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A couple of years ago , a girl moved from a long stay in her home country to start a new life in a place at the other side of the world, she didn’t know anyone in this new place, except for an old college friend …. She was eager to make new friends in town .
“Who do you hang out with?”, she asked her friend , “Not too much with Desis”, he replied, “ I have Sri Lankan friends .”
“Cool” ,she thought , she had met Sinhalese people before , they were nice.. “ They speak Tamil”, he continued , “they are just like Indians …”.
Oops , alarm bells started ringing in the girl’s ears, she liked her friend , but at times she used to wonder about his choice of friends, this was one of those times ,.
She didn’t say anything though … but her mind went back to 13 years earlier , she was out with her parents on a sunny middle eastern evening , when suddenly on the Radio they announced that the ex Prime Minister of her home country had been assassinated , it was pretty shocking ,he was a youthful prime minister , held the aspirations of her parents generation and he had just visited the city she lived in a few months earlier.
Because people from the subcontinent dominated this Arab city ,newspapers were quick to print out a special edition on the assassination, (this was before the days of CNN and cable) so the family watched their local channel for news and the gruesome details unfolded, it was pretty much all anyone spoke about that day.Personal political affinities weren’t discussed much at home ,the girl knew her mother was so disgusted with politics and politicians and India and as a principle preferred not to vote, Father though a traditionalist , had seen enough of he world and interacted with enough people outside his community , to warrant feelings that he supported Congress, and didn’t approve of the BJP .
The school day immediately following; the largest Indian school, which both the assassinated PM and his late mother had visited in their life time ; bid a somber adieu and the girl observed five minutes silence and after which classes were adjourned , personally the girl was glad to get out of school and classes for a day, but the sight of her social studies teacher crying and saying that he was really a young PM and had kids who just a few years older than the little girls in class , warranted the girl feeling that yes this was a tragedy and who were those criminals who could do such a wicked crime, she couldn’t believe that people who were so similar to the ex-PM had killed him. In years later those people killed more people in Sri Lanka and got labeled terrorists , the girls only contact with Sri Lankans had been Sinhalese Catholics and Buddhists.
Just the month before the girl landed in the new country , she and her dad had passed the memorial for the slain PM on their bus ride from Chennai to Mangalore , and her dad made it a point to see it and show it to her . It was a magnificent memorial.
Cut to the new country, the girl made desi and a non desi friends and eventually she met the Sri Lankans, they were pretty cool guys, and she realized maybe she was wrong just because they were Sri Lankan Tamil didn’t mean they were linked in anyway to those people who had committed those criminal acts, just a case of a few bad people spoiling the name of the rest ,she decided, at this point she also had Sinhalese catholic classmate, Curiosity got the better of her and she asked her friend what all the fighting and animosity was about anyway . It seemed that the majority ,who were indigenous, discriminated against the centuries old migrants from India .When Sinhalese girl was in school in Sri Lanka , the two groups were taught separately and kept separate from ach other ; a beginning of a life time of segregation, in higher education , where Sri Lankan Tamils were denied seats and on to jobs, this in addition to being considered outsiders in a country they thought of as their own (later after moving to the American south the Indian girl realized that African Americans had successfully removed a large chunk of the barriers of segregation using non-violence, MKG’s teachings were definitely not overrated).
Well, the girls Sinhalese friend had described it well , and it did leave an impression on the Indian girl , but she reminded her self her friends were not LTTE anyway.
School term ended and the Indian girl who’d pretty much slogged her ass of the whole term now had some free time , unfortunately her closest friend lived in a distant suburb with her boyfriend ,so she was a bit stuck about who to hang out with the rest of the summer . One Friday night returning after her part time job , she met a girl she was only acquainted with , through the Sri Lankan guys, the Sri Lankan Tamil girl was getting off work ,they both said Hi and started talking both didn’t feel like getting back home on a Friday night, and surprisingly they were dressed for a night out in the city, and so over hot chocolate , Archers, Doner kebab and chatting up Iraqi Christian guys and walking back home at 6 am in the morning , Indian girl realized that the Singapore born Sri Lankan Tamil girl and she had pretty much a lot of the same heartaches and life issues as she … eventually they started hanging out more often ,soon enough Indian girl visited her pals swanky apartment, it was downtown and tastefully done , Indian girl noticed lots of family photographs posted on a wall, and went closer to see the pictures, it was full of photos of the university prom, friends and family of the Sri Lankan /Singaporean/Tamil girl and there smack in the middle of the photos , was what looked like a grassy hill, but on it in white , possibly made up of flowers were the letters LTTE. The Indian girl was a bit shocked , her friend supported the LTTE, te same group that killed Rajiv Gandhi?? “There goes my theory” , she thought to herself…. Indian girl never really asked her friend about the photo or the LTTE, it was personal she decided , and she kept it in the back of her mind ,another dimension in her friends personality ..well time moved on Indian Girl left that city, Sri Lankan Tamil Girl gave her the coolest send off ever, and helped Indian girl choose a really cool place in which to invite her friends before the Indian left forever the place that had been home for a year .
More than that Indian girl held on to memories of one of the more enriching friendships she had made towards the end of her stay there, she was glad she let go of her prejudices and had been given a chance to realize that human relationships and allegiances are so much more complicated than black or white.
I guess the point of the story is that preconceptions are bad, its all a matter of perspective , one of my favorite subjects has been Systems thinking in a gist it is to think of the whole picture rather than parts of it individually and separately from each other . What happened last week was unforgivable, no one did anything to deserve it, but threatening to nuke Pakistan isn’t going to help… many of your future friends may be the ones that you plan on hurting
There are so many crazy people out there who sadly kill people, and they will continue doing so no matter what limitations you put on normal decent peoples liberty. Rather than sow the seeds of resentment ,we have to put our systems in our country in place so that when such an incident occurs again ,the first to help aren’t kindly slum dwellers ,but the people assigned to do it in the first place, in that sense at least we must emulate America .
Here’s a poem ,from here that I first wanted to use as a comment in this posting .
First they came for the Muslims
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.
Then they came for the immigrants detaining them indefinitely solely upon the certification of the Attorney General
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant.
Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.
Then they came to prosecute non-citizens before secret military commissions,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a non-citizen.
Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peek" searches
and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.
Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups
and I didn't speak up because I no longer participated in any groups.
Then they came to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without any charges and without access to lawyers,
and I didn't speak up because I would never be arrested.
Then they came to institute TIPS, the " Terrorism Information and Prevention System," recruiting citizens to spy on other citizens,
and I didn't speak up because I was afraid.
Then they came to institute Total Information Awareness, collecting private data on every man, woman and child in America,
and I didn't speak up because I couldn't do anything about it.
Then they came for immigrants and students from selective countries luring them under the requirement of "special registration" as a ruse to seize them and detain them,
and I didn't speak up because I was not required to register.
Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it only aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies
and I didn't speak up . . . because I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.
-Steve Rohde
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
2 comments:
hey akka, i love the story you wrote, its really meaningful!
nice story...you write really well
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