual drinking partner, the Sri Lankan Tamil fellow, Sivapuranam Thevaram. “That was a horrific photograph, no?” he started the conversation. He didn’t have to be more specific. I knew instantly that he was talking about the photograph taken thirty years ago at the Borella bus station, supposedly by Atta / Raavaya employee Chandraguptha Amarasinghe. The photograph was of a naked Tamil boy surrounded by dancing thugs who, in all probability, went on to murder and burn the boy. In which order, we have no way of knowing.
Black July 83 - A Tamil boy stripped naked and later beaten to death by Sinhala youth in Boralla bustation | Photo - Chandraguptha Amarasingha
That “Black July,” has a certain effect worth mentioning here. Have you heard the story of two Englishmen shipwrecked on an uninhabited island? They never spoke to each other because they had not been properly introduced. Such an issue does not arise for Tamils of a particular age range. They start talking about which camp they spent that week in, and of their journey by ship to Kankesanthuray. So, you can appreciate why Chandraguptha’s photograph got us into spontaneous conversation.
Thevaram relates to the plight of the young man with strong emotion. “It could have been me, you know – or my brother,” he says. “I was a kilometre away from that unfortunate young chap and it was the presence of mind I had to jump off a second floor balcony that saved me. My brother came even closer escaping because he spoke fluent Sinhala,” he recalls. “Our two guardian angels were doing overtime, while that of the young boy in Chandraguptha’s photograph had gone for an early evening in.”
This easy topic of conversation centred round the year 1983 is etched deep in the minds of some people. It is now hard-wired in their hippocampi.
