The Revenge of a Tamil Man
Repost This ArticleSome months ago, I arrived in Colombo on a trip to London from the Far East with Sri Lankan Airline. When the transit is more than eight hours, they put you in an overnight hotel with basic facilities, but good food, Lion Lager and sea breeze to go as extras. On the drive back from the hotel, the taxi driver starts a conversation: “Sir from India?”
Statistically speaking, his is a good guess. Almost a quarter of humanity being Indian, the average Sri Lankan having no reason to stop in Colombo on transit and no obvious visuals on me that distinguish me as Sri Lankan, it is a good way to get a conversation going.
His wit was at odds with my other similar experience. At the first formal dinner as a graduate student at Bridgetown University in England, the academic sitting next to me opened the conversation by saying: “You must be from Sri Lanka”. I was quite pleased, for I had just arrived in this country and a local can accurately guess where I was from. For a moment I thought that scholars of Bridgetown must be very clever! Alas, that conclusion was shattered by his next remark: “Pardon my ignorance, where is Sri Lanka?” (The secretary who made the seating plan had briefed the idiot: “Sri Lankan chap to the left and Irish girl to the right”, so he could make us feel welcome.)
With my taxi driver, I decide to be mischievous:
“No”; “Then Sir?”
“You guess”; “What Sir?”
“Guess where I am from.”
He seems taken aback a bit and drives into a pot hole. My posterior hurt a bit. He takes other shots:
“Pakistan?”, “No”;
“Malaysia?”, “No”
He gives up: “I don’t know Sir”.
I shock him: “kiyanda baritha magE rata mokatha kiyala?” [can’t you tell what my country is]. My grammar is not perfect, but I am trained in phonetics and can pronounce whatever little Sinhala I know perfectly. He is embarrassed, looks at me with wide eyes and even broader grin: “ehematha?” [is it so?]. He is silent for a few seconds.
“Enang Sir-ta LankavE gama kohetha?” [so where in Sri Lanka is your town/ village?] I pause a bit before answering this one.
I could say I am from Karainagar, the little island off the north coast of Sri Lanka where I was born and brought up, a village with very industrious people forming a close-knit community. With no natural resources, they became very robust, travelled far and wide setting up small businesses. They have a local saying: “Wherever crows fly, Karainagar fellows have been”.
Or should I say Bandarawela, the beautiful up-country town where I schooled several years?
Or should it be Jaffna, where I lived next door to the famous Nallur temple – the only place where you could photograph Sri Lankan politicians with their shirts removed and pot-bellies showing (Temple rules insist men take off their shirts before entry – why not the women, huh, I remember complaining as a teen-ager). Jaffna was a place for scholarship those days, with its high density of schools – some with well equipped science laboratories, dedicated teachers, ambitious students and pushy parents. It was also a society sustaining much collective foolishness, allowing short-sighted nationalistic politics to overtake common sense.
Or should I say I am from the peaceful university town of Peradeniya, where I spent my undergraduate days — a town where I had, on the previous trip, been looking at buying property for my retirement?
Or perhaps I should say I am from Colombo — the dynamic city with its naked complexities of economic polarization. The city from where I faced the rioting of 1983, jumping off a second floor balcony when the uncle’s flat was attacked by gangsters let loose by the then Government, and a subsequent free trip to Jaffna by cargo ship.
After an infinitesimal pause during which I quickly contemplated all of the above, I replied “Yaapanaya”. I guess he wasn’t expecting that, so a minute silence follows.
He probes further. “Ethakota, Sir Sinhalatha?” [Are you then a Sinhalese?]
What an idiot? Has he so quickly abandoned his ability at statistical guesses? Or is he thinking of some way of teasing me in return? Whatever it is, I have a choice. I could say I am “Tamil”, the most common way in which Tamils would identify themselves to non-Tamils. Or I could insist on the phonetics of the language and say “Thamizh”, with the retroflex /l/ (transcribed as /zh/) at the end which is not common in other languages, or I could say “Demala” which is Sinhala for Tamil, with other connotations going with it.
