Harmonica

“Why is it that Crows torment the Owls as they sleep in the daytime? For the same reason that the Owls try to kill the Crows while they sleep at night.”

Friday October 20th 1995.

We bought a colour Sony television yesterday. Anna’s Scholarship exam results came in two weeks ago and was placed 16th in all of Colombo district, with a score of 167. Amma and Appa decided to buy us a television, as a reward for his achievement. We had this old black and white TV, with a mounted antenna for the last two years; ever since we moved to Colombo.

To watch the “Maharajas” channel, we need an additional antenna but, for now, we have “Rubavaahini” and “ITN”. It was the first time we every saw colour on screen. Even though there were plenty of noise distractions, we still managed to make out the images and hear the voices, along with the music.

At five in the morning, I quietly crawl out of bed and sneak my way into the living room. I turn on the TV. There was noise distraction. The entire screen was covered with noise. I quickly found the mute button. It was the first time, I learnt what the mute button was capable of doing. It would definitely become handy later in my adolescent days. I adjusted the antenna. No change. Waited.

If my memory recalls correctly, it was around 5:30 in the morning when, I heard three loud explosions. The ground shook a little. There is noise coming from our room. In those days all our family maintained a living in a single room. Murugeshu turned on the radio. His cubicle was lit. I imagine, he is putting on his black framed glasses. Janaki and her two daughters are still asleep in the other room. Kalpana has started boiling water for coffee. She wakes up at 4 everyday. She was fourteen years old, just four years older than Velu, my older brother. She had been sent by her family, living in the Hills, to work as a maid in our household. To this day, memories of her, haunt my parents with guilt.

The radio is broadcasting early morning Hindu chants. Murugeshu is Christian. In this land, religion doesn’t matter to the heart but, it causes conflicts in the mind. He is a retired Pharmacist from Jaffna. He has been living on government pension for the last 5 years. His son is living in Vavuniya, hoping to come to Colombo to live with his father and eventually, move abroad for a better life. Just like everyone else. Murugeshu lives in a cubicle room, in the middle of our living room. We have entered his nest a few times with tremendous curiosity, only to find articles dating back to 50’s. Amused, we watched him shave with his razor blade every morning, while listening to his radio.

I realized that he was woken up by the explosions. Appa “Mogan” walks into the living room, not surprised at discovering me awake and sitting in the living room. I’m awake early everyday anyways.

At 6 o’clock, the TV station begins its morning broadcast. It starts off with the Sri Lankan national anthem, along with a montage of the country. The national anthem never evoked a sense of patriotism in me. Nowadays, it’s just another fond memory from my childhood. The flag with a golden lion and sword brought fear, rather than pride. My father seated beside me, and Murugeshu standing with a toothbrush in his mouth, watched as the daily news came on.

Kolanava oil tanks were attacked by the rebels early in the morning. Images of a smoke filled sky, a raging fire, and interviews of security guards take over the airwaves for the rest of the day. No matter how many times we have watched this reel, we looked for new information from the broadcast. By now, the entire family is awake except for my younger brother Guna. Janaki has already started worrying about tomorrow. Her two daughters are sound asleep holding each other. My mother wants to comfort her but, there is no comfort in words when all your ambitions are at jeopardy and beyond your control. Only faith is on her side. Kalpana is curious about the news but, afraid to come into the living room. She waits till someone enters the kitchen to question them. Obedience has rotted our culture at every level. Sense of equality has disappeared from us. After many years, when I started working as a teenager in Toronto, I became to realize that I was more obedient than any of the other co-workers from other cultures. I was programmed to be obedient for 20 years.

I walk into our room. Guna is awake, looking out through the window, sucking on a milk bottle, even though he is five. I join him and gaze at the sky. A huge wide wall of smoke is building in the sky. It must be what a volcano eruption would look like, we think silently. We don’t have volcanoes in Ceylon but, we do have a bomb blast every year; which means a break from school. Velu is eagerly waiting to hear that school is cancelled. Well…I was waiting for that as well.

A curfew is announced. Streets are empty. City is shut down. Not a single breathing soul was walking about.

In those days, I couldn’t fall asleep by myself. I needed someone beside me in bed till I fell asleep. As a shield. For protection. Even my aging grandmother, seemed to have protected me from the darkest fears. This fear started on the day Premadesa’s bombing. It was the first time I saw a dismembered body in the newspapers. The newspapers would glorify these images. I was mortally terrified by these images. I imagined those bodies coming to life and floating into my bed. This fear would last until I fall for a girl for the first time, and decide to grow up.

Today, I was waiting for those images to populate the television screen. Even though I was afraid of seeing it, I had a curiosity that could hurt me in the long run. However, these rebels are still fighting. They weren’t killed yet. The TV hasn’t started glorifying their deaths yet. My family and community haven’t felt sorrow for the events taking place. Yet. Those rebels are fighting for our freedom and liberty. Later, they would celebrate the fact that seven LTTE soldiers have caused 10 million dollars worth of damage to Sri Lanka. They would mourn the loss of those seven young men and women. They will not mourn for the loss of those young children that were in the bus station that morning.

