When a brave few saved hundreds during Lankan war

Nov 28, 2016,

CHENNAI: "How many children in this bunker?'' he asks. `Eight', they say. The young man hands over a cup of gruel to the children. He then warns them not to come out of the bunker, and start pedalling his bicycle to other bunkers.Apparently , the refugees in the bunkers never come across the same guy again although each one promises them that he will return with more gruel the next day .

 

It's a risky business to supply food to people in the bunkers across a warinfected zone, so many end up in landmine blasts. Even though their faces differ, the three English letters, TRO (Tamils Rehabilitation Oganisation) printed behind everyone's shirt remain the same. Pugazhendhi Than garaj's eight-minute-long documentary"Avargal" portrays how the volunteers of TRO saved the children in the bunkers risking their lives during the civil war in Sri Lanka.

Shot in Pichivila village near Tiruchendur, Pugazendhi handles a serious issue with a language of love and care. Without any revolutionary jargon, the documentary portrays the lives of a group of volunteers who have taken up a job despite knowing the danger involved in it."I first wrote a poem about the TRO volunteers who served gruel for the children in the bunkers during the war in Sri Lanka. It was published in a Tamil weekly . A year ago, when a senior politician highlighted the poem in his speech, it touched me," said Pugazhendhi, whose "Uchithanai Muharnthaal", a feature film portraying the plight of a 13-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil girl who was gang-raped by the Lankan soldiers, had evoked tremendous response from film-lovers when it was released in 2011.

Pugazhendhi says he wanted to make "Avargal" simple. "The reason for choosing Pichivila is simple. The geography of the village looked similar to the ones in Sri Lanka. The palm trees and the mixture of brown and white sands added colour to the site. I used the villagers for casting. All the children who acted in the movie are from the village itself," said Pugazhendhi who took only two days to shoot the documentary . Pugazendhi is planning to release "Avargal" at various centres of the Tamil diaspora in the world November end. "Avargal" was screened in Chennai recently .

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