I opt for the parsimonious solution and say “Nae, mang Tamil” [No I am Tamil].
He stays quiet in some uneasy way.
Turning into a short-cut, he changes the topic of conversation. “Issara junction ekE traffic vadi, Sir” [Traffic is high at the junction ahead of us]. That’s very clever of him! Here in the UK, one can talk about the weather as a handy way of changing the subject of a conversation: “It is quite chilly today, old chap”. “Rather, though I’d say a touch warmer than this time last year.” As if you remembered the temperature of that particular afternoon 365 days ago! Similarly, in Sri Lanka, we can always talk about traffic.
Now, this taxi driver need not have put us both in such a situation with his probing questions. I was most uncomfortable with that conversation with him, though I can’t explain precisely why. Nevertheless, I shall take revenge for this, I tell myself. Not on this particular taxi chap, for I had the rest of my journey to consider, but on some arbitrary Sri Lankan of Sinhala ethnicity when the time comes. We Sri Lankans are good at it, aren’t we – dishing out collective punishment to the tribe for the guilt of its individuals?
My opportunity came a few months later, on a late cold night in the UK when I stopped at a service station off the M1 motorway for a break. At the Kentucky Fried Chicken joint there, I noticed two employees talking in Sinhala to each other.
Nowadays there appears to be a new wave of Sri Lankans coming to the UK, and they are mostly Sinhalese. Just the same way as in the Eighties lots of Sri Lankan Tamils came over, having been driven out by the war. But when Sinhalese are leaving in significant numbers, one has to ask what war is driving them away (one also cannot help wondering if the war alone was what drove Tamils away). The new arrivals are mostly students. Visa rules allow them a certain amount of part time job, and an unlimited amount of cash-only opportunities. The package is costly, and parents would have borrowed heavily or sold property to send these sons abroad.
I approached the KFC counter and with an artificially posh English accent placed my order: “I wonder, mmmm, if I could have,… er, let me think…, a two-piece Colonel meal with coffee”. Note the semantics of being posh. I did not ask the guy anything. Instead, I just stated that I wondered something. Here is a quick tutorial if you are not familiar with this sort of thing. You call a place where a phone is shared, and someone other than your target picks it up. You don’t say “Can I speak to Punchi Banda please?”, because you are then asking for a favour, which is not posh. Instead, you should make the statement, “I wonder if I could speak to Punchi Banda”, merely throwing a hint.
Colonel Kentucky, Street Vendor and Motorway
The guy at the KFC counter hasn’t been in this country long enough to know its sophistications – and the social class of his usual customers don’t do to him what I had just acted out. He punches the order into the device in front of him. “Two-piece Colonel and one coffee”, he shouts to his mate, and reads the bill to me: “Three pound fifty please.”
Now I take the revenge I was waiting all these months for. Mustering all my phonetics skills, and looking straight into his eyes, I say sharply in fluent Sinhala: “thunaai panaha vadi nE, adu karakla thenda baritha?” [3.50 is too much, can’t you reduce the price?].
You should have seen the embarrassment on his face. He is no longer the man for whom his parents built all that ambition of foreign travel, education and a job wearing a neck-tie. By my offer to bargain the price of my Colonel meal, though just for a fraction of a second, I reduced his social status to a pavement vendor he never wanted to be. My revenge is achieved.
He lets out a smile which was a rich mix of the pleasure of meeting a countryman in a far away land, and the shock of the status reduction he has just suffered. I smile back.
“Lankaavatha?” [from Sri Lanka?] he mumbles.
“Ow” [yes], I say cheerfully.
“LankavE gama kohetha?” [which town in Sri Lanka?].
An excellent piece of writing.
You do realise there are a lot of Tamils working as servants in Sinhalese homes? Food for thought.
Dear Prof. Niranjan,
Thank you for the treat of a good read. Your tragi-comic analysis is an uncommon intellectuality where, intellectualism of political commentaries are often thought to be in the display of abstract words. Your writing brings a new ray of political anthropology.
