Kannathil Muthamittal
There are some places on this planet that one must visit, not for their inherent natural beauty, but for their historical importance. One such place which I would love to visit is a few hundred kilometres South East of Bengaluru, called Danuskodi.
Situated on the coast of Tamil Nadu, is this little island which was made famous by the 'Ram Setu' controversy. According to Hindu mythology, this was the spot from where Lord Rama, built his famous stone bridge and why not, just 30 kms away from this spot lies the beautiful and unexplored island country we know now as - SRI LANKA.
This little piece of land surrounded by the Bay of Bengal and the Palk Strait, has been in the news over the last few months, thanks to the raging civil war within the country. I am sure all of you have seen the headlines, but I am not sure how many actually took the pain of reading the entire article and understanding the gravity of the situation. I don't blame you, I too belong to that majority that would rarely bother. But working in South India and sitting in a cubicle right next to a Tamilian colleague changes all that. Whether I like it or not, the war and it's history are common topics of discussion and hence, I decided to dedicate this blog to our neighbouring island country.
My knowledge with respect to the history of this land is very limited, but what I have learnt is as follows:
Sri Lanka, like India, was ruled for many centuries by Portugese, Dutch and eventually by the British. Before leaving, the englishmen split the country into three constituencies. A large Southern portion was left under the control of the Sinhalese majority while the norther part including the Jaffna peninsula was left to be ruled by the minority group, made up largely by the Lankan Tamilians and Muslims. As the years progressed, the Sinhalese government amended the laws giving more and more power to the Sri-lankans with little respite to the Tamilian minority. They even tried to usurp the lands of the poor people and thats when the minority decided to fight back. A certain Mr. Veluupillai Prabhakaran, started what he called the "The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ellam" known more famously as the LTTE, with an aim to form an independent Tamil state in the north of the country. Many Tamilian youths joined the group and carried out small scale attacks on government targets.
In the quest to gain more international support, they however ended up doing something that probably cost them more then they had imagined. The assasination of the then Indian PM Mr. Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber, spelled doom for the LTTE. They were labelled as a terrorist organization. Inspite of this, they gained popularity among the Tamilians in Tamil Nadu, so much so that people believe that the current government will fall this time around cause they ignored the war in Sri Lanka!!
The civil war has been on for a few decades, until a few months back the government decided that 'enough was enough' and launched a full-scale attack on the LTTE. The LTTE was pushed on the back-foot and took refuge amongst the civilian population, which meant that the poor civilians had to flee their homes. The Sri Lankan governement put the figure of this mass exodus as somewhere between 50 - 80 thousand. But the actual figures as reported by WHO stands close to 2,50,000.
The plight of the civilians before and the ground reality has been beautifully presented by Director Mani Ratnam, in a Tamil movie by the name "Kannathil Muthamittal" which in literal translation means "A kiss on the cheek.."
The movie is about a little Lankan girl, whose mother abandons her, after birth, on the Indian coast and goes back to fight the war in Sri Lanka. This girl is adopted by a Tamil couple (played by Madhavan and Simran), who tell her the truth about her past on her 8th birthday. The girl is devastated and requests Madhavan to take her back to Sri Lanka to meet her mother. After much delibration, her father agrees and takes her to what she calls 'her real home'.
She enjoys her time there, and finds herself in a garden in Colombo one day. She meets a man on a wheelchair reading a book. She tries to talk to him and realizes that he speaks a different accent of tamil, compared to hers'. As they continue to talk, they hear sirens of a police motorcade carrying a local politician. To her surprize, the man suddenly gets up from the wheel chair, runs towards the motorcade and launches himself on the polticians car. What follows, is a huge bomb blast in which the girl and her mother are injured. It is at this juncture that she realizes what the real situation on the ground is!!
As they move northward into LTTE territory, the movie showcases the real beauty that is 'Sri Lanka', only to be over-shadowed by the empty villages, destroyed houses and refugee camps. Eventually, with some luck Madhavan is able to arrange a meeting with her mother at a secluded location. On seeing her real mother for the first time, the girl is shell shocked. She then tells her mother that she has 20 questions for her, the last of which is -
"When will all this end?"
In the movie, the mother (played by Nandita Das) has no answer.
Even today, a majority of the civilian population and many in India, including my dear colleague ask the same question and the answer to that is unfortunately still a blank dotted line.
The Sri Lankan government may claim victory, now that the LTTE has been crippled badly, but what about the people who have lost their homes??
As I sit on my seat, I simply wonder -
Is it right for an Army to fight the terrorist in the country?
Is it right for a group to fight for the freedom of their people?
The situation there is remarkably paralleled, on a larger scale, in our every own 'Heaven on Earth' - Kashmir. There too similar questions can be applied and the answer is simply - "I don't know!!"
As I end this blog I can't help but think of a dialogue from the movie Blood Diamond, where Leonardo Di-Caprio and Jennifer Connelly talk about their experiences and he says -
"Sometimes I wonder if God will ever forgive us for what we have done to each other??.....
and then I look around and realize, that God has left this place a long time back!!"
