War Journey by Malarvan

Author:Malarvan [Malaravan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184759846
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-04-12T16:00:00+00:00

6

The Battle Is On

15 November 1990

Around 5.10 a.m., still enveloped by fog, we hurriedly parked the tractor trailer among the tall bushes and walked towards a hut to wash our faces. The darkness melted, but the fog remained. On the left side of the road, set slightly farther back, was another little hut.

‘There is no point calling from outside the gate. Let’s go inside,’ suggested Ranjan.

We removed the sticks blocking the gate’s entrance and began walking into the yard.

On both sides of the footpath, yellow and red flowers were in full bloom. The marigold must have just bloomed. The petals were moist and smooth. A large neem tree in the corner gave plenty of shade. A tiny shrine stood at the base of the tree.

‘Amma, can we wash our faces in your well?’

‘Yes, come this way.’

‘Take some toothpaste, and go and wash,’ the amma said.

Near the well the vegetable plot was lush and green. The plants were weighed down by the vegetables.

‘How do you water these plants, amma? Kerosene for the water pump is expensive, isn’t it?’ I asked.

‘Who needs kerosene? We can water with the thula. Our son helps with it. It takes maybe two hours to water all these plants.’

Her son, standing nearby, was only nine years old. I thought to myself that in Jaffna it was so very different. The children there would still be in bed or would have gone to tuition classes.

Today we depend so much on the food-ships and trucks bringing foreign food to us. When will our own self-sufficient economy that was destroyed by colonialism come up again? Our economy will only grow when our people become aware of what has been done to us.

‘Thambi, all of you, come and have tea.’

‘No, no, we will drink here.’

‘No, no, it is okay. Come in and have tea.’

The cups in which the tea was served were modest, but the tea itself, with fresh cow’s milk, tasted superb. We were all energized.

We said goodbye and got on the road. We walked along and found a log to sit on. A monkey sat on a tree across the road and stared.

‘Look at my grandpa,’ said Master and threw a stone at it. The monkey leaped off.

We ate the bread and bananas brought to us by Mani annai and discussed how we needed sleep.

‘Where will you be at noon?’ Mani annai asked.

‘We will eat and sleep. We will not be going anywhere,’ we said.

‘I am leaving now. There are buns and biscuits in the tin.’

‘Okay, annai, see you.’

As soon as Mani annai’s head disappeared, everyone jumped on the bag.

‘Leave it, boys. I will distribute the food,’ said Master, and he did.

The breeze was wonderful. We were able to sleep well. We tidied the ground, removing the leaves, and spread sacks and lay down. In the afternoon we went for a walk through the paddy fields. We reached a mango orchard and a Lankan government office where not a soul was to be seen anywhere. We picked a variety of mangoes and sat down by a water canal and started to eat.

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