Perhaps it is too late for you to change lanes, but I am sure you would excelled in Political Science as much you have done in nano- biology
Pl. Continue to write, so that we may learn to heal of wrongs
Best
Sri Lankan, including Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim people usually ask guest where his/her city/village is. It’s not a racist manner (some people might be). Some people (Specially Uneducated) still have some afraids for other nations because what they have done.
But after the peace agreement and the war the bridge is building by step by step.
This piece just smacks of unbridled arrogance. The writer pretentiously assumes that he is in a position of competitive intellectual advantage with his lesser fortunate compatriots. Hence the reference to his Bridgetown University (where the heck is that?) experiences etc. Silly fool, despite his attempt to convince us that he could masquerade as anybody other than a Sri Lankan at different times, he forgets the fact that he cannot delude Mother Nature. Whatever so-called polish one might acquire through education or foreign travel, mannerisms and cultural “pottus’ associated with communities, especially in Sri Lanka are difficult to erase. Little does he realize that the taxi driver may have corectly guessed which part of Lanka’s ethnic community he belonged to just by taking one look at him but was either trying to play the mickey out of him, or as most Lankans usually are, was just trying to be polite to him. Sometimes, self-delusion knows know bounds and thats human nature in its very essence. Im sure he will dream on.
The bit I don’t understand is “WHAT or FROM whom are you taking revenge from ?
Are you taking revenge from the Sinhala people because they could not recognise you as a Tamil ?
Are you taking revenge from yourself because you have changed so much from being a local that nobody can recognise you ?
In the KFC he would have similed because he knows that you also know that the price in KFCs’ MacDonalds’ are fixed. YOu can not bargain like in a third world country…That would have made him simile at you NOT because he is ashamed of what he is doing….IT IS ONLY A MEANS TO AN END.
Extremely engaging and well written Mahesan. The end agenda well scripted but also well hidden. I have to ask though have intellectuals like you developed such a dislike for Sri Lanka that you have to resort to these childish games for revenge?
Reminds me of an ongoing episode from 2008. There’s a corner shop near my train station which I stop frequently for smokes. On my first visit I was delighted to find two Tamil boys behind the counter. Strapping young lads. As I proceeded to pay for my smokes one lad asks me the standard question asked by Sri Lankans in London, where I am from. So I smile and say Sri Lanka. His response immediately was:
‘Superb fighting there no?’
I smiled. I could have asked him if the fighting is so superb what are you doing here behind a cigarette counter in freezing weather wearing about ten layers?
I detested. However, I would drop in once or twice a week to buy my smokes. Usually met by sarcastic smiles. My only response to them always was when I get my change going ‘Thank you machan’.
After May 2009, the smiles have faded, the eyes are hooded, embarrassment on their faces.
I continue as usual.
THANK YOU MACHAN!
Now you looks very proud man.Because you got free education from the primary to univercity.Free health,free everything (till the LTTE start robbing all the social wellfare items send to jaffna for your and your parents and relatives))what all other nationals get in srilanka govern by as you tamils called sinhalese government.In jaffna could you get a chance to sit in front of a tamil officer whare cast differences are so effective( by chance if you own to low cast).
Sri lankan govt.s were giving shelter to generations of tamils migrated illigally to jaffna(by sea) from tamilnadu who comes for better life than Tamilnadu.
Sinhalese are one of the most generous people in the world. It makes them blood fools.
Well, we got to accept such intellectuals too in our Society.
If such intellectuals shun building bridges, Tamils will go nowhere as I am aware how my Tamil friends yearn to visit Sri Lanka the land of their birth.
Wee, we got obnoxious creatures in every society.
No, I just did not get this.
Whom is this man taking the revenge from?
When you in Rome, get adopted to there. Trying to show off will get it back somehow. It is a habit of friendly sri lankans to get in to brief conversations when meet someone. This man is trying to show off he is more a British and tries to patronize himself.
“He probes further. “Ethakota, Sir Sinhalatha?” [Are you then a Sinhalese?]
What an idiot? Has he so quickly abandoned his ability at statistical guesses? Or is he thinking of some way of teasing me in return? Whatever it is, I have a choice.”