We had an entire day to play. We met up with our friends at noon and decided we were going to have 15 overs cricket match. 5 overs cricket match more than the usual. This meant we had to prepare for the event. We decided to practice within front yard for the event. Our neighbours started showing up in our front yard, all middle aged men. They sat away from us. It was a round table. They started discussing the events of the day. Each of them had their input on how the events had unfolded that morning, on the events that lead today’s blasts and the measures that will be taken by the government to further make our lives difficult. There was the printing press owner, who had analyzied the situation from a business point of view. The retired Pharamacist said a few words. His son was trapped in Vavuniya without any communication. He sat their listening and aching for any optimistic news. A retired scholar and banker, who has read every article about the conflict, presented thoughts more insightful yet, not practical.

Janaki’s daughters finally awake. She stayed away from the television and made a few phone calls to her relatives. Occasionally weeping, fearful of what tomorrow will bring. She has to be at the airport at midnight. He flight to Germany leaves 7 in the morning. There is curfew in place. She doesn’t know if it will clear up by tonight. Her daughters were supposed to get a haircut today, but the barber cannot step out to come to the house. Janaki continues packing her luggage, with little hope. Life can’t fall apart, over a smoke covered sky.  Her daughters started reading their textbooks from school knowing that those textbooks will be obsolete by tomorrow.

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, me and brothers  are to meet our friends, who are waiting for us at the “burnt down house”. It was our rendezvous point. It’s been abandon since 1983. We climbed on top of its walls and perched on it. We could see a clear panoramic view of Colombo 10. We see the smoke more vividly in the sky. It has not changed since this morning. It has the same ferocity. Dimitri started talking about the country, for the first time in my memory. He was raised among the Sinhalese. In fact, majority of our friends were of Sinhalese descent. It was us and Tarzan who were of Tamil descent. Dimitri started complaining about the selfish motive behind VP’s war on Sri Lanka. I wanted to speak back, but I saw my older brother keeping quiet. It was the first time I heard the point of view from my friends. I felt they were misinformed. It was the only time we talked about the war, even though we were the generation that grew up with it.

The banker was washing his car. We waited till he finished so, we could put up the wickets and start the game. The game started at four. We played a 5 overs warm-up game. We waited for Sheung to come over to our lane. He arrived, followed by an older cousin, who forced his uncle to come. Then Tarzan picked up his father. Soon enough, we had more than enough middle aged men in our teams. We played 10 overs match ending with Velu and Sheung fighting to win the game for their teams. Sheung was a left handed fast baller, whose techniques were beautiful to watch. Velu had a hard hitting style. He was unpredictable but reliable. It was a close game, ending at the final tenth over. We celebrated. Winners and losers.

We all went home at 6:30pm. When the sun started setting. My parents and Janaki sat in the porch with worried faces. The TV was playing melancholic music and a screen saying. the broadcast for evening was interrupted due to the curfew. We asked grandma, “why the long faces?”

Murugeshu has left, with just his wallet and a couple of belongings. He has decided to find his son and bring him to the city. He has left when the entire country is in shut down. When only men with rifles, roam the streets. No one had any idea how he could get to Vavuniya. There is no transportation. He had left a note saying he will call from Vavuniya when he gets access to a telephone. Janaki had arranged a van two weeks earlier for her departure. Now the driver was unwilling to drive her. She had waited 8 years for this day. The day when she would leave this country. She is determined. The printing press owner had a van and together, with my father they have arranged a trip to the airport. It will be the only moving vehicle in the night. Even the army doesn’t move at night. As protection, they have decided to take us along with them. Me and my brothers, the printing press owner, my father and Janaki with her daughters leave to the airport at 9 o’clock at night.

We were driving towards the smoke. It was growing bigger. There were no beggars on the street. There was fear inside the van, hatred outside the van. We moved swiftly. Luckily, there were no red lights. Just blinking orange lights. We came to the border of Colombo to our first army stop. They wanted to check the van. They searched the men very thoroughly. They then, opened up Janaki’s luggage. They left it open. Luckily, we were too young to be suspected of anything. The army men understood the reason for our travel and decided to let us go to the airport.

There are no stops after that until we reached the airport. We opened up the windows and put our heads out and felt the breeze from the Indian Ocean, as the van sped towards the airport. The smoke from Kolanava was almost invisible by the night sky. We had forgotten about the smoke by now. Our minds were focused on seeing this family depart. We reached the airport, passed all the barricades. Janaki left, thanking us with gratitude and sobbing her way through the gate. We never heard from her again.

We drove back to Fountain House Lane in silenence. We were back in our beds within two hours. Guna asked me, Why did he have to be born here. He wanted to leave. As well.

The Short Story which inspired this project. We would like to share
it with you.

