What holds Vavuniya together is obscure. Sporadic rebel attacks, the army and its ex-militant allies, convoys of lorries taking business up and down, a few relief workers, an under-funded, overcrowded district hospital and thousands of Tamils trapped in wretched camps only loosely make up Vavuniya.
Sleeping on the floor
At
the moment at least twelve schools converted into camps hold over 9,500
Tamils-men, women and children- who fled the battles raging in the north
recently. To set up these makeshift refugee camps at least another 15,000
children were deprived of school. Since then many children have slid into
slothfulness.
Now, harassed by disease and lack of essentials these men and women are criticising the government for incarcerating them without any reason.
"We are being held by force, we are not refugees," said young boys with tears in their eyes.
These Tamils, including 85 year old grandmothers and new-born babies have been languishing in these centres for more than 40 days now.
Their ordeal began much earlier. When the LTTE opened the floodgates in Omanthai for the Tamil exodus, thousands of civilians swarmed the Thandikulam check-point to enter Vavuniya. Having got clearance from the military sentry point, many paid up to rupees 300 for lorries to travel to Vavuniya. Some others trekked 40 odd miles on foot
Today their hope of liberation have ended in confinement. As the war escalated in the north and in Kilinochchi, Vavuniya had been their only fall-back city. But once they arrived in their thousands they were rounded up and sent to camps for interrogation and identification. Out of the 17,000 who were initially herded into camps the military so for have released about 8,000. Some of them have gone back to Jaffna while others to Colombo.
However, it is not known how soon the remaining refugees will be released after screening for LTTE links. "What LTTE connections do our old fathers and mothers have, why are babies imprisoned? they questioned.
Each person receives a meagre fifty rupees daily for food. Every morning they have to stand in a queue to obtain a permit to leave the camp for two hours to buy their meals. The refugees are closely watched by the police to whom they have surrendered their identification cards.
"If we are refugees why are they not allowing us to be on our own," argued Suresh, an Advanced Level student who has won a scholarship to Russia. Sixteen year old Murugan wants to go to Colombo to collect a sponsor letter to fly to Australia.
Many of the young men holed up in these camps had been earning an average salary of 3,000 rupees in Jaffna. "We are disgusted with the government for putting us on a good-for-nothing dole and making us useless", said Thankarajah, a farmer.
Out of the four toilets in the camp, two are clogged up due to overuse by more than 1000 refugees. The only tube well is too weak to give the much needed water to the camp. A few bowsers collect water from wells around the area to meet the demand. But, still the shortage remains chronic.
The densely populated camps have become seedbeds for many diseases too. Now malaria is rampant in Vavuniya. The district hospital is forced to bear the brunt of this human suffering. Patients who are down with typhoid, conjunctivitis, asthma and other common illnesses, queue up early in the morning to seek treatment. Septicaemia and lung infection have killed at least six babies. Rashes and other skin diseases have broken out in the camps.
The Vavuniya district hospital works as the fulcrum of this town. Having only six wards and treating more than 1,000 patients a day is sapping its vitality. There are at least 15 displaced nurses working without salaries since May this year. Several doctors too have abandoned Jaffna seeking work in this hospital. But, authorities have asked such doctors and nurses to go back to Jaffna. The minor staff grumble of overwork. Vacancies for another 80 minor staff workers have not been filled.
But, after dusk, against this ravaged face of Vavuniya changes, the rest house crawls with men, drinking, chatting and drawing up business plans for the next day.
A group of labourers drunk to the brim lose themselves in wild revelry, singing popular love songs and tapping on a wooden table. In the sparsely lit compound they gyrate like phantoms. They hardly touch on the subject of refugees rotting in overcrowded camps, just couple of meters away.
As the rest house turns opaque in the cigarette smoke, a babel of Tamil, Sinhala and English voices rise up to the ceiling, erasing the thorny language frontiers. When the night ceases the guests would have finished six crates of beer, two crates of arrack and many plates of tantalizing bites.
By crack of day many of these men would have left Vavuniya for other destinations, leaving no trace. Even the humanitarian workers who spend the night here know their work is short-lived. Well-wishers come, throw a few crumbs, get a lot of publicity and scoot off. This happens very often according to these displaced people.