Legitimate question. There were a tiny minority of Sinhala people that lived in Jaffna. You could have easily been one of them.
Maybe you need to re think on nationalism and subtle forms of racism on your part.
An interseting article with humor mixed. But by reading the comments from others I understand that many has taken the word revnge very seriously mand wrongly. The writter had not meant
that in the sense of racism. It is just a tit for tat I would say.
Imagine what this man would do if he happened to meet his .great-great-grandfather today. Dying of shame because he cannot change the colour of his own skin, he would certainly take his revenge on the old man for his predicament. Its sad that with some people, no amount of education or cultural embellishment could change their divisive schisms. Hope he is always assured of his place between the caucasian scholar and the Irish girl so that he can find the peace within himself that he so badly seems to need. And I do hope that their social acceptance of him would last longer than the fragrance of a withering rose.
The writer seems to be suffering from a deep sense of inferiority complex. Pity he was not born a century earlier. Sigmund Freud would have found an ideal guinea-pig for his experiments.
I feel sorry for the author. His inferior complexity that’s making him so insecure and eats away so much to pull a prank. You can talk in queen’s accent but your psyche measures you up well. haha I’m no psychotherapist but I can tell in your mind you’re till subjugated.
Dude, it’s a job. Nothing to be ashamed of. Always treat people serving you as though one day they may be your master. It is quite possible.
Here’s the addendum to that story.
“Having sought my sweet revenge, I walk out to the KFC car park chomping on my chicken wings. Ahh how delicious! Then… suddenly a car speeds by me with bright lights. One of the young male passengers yell at me… “GO HOME YOU DIRTY PAKI”….
Circumstances my friend. They have a funny way of turning upside down. Oh and revenge is for the frustrated.
Do Sri Lankans have a sensitised conscience or do they call evil as good and good as evil?
Right believing results in right living.
When a man lives with an evil conscience, his mind becomes defiled to the extent of justifying injustice and cruelty to another man.
On the other hand, a convicting conscience, makes a man not to engage in injustice, cruelty, murder, bloodshed, unkindness and corruption.
The conscience of a good man is thus like a “radar”. It directs his path correctly.
When a man has a reprobate mind, his “radar” of conscience does not work and he always will think and engage in evil. His heart is hardened.
Truth does not lodge in His heart.
All the Sinhalese. regardless of their religion, must test their consci,nce and put their “radar” to work, if they desire reconciliation with Tamils and peace in the island.
If one believes in God as his creator and provider, he should go to Him and ask God humbly to put the “radar” to work.
I like this piece! the writer should have boldly told the KFC boy, that he is from Jaffna!
Mr. Niranjan’s elaborate sensitive narration of his experience in Colombo is like three sided prism. It radiates the rainbow colours. It could be summed-up and narrowed-down into three sentences, as below;
Indicates / displays spreading unrestrained sense of haughty triumphal sickness; a) the average Sinhalese brethren’s current mindset, lacking political alertness and rapid deterioration of intellectually seasoned mental approach towards the never ending national problem; b) total ignorance and idiotic absence of minimum awareness of civic, social composition of people and absolute unwillingness and sense of intolerance (Allergic) even to hear the ‘Tamil’ on the part the Sinhalese people; c) evolving such hatred mentality toward Tamils in a new unpredictable still disastrous dimension.
People of this nature were the torch-bearers of 1983 pogrom, still set on their mark in the front and awaiting for the opportunity again, and it’s so pathetic to realize the quality of mentality of these people who are going to be the present and future king-makers of Sri Lanka. Let them keep-up their Brand of Patriotism!
What’s the reason for this revenge issue? What did the taxi driver say or do to offend you that much to seek revenge? Geez, man, get a life. Also, where in the world is Bridgetown uni located? Now don’t call me a “frog in the well”, I have travelled quite a bit and recognise the names of a lot of good universities,but have never heard of your Bridgetown uni????