The Song of The Road

Vive |

The post man arrives with the aerogram for me and grandma, whom I will refer as my Momma from here on.  As she reads aloud the message from my mother, about her upcoming return to town, ever since she got her lecturer abroad. I had to reply fast, If I wanted my train set, or the harmonica, although I preferred the train set more.  So I watch the rhythmic cycles which my Momma makes on the paper, and trying to copy it on my piece of paper, hoping it will convey my wants.  Although its entirely scribbles for my six year old brother, whom I will call “Anna” from here on, I believed I have made my proposals clear.

My mother will arrives on the MAY DAY of 1990. The same day my life begins , as I remember it.

She arrives on a delayed flight, due to a bomb blast on the MAY DAY rally. For security concerns the flight was delayed for landing.  She arrived with a Harmonica for me and an Oxford Instruments Box Set for Anna.  Although there was a curfew in place and only one train was running from the capital to our town, she manages to greet me, Pa and Anna at the train station.

I opened the flight luggage for the first time that day, trying to find a train set but instead finding the peculiar harmonica, very blank surface, waiting to be decorated with Thundercats stickers.  I was holding in my hand, the instrument with which I would play the Song of the Road, for my Pa, Amma and my Mother.

The song of the road starts with a sudden burst optimism then followed by a calm, but beautiful melody, then it escalates and dies in melancholy.

A boy whom we call Junior Aiyar (Junior Priest), taught my early lessons, although I was more fascinated with the mud sculptures he made of deities while I played the Song of the Road. It helped him concentrate. The tune added emotions to those deities.  He would lay his sculptures by the lagoon shore, sculptures erode away through the night.

My baby brother, “Thambi” is born the same year, by then I could play the song of road, by instinct. I play till he stops crying. I play till he starts crying. I put him to sleep and I wake him up. The song deafens his baby ears till he can’t hear the sounds of shells showering over the land. Nights get longer, the length of the song grows longer.

Pa’s factory closes ever since the hydro plant shuts down, there was no electricity in our region. The supply of oil has been cut, and it is a privilege only for the military. Pa pawned his motorbike so he could afford ride me to my nursery on his brand new second hand bike. Anna will race with us, listening to me play the song of the road, again and again, begging my dad to pedal faster. Somehow both me and Anna won. There were no such thing as losers. Jus t two boys who arrived at their schools late, awaited to be punished.

Junior Aiyar fell asleep for the last time around the same time my Little brother, Thambi, turned one. He had been expanding sculpting skills and his subjects that it eventually gained the interest of the military. On his funeral parade, by the lagoon, I played the song of the road for him for the last time.

Thambi was still wrapped in a blanket. Although he could walk, he was carried from patron to patron.  He wasn’t crying, since I was playing the tune. The sunny day would eventually become muddy. Rain slams, the peninsula. Reaching the train station seemed impossible before night fall.  It seemed logical to cross the land by sun down.

I start hovering next to my thambi, playing louder and louder, as jets flew closer. With no bunkers for refuge, left to hide under any sort of shelter, we eventually reached the boat yard. We were welcomed by the newly appointed entrepreneurs of war. A handsome fee for a short trip around the peninsula. However safety was not a guarantee.

At first the boat sinks, then floats. The captain says that the boat is the best they ve good, and don’t be afraid. He knew the desperate nature of his customers. He did not need to sell his product.

Pa places his right foot on the boat looking back. I resumed playing the song of the road. Thambi was fast asleep. Momma, a veteran, survivor, sat rather comfortably, listened to the tides of time move by.  Anna, crouched behind everyone watching the beams of light that illuminate the sky, moving celestial bodies, although they were more closer than he imagined.

The captain was annoyed by my tune. He grabbed the harmonica from me. I didn’t revolt, seeing the mournful faces of my fellow travelers. It was time the song of the road had to come to the end.  It served its purpose. The song of the road isn’t about the road or the traveler’s fortunes and misfortunes, but its about everything that the travelers leave behind. The musician plays to add melodrama.

War has got inside a woman’s very being. Inside her head the soldiers march out, trampling down everything in their path. Like a grieving Madonna, she weeps for son and brother. From her pain and the blood of men killed in battle, an army of women springs up, a powerful column inspired by faith and rebellion. The thirst for justice becomes a thirst for revenge. The woman’s body is a weapon, her robes her armour. She who once gave life will deal out death.

Collaborative storytelling enables individuals to explore communities who have been underrepresented within the mainstream realm. This form of interaction allows communities to share their life stories through a question and answer interview process and allows the opportunity to scrutinize areas of interest that has been left concealed.

The ‘Collaborative Storytelling’ concept involves three basic steps:
i) choose a community,
ii) assign a role to each individual in the group and lastly,
iii) take the work back to the community.

Each of these steps, play an imperative role towards the study of minority communities. By watching the above video, a more elaborate explanation is given on the modus operandi of ‘Collaborative Storytelling’.