Tamil Short Stories From Sri Lanka
By Rajiva Wijesinha -October 20, 2013 |
Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha MP
Tamil Short Stories From Sri Lanka - Translated by S Pathmanathan -
It was after well over 30 years that I went back to Jaffna for a literary event. I have been well over a dozen times to the peninsula over the last 5 years, but it was for Reconciliation work, beginning with the Future Minds Exhibition held in December 2008 to encourage youngsters to take advantages of the educational and employment opportunities that would open up with the impending end of the conflict. Since then I have been to Business Development meetings, discussions on Education, and most frequently for meetings of Divisional Secretariat Reconciliation meetings.
But the last visit was special, for it was in connection with Literature, which had been the reason I last visited Jaffna. In 1981 I had lectured at the University at the invitation of Chelva Kanaganayakam who then headed the English Department. It was a strenuous two days, for as usual on such visits I had six lectures each day. But, despite exhaustion, compounded by having travelled up by train the previous night, I was gently but firmly cajoled by the students at the end of the first day’s sessions to go and visit the burnt out shell of the Jaffna Public Library.
It was a seminal moment, for it was only then that I fully understood the bullying of Tamils the government, led by J R Jayewardene but propelled by Cyril Mathew, was engaged in. I realized then why my uncle, BishopLakshman Wickremesinghe, had been belabouring his brother Esmond, who was a good friend of both J R and Mathew – though like Lakshman I do not believe he shared their racism – about solving the problem soon, else there would be disaster.
The resigned bitterness of the students is a memory that still troubles me. It was refreshed when, over a decade later, on a visit to Kattankudy, my Sabaragamuwa students who lived there, and looked after me lavishly, insisted I visit the mosque where the LTTE had massacred Muslims at prayer.
So much anguish. This comes out through the poetry in ‘Mirrored Images’, the collection I went to Jaffna to launch. It brings together writing by Sinhala and Tamil and English language writers, and was published by the National Book Trust of India. When they asked me a few years back to do a companion volume to the collection of short stories I had edited for them, ‘Bridging Connections’, I was diffident, but then decided I could get help from those who knew about poetry in Sinhala and Tamil. Read More