, Now, now, please don’t seek revenge for my ignorance too 
))))))))))
Sometimes you need to tell others that you are a cut above the rest. Each and everyone of us need self-respect. There is no harm in Niranjan’s ramblings. He is funny although he is a confused soul as to his identity. Could this be some insidiuos vacuum that makes him declare what he has achieved and he should know by now nobody cares.
Hey Observer
“Here’s the addendum to that story.
“Having sought my sweet revenge, I walk out to the KFC car park chomping on my chicken wings. Ahh how delicious! Then… suddenly a car speeds by me with bright lights. One of the young male passengers yell at me… “GO HOME YOU DIRTY PAKI”….
Good one, mate. I couldn’t stop laughing!!!! for awhile.”
Thanks for your contribution to the short story “revenge”.
Contributions like these make it all worthwhile. I read these comments hoping I’ll find something funny, and I do, most of the time.
You can get in tuouh with Mahesan Niranjan at:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/mn
Great article prof
Remember Professor Mahesan Niranjan, revenge is a bad thing. Look what happend to the tigers. They struck in revenge, and are now extint.
Soon your co-workers will also learn what type of a man you are, and i can only hope that they are more forgiving than you.
I was schocked to read this incident and your interpretation of it. Well…Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic society. The Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese are scatterd all over the island. Can’t a Sinhalese be from Jaffna as much as a Tamil could be from Kandy? The taxi driver may have simply commented on traffic. Besides I see no point in taking revenge on someone in the UK for what happened with someone else in Sri Lanka. It is sad to see how racist people could be. It is only in Sri Lanka perhaps the people use English and accent to be ‘posh’. These types of attitudes are detrimental to the well being of the society. Shame!
I am surprised how so many people commenting here have missed the subtle points in the article which I for one enjoyed reading (thanks Mahesan). First of all the Tamil man has no reason to take offense at a normal harmless conversation, then you will see the author talks about Jaffna having foolishly sustained nationalism, and then his final act is just a harmless friendly prank, which he hides under a BIG word (revenge). The message I read from this article is to forget the things that kept our communities apart, wanting to do tit-for-tat revenge, and move on. If you also take a look at his previous articles in this forum (I re-read all of them just now to be sure), you will see he is sharply critical of nationalistic politics in Sri Lanka, especially from the Tamil side, he doesn’t always explicitly say it, but hides them cleverly behind jokes; read his speech at the school old boys meeting. Most people appear to have just read this article superficially and looking at it as a Tamil man doing something bad to Sinhalese people — and it is even funny some Tamil people in the forum cheer (foolish nationalism indeed). And I really liked the joke at the dinner table
Is it actually true? The personal attacks referring him to Freud etc are simply in bad taste — grow up people. Thanks again, Mahesan.
This is patronising rubbish that gives Tamil Intellectuals a bad name – and as one, I have to stick my oar in. The paragraph giving us all “a quick tutorial” on the semantics of being posh in England is deluded – the phrases the writer trots out sound like he isreading from 1950s guide book to England. No-one talks like that – and if you went up to a KFC and said “I wonder if I could have two-piece meal” any of the staff there, whatever nationality, would be totally baffled. If any of you have come across Chris Eubank (the black British boxer who dresses like a comedy English gent and wears a monocle and is widely thought to be clinically insane) you’d get the idea. What’s most sad is the deluded students on here thinking their professor is incredibly clever where clearly he’s a buffoon.
After displaying his puerile trait in seeking unreciprocated revenge, the writer now seems to be hankering after cheap publicity. His sidekick TAMIL STUDENT has now posted his web-site address with a benign ‘you can get in touch with him’ invitation. The question is, who wants to, now that we know the man? And Pearl Tevanayagam, you dont need to tell others that you are a cut above the rest. That will simply radiate in your personality and character and is reflective of your culture and upbringing . Also, self respect can never be demanded of anyone as an inalienable right. Least of all by resorting to puerile intimidatory tactics. It has to be earned the hard way.
Much ado about nothing! William Shalesppeare, the English literary genius, had not even seen the rear side of any University! Ditto for Sir Winston Churchill, proclaimed in his time, as the greatest Englishman.
