Now our New Year has no moon
Repost This ArticleThe moon rises to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Dreaming, I take the rifle and shoot my own heart.
Now our New Year has no moon.
The streetlamps of La Chappelle bend down to the darkness
but still spread their light.
I shoot them out, one by one.
An unknown Tamil comes along.
I say Hello and ask him for a match.
Then I see that his eyes are seeking a life.
I am asking for a light and he is asking for a life?
Yes, we are the generation
That lit our cigarettes
On the pyres of burning bodies.
Was there a dead person staggering along the street
Smoking a cigarette in your New Year dream?
He had a house
but no bed to sleep
He had a village
but no road to walk
He had a country
but no freedom to smile.
This is why our New Year has no moon.
When you gobble your milk rice
Do you smell the blood?
Does it taste yummy?
Written by Manjula Wediwardena, a Sinhalese poet, journalist and media activist currently living in exile in France. Translated by Prasanna Ratnayake.
I wish you would ditch your condescending attitude. Tamil people are not perpetual victims with their hands out to charity.
Since you care so much, go shine some light on the poor French, particularly the jobless Arab Muslims in France.
Don’t tell me you can down those cornichons without wincing.
Gowri Rajendran
What a cold and indifferent reaction toward this kind poetic gem !!!
The Tamils are living in a horrific life of a voceless slave in occupied Tamil areas.
Fear, hunger, hopelessness are the only companions for this long – suffering tiny minority on the cruel , tear – drop island of Sri Lanka .
Just yesterday the 18, 19 yrs, Tamils tortured in white-van.
A 19-year-old student of Mannaar Seminary and an 18-year-old fellow student at Mannaar St. Xavier’s Boys College, were abducted by armed men who came in a white van Monday around 2:00 p.m. when the students were on their way back from the school.
The students were blindfolded and severely beaten inside the vehicle. Except for a two-hour interrogation, they were kept inside the vehicle without any food or water for 30 hours.
The abductors had attacked the students with boots causing internal injuries and had tightened their throats several times.
Seminary student Johansen was the one who was mainly targeted. His father, a businessman, was abducted 4 years ago and is still missing.
Only a few weeks ago, on 13 December 2010, a team from Terrorist Interrogation Division entered the house of the family of Johansen and carried out a full checking.
The TID men took photographs of Johansen and his elder brother, who is abroad.
Only mother and a younger sister of Joahnsen live in their Thalaimannaar house.
The squad tortured students were dropped off the white-van Tuesday 8:03 p.m. at Ka’l'li-kaddai-kaadu on Mannaar Medawachchiya Road.
The guardian of the Mannaar Seminary, Rev. Fr. Xavier Croos and the Vicar General of Mannaar Ref. Fr. Victor Sosai, had to plead with the Sri Lanka police to get the tortured admitted to medical treatment before conducting their procedures.
The entire Catholic community in Mannaar has been perturbed by the episode.
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