Some well-to-do Tamils spend rupees 300 to 400 per day to stay in a lodge. In Vavuniya house rents are very high. Sometimes as high as in Colombo.
Most of the Tamils are in transit, waiting to take off, the moment a friend or relative is released from a camp.
After the conquest of Jaffna, a sizable part of the Tamil diaspora occurred in Vavuniya. These men wanted to find a second Jaffna there. But, now they feel the face of Vavuniya does not offer that consolation. For the diasporic Tamils, and even for the rebels now Vavuniya is only a bouncing board - Chits. Life in Vavuniya hinges on passes and permits. If you dare to venture into its facelessness without a chit from the military, there is a possibility of ending up in an interrogation centre or passing away prematurely.
"There are eyes without bodies," said Nallendran a middle aged kadale vendor.
But, the steady flow of cash and the right contacts are spawning businesses. Rackets stem from the need for permits. Rich businessmen, security officers and ex-militants are allegedly behind these rackets. A youth willing to spend 5,000 to 10,000 is easily smuggled through Vavuniya to Colombo, according to a social worker who wished to remain anonymous.
In the past couple of years apart from killings carried out by the LTTE and the military there had been many murders. Popular social workers and ex-militants were either gunned down or hacked to death in the town.
Civilians say that nobody can stop the dark forces skulking beneath the facade of civil administration.
So no one exactly knows what is the real face of Vavuniya. Trying to gaze at it, just muddles you.
Husbands who seem to be under greater stress at this time of year than at any other, might do well to turn their eyes and ears into antennae to pick up the seasonal signals that proliferate on the home front.
It is not unusual to hear a man complain: "I just don't know what to do, for the last so many years what I've presented to my wife on Christmas Day has been exchanged for something else on Boxing Day by her. I never seem to be able to choose the right thing."
Sounds ungracious on her part, doesn't it? But could it be that this man is insensitive to the broad hints circulating, well within earshot in his own home? A friend of mine begins her manoeuvres on the first of December using the breakfast table as a sort of strategic base for her exercises.
She clears her throat, bites into a hopper, fixes her eyes on the target and fires ÒI read in the papers this morning that there is a fifty percent discount on silver mesh evening bag at pay ups in the Pettah.
"What?" he retorts, "with that sort of cut price those things must be fit for the garbage heap. Why this sudden interest in handbags?"
"Not hand bags, silly, just one silver evening bag."
"What about the one you have?"
"It's twenty five years old bursting at the seams." Could a hint be broader?
Obviously, the listener's antennae are out of order or have been turned off. He continues his breakfast. "So," he says "What's stopping you from driving down to pay ups, this morning and getting an evening bag for yourself, if its worth buying?"
Desperation turns to helpless anger and brazen insinuation "buy my own Christmas present huh? from me to me, what a wonderful idea!"
One mid December afternoon sprinkled with a light rain, this couple are walking down a pavement on Galle Road to a car parked some distance away.
Suddenly the woman stops in front of a shop window to admire and exclaim at a piece of costume jewellery "Wait a minute. Just look at that necklace. If seems to have been made for my black silk saree". He sees four strands of jet beads with thin bars of rhinestones at intervals.
The rain drops have now grown bigger. He pulls her away. They are drenched when they got into the car. "It was the Kalahari, that's it. The Kalahari", she mumbles.
"Are you talking about a desert? What are you trying to tell me about the Kalahari that I don't already know?"
"I'm talking about a shop, she snaps.That piece of costume jewellrey won't be there for long." He has started to whistle a tune.
In the afternoon of Christmas Eve the man has till not bought her gift. He dashes into feast Fam's to buy her a saree not without some trepidation.
He stands towards the end of a queue and sees a beautiful red and gold one on the counter. "She'll look lovely in that" he thinks.
As he begins to move forward he hears an unmistakable voice. His wife third in the line is talking to her friend, Ethel, "I hope all the sarees here aren't as gaudy as this red one?" She's doing her last minute shopping.
Luck is on his side. He slips away in a hurry, without being seen by her, gets into his car and heads for the Kalahari on the Galle Road, hemmed in tight by slow moving traffic.
The crawling maddening traffic bears him down to a rather distant car park from which he starts to walk back to the Kalahari, wondering if that necklace is still there, and if not, what?
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