Train from Maddakkalappu
by K. S. Sivakumaran
The scholar in Pradeep Jeganathan (Senior Fellow at the ICES and editor of Domains, educated at MIT, Harvard and Chicago) had also prompted him to engage in creative writing. And he writes well. His collection of short stories published in the US is titled At the Water’s Edge (2004). It has seven readable stories of high quality. Although belatedly, I read his collection recently and was very pleased. One reason for this is that he has brought into focus a train journey from the eastern capital, Maddakkalappu (its name Batticaloa is meaningless and causes confusion to many foreign people, worse still people in Thamil Nadu in India). What about this town where, it is told, fish in the lagoons sing? Well, I was born in this town in a location called Sinhalawadi in the Puliyanthivu section of the town. That’s the sentimental aspect of my partiality.
One of Pradeep’s short stories is titled “The Train from Batticaloa”. This 14-page story has the central character, Kodithuwakku, who is from the Central Task Force of the Sri Lankan Armed Forces. The other characters include Sonali (a varsity student) and a handicapped beggar. What about the Thamilian and Islamic passengers?
Let’s go back to the second and third paragraphs of the story:
“After the CTF units had been stationed in Batticaloa, the trains would stay empty until Pollonaruwa. Only occasionally, when there was talk of a riot in Colombo, TF units from camps all over the Batticaloa district would be recalled to the capital. Then they would fill up the train as it went through Pollanaruwa to Colombo. But today all through the long journey the wooden seats of the coach were nearly empty.
“At the Pollanaruwa station the coach filled up with people traveling to Colombo. Kodithuwakku leaned back and let the warmth of the Sinhala voices relax him. Families were settling down in clumps; mothers shooed their daughters into corners, fathers hoisted heavy bundles onto the overhead racks.”
The story continues with interesting and realistic conversation among the passengers and naturally it centres around both the Sinhala army and the Thamil Tigers.
Snatches of the conversation:
“‘It is left to God the God of Kataragama to save us, said the bald man. The other gods are not strong enough.’ [Look at the irony—the Kataragama God is Lord Muruga of the Hindu Thamil pantheon].
‘They say He helped the Kings of old drive the Tamils to the sea,’ added his wife after a respectful pause.
‘Yes, He must give his power to our soldiers.’ The farmer looked at Kodithuwakku.
`85‘Let me explain,’ said Kodituvakku. ‘If we get angry we can’t do anything. Just killing people at random is wrong. There must be an order and a method to everything.’”
I won’t tell the rest of the story except to say it ends dramatically with justification from Kodituwakku’s point of view. Please read it to understand the mindset of some of us at least a few decades ago.
Pradeep Jeganathan’s satirical portrayal of middle class Sri Lankan Thamilian families abroad and their mindset is a beautiful piece of writing akin to my taste. The story is titled “A Man from Jaffna” (Yaalpaanam).
The blurb in this collection rightly describes that “the seven interconnected stories span a near thirty years of his country’s recent past; each traces a delicately textured frame of troubling, telling beauty, weaving together, with almost incredible economy, not often composed image of Sri Lanka—a paradise isle where only man is vile—but a life-world, lived and remembered, to be lived in again.”
The other stories are titled: “The Front Row”, “The Watch”, “The Street”, “Sri Lanka” and “At the Water’s Edge”. Each story is well-crafted and judiciously balanced and realistic coming from an analyst.
I remember seeing Pradeen Jeganathan’s byline in the Lankan Sunday papers some years ago, covering a lot of areas in sociological angles.
Congratulations Pradeep.
[Photo Courtesy: Minneriya] From: Pradeep Jeganathan’s Blog
