C. Suntharalingam, Part II: Grandfather’s Letters
By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole-April 18, 2017, 8:07 pm
Three Vantage Views
Before reading Grandfather’s Letters, I had an anecdotal view of C. Suntharalingam (CS). In 1958 as a six year old, I was terrified when classmates talked of Sinhalese marching to Jaffna to slaughter us. CS (in the climax of the book) held the line in Vavuniya, distributing unlicensed-guns and placing dynamite in culverts. One day as lorry-loads of men careened down Chemmany Road Nallur to Vavuniya, I ran alongside the convoy behind senior boys (including our Sinhalese baker’s sons) shouting "Thamilarukku Jai" (Victory to Tamils), wondering what the Hindi word jai meant.