For moment I thought Niranjan had graduated from a University in Bridgetown in the West Indies. Anyway, what’s in a name?
If NIranjan felt titillated, so be it. Some commentators seemed to care! His gut reaction may be due to his jumping off the second floor flat when he saw his uncle’s one on fire in July 1983. Yes, it might be a psychological reflex response in the hidden recesses of the human mind.
Chandra, the 83 riots started as a harmless joke, look where it ended
How ironic that Chandra is asking people to grow up and at the same time praising the writer
I could not find a Bridgetown University in England or in UK, searching the internet.
There is one though, in Babados, in the caribbean.
Chandra is correct. There are a lot of paranoid, Tamil-phobic people here who got frightened by seeing the words “Tamil” and “revenge” close together.
This is a sweet treat, not a sweet revenge.
Thanks Mahesan!
Firoze,
Do try and understand what is written. I did not say I am cut above the rest. I admit am but a mere jurnalist albeit an honest one. Far from it.
I said that Niranjan is trying to prove he is cut above the rest since he is harping on his educational achievements and his Bridgetown degree.
I do hope you are fluent in English and its semantics.
Having said that Niranjan is trying his level best to do away with all the nationalistic narrow Tamil agenda which has eroded the very fabric of Sri lankan polity.
I laud him for his honesty.
You two races can’t seem to get over taking continuous jibes at each other just to prove superiority. A curse upon both your houses. Take a lesson from the Burghers who just shook their heads, packed their bags and left. We still come back and enjoy our holidays and still love this country. Not a bugger cares about superiority. We only thank God that this stupid war came to end and hopefully, just hopefully, if you natives can keep the peace, then this country has hope!
@ Burgher: Your comments are in regards to a superiority complex of the two ‘native’ races! You are at the one hand contradicting yourself, displaying your superiority over these two native races – which of course without them your existence would be nullified both biologically and spatially. Secondly, not all burghers left their home!!!!!! Sri Lanka is not a place for its people to shake their heads, pack their bags and go live in Australia, UK all the while playing Pretense European, its a home for many, not a vacation spot or a tourist destination. You want to speak for yourself go ahead, but don’t claim to speak for all burghers, not all of them are as shameful as you or have their eyes set on some land.
As for Sri Lanka having hope it does… but its upto its peopled to make sure that hope moves forward into a sustainable peace. and the first step on that long road is stop identifying each other according to race, and worse reading between the lines looking for racism and superiority. I d ask the same question from any sri lankan and thats cos like most ppl who have commented have said, curiosity – its also the first step towards friendship, Sri Lankan style. If you dont like it fine, but dont go making a mountain out of a mole hill just because u can!
Burgher, you are absolutely right, that’s exactly what we want the demals to do.
I had a look at the link of Prof. Mahesan Niranjan -
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/people/mn – and can’t stop thinking how he treats his Sri Lankan (Sinhala) students that study at the university.
Is this not a serious issue for the university. Potential racial descrimination by a lecturer?
the author obviously suffers from a major inferiority complex….
Chandra! You are being an ‘emperor’ who is nude! Try to see how racist this write-up could be. It only leads to the polarisation more and more. Words have to be used more carefully especially by so called academics. I see nothing but racism in the article!
Burgher is merely reflecting the status quo! How can it be his fault? The real “serious problem” lies elsewhere in the history books taught in schools with curricula “manufactured” by the Education Ministry, sure fire recipe to keep the ethnic fires burning bright perhaps for the next 2000 years. Politicians cash in naturally and the results have been more than obvious. Remedy lies there for a start.
This man has posted a pix of himself on his website. Go there and look for yourself. Dont you think the taxi driver must have been mad to assume that he came from anywhere other than Jaffna?
@Pabalu,
Honestly, I think you are missing the depth (and fun) in his post, which is unfortunate. Anyway, have you seen this author’s other articles in groundviews?
