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Taste of kotta kelengu , Ulundu Vaddai under palmyrah fronds
By Claude Perera
When the conflict between the LTTE and the government of Sri Lanka intensified way back in 1983, I was in England pursuing my studies. When I returned to Sri Lanka in 1986, it seemed the north and the east would never be a place I could visit during my lifetime as conflicts of this nature tend to drag on, not for years but for generations. I had seen a fair amount of conflict even in England where the IRA situation was then at its height.

Since returning I spent most of my time developing my career and business and in the latter part of the '90s became involved in developing and promoting my profession, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, London becoming an active member of their Sri Lanka division.

Since the government's signing of the MOU in 2002, there was a ray of hope that we Sri Lankans may actually be able to live in an undivided Sri Lanka and visit places we had not been to for years. We at CIMA were quick to respond by contacting leading schools and colleges in Jaffna with a view of setting up a desk for information as well as conducting lectures in Jaffna.

This came to pass in January when some of the staff of CIMA travelled to Jaffna by road and met the Principal and officials of Jaffna College and the civil administration of Jaffna.

It was after this initial meeting and setting up of CIMA's presence in Jaffna that the Principal of Jaffna College Noel Vimalendran, invited us to do a seminar in Jaffna. I was quite pleased when the CIMA division requested me to do a lecture on developing soft skills for undergraduates.

Country road , take me home..........
Excited about the prospect of visiting Jaffna again, I was nevertheless worried about the reception I would get from the students and the undergraduates, as it was difficult to assess their language skills and their reaction to a presenter from southern Sri Lanka.

The thought in my mind was that these kids had not known what a peaceful existence meant as they have been living in a society ravaged by a continuous guerilla war almost from the day they were born, and most probably would have never have listened to a person from the South before.

Travelling to Jaffna was also an emotional experience for me as I must be one of the few Sinhalese with godparents born and bred in Jaffna. After a period of almost 24 years I was returning to a place with vivid and colourful memories of a cherished childhood.

We flew in an Antonov aircraft at an altitude of 15,000 feet, flying time to Palaly being just one hour. As we landed at Palaly, we could feel the arid air of Jaffna, dry and hot even though it was around 5.15 in the afternoon. There was no terminal building in sight, which I could remember from my childhood, nor was there the communication tower.We were met by Rev.Solomans and the Commanding officer of the Civil Administration in Jaffna. I was puzzled at the scarcity of that famed symbol of Jaffna- "the palmyrah tree". Later I found out that over the past 20 years the armed forces had cut down an estimated 500,000 palmyrah trees to fortify and build their bunkers and checkpoints.

We stayed at a guest-house in Urumpirai, which is midway on the way to Jaffna from Palaly. An old Dutch house with a "meda midula", it looked very much like a low country "walauwa" with four well-furnished rooms with air-conditioning. Thick walls with old artifacts around the place and the smell of incense took me back to the times I had spent in Jaffna as a kid. The nostalgia was overwhelming and the tea we had with "ulundu vaddai" made it more so.

We took a tour around town that same evening and I was very keen to find the house of my godparents at Carmel Road. When we returned it was surprising to find the night was cool. So was the morning that greeted us with the sound of birds singing and not guns and mortars. Breakfast was mainly fruit, egg and bread.

The seminar was a great success. All my doubts and misgivings about my audience proved unfounded as the students and undergrads responded earnestly to my lecture and were not at all inhibited in participating in an interactive presentation.

After lunch we toured the town again. It was indeed a pleasant sight to see young girls on bicycles riding around in colourful caps. This is obviously the most popular mode of transport there. A town that has no traffic congestion!

Jaffna town had not changed;the same shops and the same people, all wearing sarongs or trousers, slippers or sandals riding around in bicycles. Cars were old Austin A 30s & 40s, Morris Oxfords, an odd Morris Minor, all from a bygone era punctuated by the occasional Japanese made van. Pointing out to a passing car I said "That's an Austin A 40 !" to which the driver turned around and proudly said "A 40 Marina".

