A trial takes place in a tent at the foot of the mountain. It is me, your potato farmer on trial. Accused of being an intellectual who failed to play a role in stemming the growth of nationalism; thereby contributing to crimes committed on potato soil. This is no ordinary trial. There is only one participant: prosecutor, accused, judge and jury are all the same — me. Accusing, examining, defending and passing judgment, are all going to be done by myself. Readers are invited to be spectators. No judgment please. This trial is my roadmap to nirvana.
I am thirsty. There is water, hundred yards away, but between the water and I is a queue hundred yards in length. I think of the consequence of drinking water. I will need to pee. There is a stinking toilet hundred yards away. But there is a hundred yard long queue for it. Something nice about quenching thirst and the urge to pee — they can cancel out over short time scales.
‘What are your skills?’ asks the prosecutor. “I can simulate stochastic differential equations and find uncertainties in their solutions”.
“Ever read anything broader than that?” he mocks. “Wittgenstein, Shakespeare, Stephen Jay Gould?”
“Yes, my Lord”, I say proudly, “I have read Asterix”.
“That’s good enough”, suggests the prosecutor, “establishes beyond doubt the accused is a prima facie intellectual”. Standards of proof!
Exhibit #1. It is from the rare books collection of Bridgetown library.
“Do you recognize this book?”
“Yes”, I say, “it is yaazhpaaNa vaipava maalai” (YVM) – authentic history of the Jaffna Tamils. Written in the eighteenth century, and documents a lot about the sixteenth. It is as authentic as the Mahavamsa.
Tale of two libraries, both where the potato farmer studied YaalpaaNa Vaipava Maalai. Arrows mark the rare books sections (Images scanned from Bridgetown Evening New and Tamil Times).
“There is a place this talks of, which you think is important?” prompts the prosecutor.
“Yes, the Amman kOvil grounds in Nallur”
“Tell us what happened there”
“Sixteenth century. Nallur king Changiliyan beat up the Portugese, killing 20000 Portugese”, I tell him with tribal pride, “A massacre, just like what the Sri Lankans did.”
“What?” he barks.
“Did you not watch 20-20 cricket — Dilshan’s batting was a massacre, no?”
“20000 died”. What for? How many panangkoddai (palmyrah fruits) will be worth 20000 lives?”
“The point is”, I interject. “The Portugese weren’t fighting for the utility of panangkoddai. They did it for the ego of their generals and the pride of their king.”
“Wouldn’t they prefer to be living, eating panangkoddai?”
“Sure they would – but the choice wasn’t theirs; it was made in lands far away, by those who weren’t actually going to be at the amman kovil grounds, those from a different social class.
“But, mind you”, I add, “Ever tasted odiyal kooL? Well worth fighting for, no?”.
Audiatur et altera pars
“Back to the future – to this very same amman kOvil grounds in 1977?” suggests the defense counsel. “What happened there?”
“I was at an election rally. Thundering speeches, the best ever demonstration that logic, if you care to measure it on a continuous scale, has an inverse relationship to emotion”, I explained. “We’ll make slippers from their skins and drink their blood”, they shouted.
“Is this helpful”, I pondered. “Shouldn’t we be more cautious and responsible, even in the light of unfairness from the other side?” “True, the government acted chauvinistically”, I concede. “True, it had by then orchestrated structural violence in many ways and propagated hegemonic thinking. Governance was too centralized with no local say in matters. But is counter-nationalism the answer?” I was a wee bit too loud and that thug heard what I said.
“He wasn’t really a thug. He was a nice chap who couldn’t do calculus. In our society, calculus brought you glory. You got good exam grades, went to university, got a nice job and married a fat dowry. If you couldn’t calculus, you saw a dead end. This chap was a good sportsman, skilled at fixing things — bicycles, water pumps and the like. He could have been the Jayasuria of those times, but no, not in our value system. Calculus or bust, it was. In frustration he asked why. A tribal solution was put to him. The S-tribe has taken the university places of the T-tribes, was that explanation. Corollary of our universal theorem: it is all the fault of the other side. S for the T, T for the S. Suppose ALL the university places were given to T-tribe. This chap still wasn’t going to get in! But he had no understanding of that, for his calculus wasn’t good enough. They gave him a model, he latched onto it.