Situated on the coast of Tamil Nadu, is this little island which was made famous by the 'Ram Setu' controversy. According to Hindu mythology, this was the spot from where Lord Rama, built his famous stone bridge and why not, just 30 kms away from this spot lies the beautiful and unexplored island country we know now as - SRI LANKA.
This little piece of land surrounded by the Bay of Bengal and the Palk Strait, has been in the news over the last few months, thanks to the raging civil war within the country. I am sure all of you have seen the headlines, but I am not sure how many actually took the pain of reading the entire article and understanding the gravity of the situation. I don't blame you, I too belong to that majority that would rarely bother. But working in South India and sitting in a cubicle right next to a Tamilian colleague changes all that. Whether I like it or not, the war and it's history are common topics of discussion and hence, I decided to dedicate this blog to our neighbouring island country.
My knowledge with respect to the history of this land is very limited, but what I have learnt is as follows:
Sri Lanka, like India, was ruled for many centuries by Portugese, Dutch and eventually by the British. Before leaving, the englishmen split the country into three constituencies. A large Southern portion was left under the control of the Sinhalese majority while the norther part including the Jaffna peninsula was left to be ruled by the minority group, made up largely by the Lankan Tamilians and Muslims. As the years progressed, the Sinhalese government amended the laws giving more and more power to the Sri-lankans with little respite to the Tamilian minority. They even tried to usurp the lands of the poor people and thats when the minority decided to fight back. A certain Mr. Veluupillai Prabhakaran, started what he called the "The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ellam" known more famously as the LTTE, with an aim to form an independent Tamil state in the north of the country. Many Tamilian youths joined the group and carried out small scale attacks on government targets.
In the quest to gain more international support, they however ended up doing something that probably cost them more then they had imagined. The assasination of the then Indian PM Mr. Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber, spelled doom for the LTTE. They were labelled as a terrorist organization. Inspite of this, they gained popularity among the Tamilians in Tamil Nadu, so much so that people believe that the current government will fall this time around cause they ignored the war in Sri Lanka!!
The civil war has been on for a few decades, until a few months back the government decided that 'enough was enough' and launched a full-scale attack on the LTTE. The LTTE was pushed on the back-foot and took refuge amongst the civilian population, which meant that the poor civilians had to flee their homes. The Sri Lankan governement put the figure of this mass exodus as somewhere between 50 - 80 thousand. But the actual figures as reported by WHO stands close to 2,50,000.
The plight of the civilians before and the ground reality has been beautifully presented by Director Mani Ratnam, in a Tamil movie by the name "Kannathil Muthamittal" which in literal translation means "A kiss on the cheek.."
The movie is about a little Lankan girl, whose mother abandons her, after birth, on the Indian coast and goes back to fight the war in Sri Lanka. This girl is adopted by a Tamil couple (played by Madhavan and Simran), who tell her the truth about her past on her 8th birthday. The girl is devastated and requests Madhavan to take her back to Sri Lanka to meet her mother. After much delibration, her father agrees and takes her to what she calls 'her real home'.
She enjoys her time there, and finds herself in a garden in Colombo one day. She meets a man on a wheelchair reading a book. She tries to talk to him and realizes that he speaks a different accent of tamil, compared to hers'. As they continue to talk, they hear sirens of a police motorcade carrying a local politician. To her surprize, the man suddenly gets up from the wheel chair, runs towards the motorcade and launches himself on the polticians car. What follows, is a huge bomb blast in which the girl and her mother are injured. It is at this juncture that she realizes what the real situation on the ground is!!
As they move northward into LTTE territory, the movie showcases the real beauty that is 'Sri Lanka', only to be over-shadowed by the empty villages, destroyed houses and refugee camps. Eventually, with some luck Madhavan is able to arrange a meeting with her mother at a secluded location. On seeing her real mother for the first time, the girl is shell shocked. She then tells her mother that she has 20 questions for her, the last of which is -
"When will all this end?"
In the movie, the mother (played by Nandita Das) has no answer.
Even today, a majority of the civilian population and many in India, including my dear colleague ask the same question and the answer to that is unfortunately still a blank dotted line.
The Sri Lankan government may claim victory, now that the LTTE has been crippled badly, but what about the people who have lost their homes??
As I sit on my seat, I simply wonder -
Is it right for an Army to fight the terrorist in the country?
Is it right for a group to fight for the freedom of their people?
The situation there is remarkably paralleled, on a larger scale, in our every own 'Heaven on Earth' - Kashmir. There too similar questions can be applied and the answer is simply - "I don't know!!"
As I end this blog I can't help but think of a dialogue from the movie Blood Diamond, where Leonardo Di-Caprio and Jennifer Connelly talk about their experiences and he says -
"Sometimes I wonder if God will ever forgive us for what we have done to each other??.....
and then I look around and realize, that God has left this place a long time back!!"
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