Despite the devastation of the Jaffna Fort and the torching of the library, which is now rebuilt, most of the outskirts of the city of Jaffna, the inner city remained intact, as though time had stood still. You were transported to an almost forgotten era.

After our sojourn in town, we went off to Cashurina Beach. which is on the Karainagar Island. This is where Gen. Denzil Kobbekaduwa was killed at Araly Point in the early '90s. The island was known as Karativu before a causeway joined it - "Nagar" meaning city and "Tivu" meaning island. It was indeed fun to travel on these straight and narrow causeways where you see the familiar sight of palmyrah trees lining the way, some with the pots of toddy hanging from tree fronds. Although there were checkpoints we had no difficulty in passing through as we had the Army Commanding Officer with us.

The beach was clean and litter free. It used to be land mined in the past but now it is cleared. Rev Solomans urged us to be very careful when we moved about. We bathed for over an hour and a half as it was great to be in this lukewarm water and to walk into the sea for over 100 yards and still have water only chest high and waves of not more than six inches.

We were to go to Kirimalai as well where I had been when I was a kid. There is a fresh water pool just by the side of the sea at Kirimalai, another wonder of the world. The fresh water is supposed to come all the way from Matale along an underground limestone tract.

When we arrived back in town we went back looking for Mount Carmel Road. I could remember it as No.11, but as we passed the houses and I saw No.12 my mind flew back to almost 30 years and I remembered this house where I had spent some of my childhood days. It brought back a flood of memories of my godparents. My godfather was the Station Master at Katugastota Railway Station when I was born.

My family moved to Colombo and in the meantime my godfather retired and they moved back to Jaffna, which was their hometown. I remember my godfather as a quiet, unassuming gentleman, always smartly dressed in well laundered crisp shirts, who was very concerned about me and my welfare. He passed away when I was in England and we lost contact with the family after 1983. Speaking to the neighbours of No 12, Mount Carmel Road, I realised how time had flown. My godmother had passed away in the mid-80s and the house had been left to a Christian charity.

On Sunday, after crossing a number of causeways we came to an island called Punkudutivu from where we boarded a ferry to Naga Deepaya. The ferry is a wooden boat, which had seating accommodation on the lower deck. Once the lower deck is full the rest of the passengers are taken on to the top deck where you have to sit on deck. The Sri Lanka flag flies on the mast and that was the only thing that we could be proud of at that time.

Smell of Kotta Kelengu and thal hakuru
A number of people from the south were travelling to Naga Deepaya to worship and the incumbent monk was happy that at last, after 20 years, people were coming to this place of great significance to Buddhists.

The place was so serene you cannot imagine that it was part of Sri Lanka. For that matter one would find it difficult to imagine that this was a part of Sri Lanka lost to us for the past 20 years. There were shops selling whole dry fish and "Kotta Kelengu", jaggery, gingelly oil and "Thal Hakuru". I could also remember eating a kind of candy called "Thal Pinatu" made from the palmyrah fruit, which was not to be seen this time around. Little kids were selling "Vallumpuri shells" together with a variety of seashells, at prices ranging from ten rupees to twenty.

Ethnic diversity - a beauty itself
It was a journey of mixed feelings for me as it brought back a deep sense of nostalgia for a happily spent childhood with a different ethnic community that will never be experienced by the youth of today.

A feeling of a forgotten past which makes one think how a country rich in ethnicity, culture and tradition, abundant in natural resources, has been taken for a roller coaster ride by politicians, so called freedom fighters and foreign powers without ever thinking that they have robbed their own people of their dreams and aspirations, their dignity of living, only generating a hatred towards each other. It's time we understood what this ethnic divide is all about and contribute in whichever way we can to make this process of peace a success for us and our future generations.
(The writer is President, CIMA Sri Lanka Division)

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