Reading through the comments, some have clearly latched on to the “us and them” theme that is strongly running through this piece This is not surprising coming from a don with Cambridge experience who would rather identify himself with his peers than with his downtrodden brethren. Being posh is to be condescending and be different from ones own lot whilst aspiring to belong to a higher class. In that sense a Cambridge don is not worth his salt – or posh enough – if he cannot propose something unique or at least be different from everybody else. Hence, perhaps, the throwaway bait of collective foolishness, nationalism etc. It will certainly take a braver don than this one to proclaim that freedom of Tamils is non-negotiable and obstacles and barriers are to be torn down.
There is a subtle unifying theme too visible in the interactions with the Sinhalese characters. The mastery of Sinhalese by the Tamil (if that is what is meant by the revenge) would have been easily recognised by the readers had the author answered the taxi driver with a Kavi alone the lines..
Mama ipadunE mehe inthala hari dUra thanakin
[I was born in a far away place]
Paya dolahak gunning yanna Yarl Deviyakin
[It takes 12 hours to go there by Yarl Devi]
Meya danaganna bariwoo thamusetha mamatha
[You who could not work this out or I]
Hari Sinhalaya kiyanawa lajja nathuwa
[the real Sinhalese, tell without being shy]
Credits for the style of writing provided it was not computer generated by an AI program!
I am sorry.
To Asfar Ali,
You said: “This man has posted a pix of himself on his website. Go there and look for yourself. Dont you think the taxi driver must have been mad to assume that he came from anywhere other than Jaffna”?
Asfar Ali,
You seem to have preconceived notions of what a Jaffna man looks like. Are there any differences in feature/colour between Southerners and Jaffna people?
The taxi driver was smart enough to recognize something “foreign” in the author. This was perhaps due to the fact that the author lived many years abroad. Forget about the taxi driver, surely, even you will mistake the identity of a person of Sri-Lankan descent (Tamil or Sinhala) who has spent a significant period of time in the West. This has nothing to do with superiority/inferiority. It is only natural that people will pick up the mannerisms, styles and facial expression of the place in which they live.
Having come across various people, the taxi driver was astute enough to notice this “difference”.
With racists like Mahesan Niranjan, Sri Lanka’s future looks bright indeed…..
Another question… why is it so difficult for Tamils to pronounce the soft d? Baldiya becomes balthiya, indala becomes inthala, barida becomes baritha.The mistake of making it th even appears into transliteration into English. Is it a deficiency of the Tamil language/alphabet?
Atheist, you make me laugh.Really laugh. I like to know what this something “foreign” is that is supposed to cling onto guys who live abroad for sometime. Is it a halo around their head or perhaps some mystic aura that radiates from their skin like aliens from outer space? Attire, mannerism, accents, yes ; but looks, features, colour and stature are something you never can change unless you resort to botox or other modern day physical techniques like Michael Jackson.This answers your question about whether there are differences in feature/colour between Southerners and Jaffna people. And one must be in utter denial to say no. You also say that “it is only natural that people will pick up the mannerisms, styles and facial expression of the place in which they live” Iam non-plussed as to how places nd geographical localities can have human attributes like mannerisms, styles and facial expressions? In the final analysis, it is this diversity among human beings, whether reflected in skin colour or mannerisms that embellishes the very human race and there is no need for one to use this advantage to deceive or take revenge on other fellow-beings in lesser predicaments. However, I agree with you that the taxi driver was smart. Smart indeed, but not because he detected something “foreign” in the author but because he was trying to pander to the egoistic whims of a client who would have been just “one in a hundred” to him.
@Asfar Ali,
Focusing on the taxi driver for the moment, don’t you think, like you, the story is also portraying the taxi driver as being smart, and describing the narrator’s (Tamil) behaviour as mischief? Saying that the driver uses statistics correctly in making the first guess; then saying the wit of the driver is different from that of the university scholar; and then showing the scholar’s ignorance (explicitly referring to the scholar at the dinner table as an idiot). It is so obvious to me, how can you have missed it?