Now that he had heard what I said, my calculus was useless. He charged to beat me up and elevated me to an NBU (nearly beaten up) level.
“How did you escape?” “My red sports bicycle – Raleigh brand, no”.
“Run, run”, I mocked, “as fast as you can; you can’t catch me; I got a red Raleigh bike”.
I heard this chap later joined, trained, fought and died. For what? I am left with a sense of emptiness when I think of this chap. I do not know why, but I do feel just the same about the Isuru aiya chap who lived next door, JVP in 1971, fought and died. What did they achieve? Where did we all go wrong – the dead and the living? Where do sets of intellectual guilt intersect? Is that not the common ground some seek?
My achievements didn’t stop at NBU. I got a friendly warning (FW), too. It was 1985, a Christmas party in Bridgetown, and came from the local fund-raiser, in response to a comment about kids who were dying in the war weren’t his children. “They are sacrificing for our liberation”, he had gloated, and yet regretting that his own child had got only three of the four prizes at school. Hypocrite!
“If you say such things, thambi”, he said in issuing his version of Fatwa, “you don’t know what these fellows might do—to you, your family back home”. Bugger! “These fellows”, were the ones for whom he wanted to collect money from me! They weren’t some “these fellows”, they were his fellows; his creations.
Prosecution calls a witness, but god that IS nuke! I see Sivananthan Sivasegaram, thermodynamics professor at Peradeniya. Siva was my hero. You know, knowledge is what remains when you have forgotten everything you have been taught? That applies perfectly. I have completely forgotten everything Siva taught me! Yet I retain knowledge for which I owe him lots. My hero stands against me. I shiver and sweat profusely in panic. Okkoma ivarai!
Exhibit #3 is an old issue of Tamil Times. Witness is asked to read some lines.
“Intellectuals in society have a wider role – to act as catalysts for change in the society”, he reads.
“Did you write them?” ”Yes I did”
“Think the accused has lived by these?” Obviously not!
“QED, my Lord — quite easily done”.
Defense witness is called. My defense has its own nuke. In comes a lady with sharp dark eyes.
“Do you know her?”
“Yes, Rajani Thiranagama”.
“When did you last meet her?”
“A week before she left Liverpool to go back to Jaffna”
“What did you tell her?”
“Don’t go back, it is not safe, get a post-doc job here”
“I have a wider role”, she said, “a catalytic role, wider than just reading notes in class”.
“She is dead, acting that catalyst; you live staying quiet.”
“Precisely”, I scream. “That’s why I kept quiet. I was scared the same thing might happen to me. Remember I had already gathered NBU and FW!”
“Was it the fear of being beaten up or being shot? Were you such a coward?”
“Well no”, I confess. It’s my “injErungO appa” I am most scared of. She wouldn’t let me speak or write anything that might invite trouble.
I produce exhibit #4, the story of Julius Caesar. He had an “injErungO appa” in Calpurina, “Stay at home, I had a bad dream”, she had warned.
J. Caesar might not have met this fate, had he sent in a sick note to work. Image from BBC.
The judge directs the jury to return a verdict of guilt: “The accused, and those like him in the S and T tribes, failed to slow down the rise of nationalism. The case is well established. Sivasegaram defined the parameters. Thiranagama showed how to live it. This farmer failed to follow in those steps.”
I shake in fear. I sweat in the heat under the tent. I feel I am rolling from side to side. It is not voluntary. I am being shaken.
“Wake up”, I hear. “injErungO appa, enna kanavE kaaNureengaL”
Oh dear, a dream after all.
No tent, no thirst, no drink, no consequential urge to pee, no trial, but I can’t go back to sleep.
The jury might come back soon. They might find me guilty.