Revenge is for Revenge! No way..When everybody takes revenge, where is the end. What is the purpose of taking revenge on friendly innocents? Education is not only for white color job and earning a lot of money but also for teaching love and peace. If you are an educated, you would have taught him the humanity and the value of human life. Only uneducated only behave like this.
Chandra, it is certainly food for thought. But food has to be digestible. Otherwise it leads to indigestion.
Asfar Ali,
First, please enlighten all of us here as to how much Botox, plastic surgery and bleaching a Jaffna man/woman needs in order get the looks of a Southerner.
Second, I think you got all worked up because I mentioned that the author, having lived in the West, has naturally acquired the demeanour and certain characteristics of a Westerner. If the word “West” is what is really bugging you, then I suggest you imagine a similar scenario in which a person of Sri-Lankan descent returns to Sri-Lanka having lived for years in Africa, India, Japan or Singapore (to name a few). Given the latter case, I am sure here, too, the taxi driver would notice something “foreign”.
Perhaps, you are not as observant as Lankan taxi drivers; I am sorry to know this!
@Velu Balendran,
Your kavi is cute, thanks, but your personal attack on the author is unwarrented. “…don with Cambridge experience who would rather identify himself with his peers than with his downtrodden brethren”
Is this fair? I asked someone in the know yesterday who told me that there are about 10 or 15 Sri Lankan students in Cambridge at any time (counting first generation only, there apparently are a lot more second generation, so it is a low end of the estimate). Over a 30 year period, at the rate of just over three per year graduating we should have about 100 Cambridge educated Sri Lankans around us. No doubt, many of them would have gone onto become dons. Of these, how many have you seen sharing their views with you and I, the “downtrodden brethern”. This author, bless him, seems to want to engage with us — there are about a dozen posts from him in GV. His views you don’t like, but I do. His style I like, so do you. Have you associated with any of the other estimated 99 Cambridge educated Sri Lankans? Have you found any of them sharing their ideas with us “downtrodden” in public? (Is it the posh accent that is bothering you — but the article states that it was an act; A – C – T, act. Don’t you know what that means? Have you not seen films of Shivagi Ganeshan?).
I can guess what will happen to Mahesan, though. Assuming he has a Tamil wife, when he goes home he will get a thorough bashing: “Didn’t I tell you?” “Don’t you have anything better to do?” (I have lived in Wellawatha and know how effective Tamil wives can be when they want to set their husbands straight.) In the extreme, it will be a severe beating with an akappekambu until he promises never to share his views with this quick-to-keyboard-abuse-throwing readership, such as yourself. Out of fear of akappekambu beating, he will join his 99 Cambridge educated Sri Lankan peers, and you and I may not hear from him again. I can also guess you will be pleased with this outcome, for then there will be one less person openly describing Tamil nationalistic politics as foolish. I hope I am proved wrong.
Some of you people need to relax and let your hair down a little bit. Obviously the word “Revenge” is only used figuratively in the title. The taxi driver nor the writer caused offence in their interraction. Whats not clear is if the writer felt offended by the taxi driver’s surprise at how a fluent Sinhala speaker could originate from Jaffna. It could have been a Sinhalese who once lived in Jaffna or a Tamil from Jaffna who’s learnt to Sinhalese in a Sinhalese accent. Both a statistical rarity and we cant find fault with the driver for randomly picking one. Perhaps the TD sensed the writer’s irritation which is why he changed the subject to traffic.
The KFC incident is equally innocuous. The chap at the counter obviously assumed -statistically- that the writer was Indian/Pakistani. There was no need for the “posh” turn of phrase to hide one’s origins. He then was pleasantly surprised to find he was Sri Lankan.
I dont think there is malice or ill intent on the part of the taxi driver, the KFC attendant or the writer. Just two mundane interractions woven into a humerous story mixed with some benign and accurate observations on Sri Lankan society.
THe writer reminds me of the group of German Marxists who set up their chattering circlesfor the revolution from the 30′s. When the ’60s came they found that they are more on the side of the establishment. This obvously brainy character too may find himself dessicated in a library. He will get a lot of education if goes to does the familyn shopping without leaving it to the wife, though he may spend few more pennies.