Sunday, April 18, 2010

A little day music in Jaffna

By Haasinee Halpe-Andrée

The Chamber Music Society gives a historic first concert in the north, and recognizes a mission to bring classical Western music – Bach and Mozart – to the people of the Wanni


It is early February. We – the Chamber Music Society of Colombo – are in the middle of our weekly rehearsals. Suddenly, the concert master raises his hand to say he has a special announcement. We are taking our music to Jaffna.

The response is a chorus of “Wow!” Three weeks later we – a group of 20 musicians – are on a bus heading to Jaffna. It is March 26, 9 p.m. We have a 12-hour journey before us, and the bus does 60 kph at its fastest.

The younger members of the group are impatient, while the older ones urge all to get some sleep and to try and enjoy the trip. And don’t forget: We are carrying a lot of prized music instruments worth millions. They have to be protected at all costs, especially if this is going to be a long and bumpy and perhaps even dangerous ride. Music instruments are not to be treated lightly.

I tell myself that I will sleep right through the ride and wake up only on arrival in Jaffna. This will not happen. The trip is an adventure, much too exciting and nerve-racking to sleep through.

Settled in for the night, I start to say my prayers before sleep. Jokes about snoring and ear plugs come from my colleagues, while the concert master sits in a corner and snacks on his dinner. One of our main concerns is how many rest-rooms we will get to use on our journey.

Our first stop is a bus stop/tea-shop in Galewala. Our ears are assailed by a Sinhala and Tamil pop version of ‘So This Is Christmas’ enjoyed by the people sitting at a table in front of us. Soundarie and I make a face, then realize we are being snobs, and that music is music, whether it is classical, rock or pop, well performed or not – a universal language and a powerful binding force.

This song could have been doing its bit to support the fragile bonding process between communities. It so happens that the owners of the tea-shop are a Sinhalese, a Tamil and a Muslim. We are a close-knit family, for sure.

We finally arrive in Jaffna, 13 hours later. After staying up the whole night, I was about to drop off to sleep and very nearly missed the famous Jaffna sunrise.

The Wanni

We peer out the windows of the bus. What do we see? Mostly a strange spectacle of devastation and development, side by side. A slow sun rises above a landscape of pale, pocked and pitted, battle-scarred roads.

I recall my last visit to Jaffna, 12 years earlier. The war was raging and we had to wear helmets and bullet-proof jackets. The soldiers had a battle-weary, bleak look in their eyes. This time things are different. Soldiers manning a checkpoint return our waves and greet us with huge smiles as welcoming and beautiful as the now completely visible morning sun.

The bus slows near a water tank that was destroyed during the war. Once-occupied homes are now empty shells. An Army Jeep rattles past us. In the back of the vehicle are covered plastic pails, containing possibly breakfast for a garrison. Yellow ribbons strung up along the road warn us of the lethal presence of land mines yards away.

The bus slows down near a sinister, ugly hulk of metal, battered and misshapen – the remains of the notorious bulldozer-tank that was famously destroyed by the late Corporal Gamini Kularatne, the soldier hero whose action on the night of July 10, 1991 is now a part of history. Six hundred soldiers were surrounded by 5,000 LTTE cadres at an Army camp at Elephant Pass.

An LTTE assault imminent, soldier Kularatne bravely confronted the advancing bulldozer tank and lobbed two grenades into the tank. His action was key to ending the infamous siege on the Elephant Pass camp. Corporal Gamini Kularatne, who at the time was a Lance-Corporal, died of his injuries four days later, and was posthumously promoted to the rank of Corporal and awarded the Parama Veera Vibushanaya, the Sri Lanka Army’s highest award for bravery. Corporal Kularatne is known as the “Hasalaka Hero”, named after the farming village in Kandy where he was born.

Thirteen years ago, in 1997, during an army-escorted media trip to Jaffna, we were taken to see this tank. Today it is a monument to a national hero, decked with garlands.

As our bus proceeds slowly along the uneven roads to Jaffna, we see patches of bright colour – pieces of sari material tied to trees outside kovil prayer stations. There seems a kind of defiance in what should be a welcome touch of colour to the scene.

Cattle on the road make way for us, twitching their ears. Female cyclists go by in vividly coloured frocks and children in white make their way to school. Their school ties hang straight and starched on their uniforms, and they are all barefoot. Not long ago, the Jaffna peninsula was the scene of great suffering and death, and now life goes on, while memories of a 30-year war recede like a bad dream.
It is 7.30 a.m. Jaffna town is wide awake. The streets are a bustling mass of colour as people head to work or to the market.

We get lost in the middle of town looking for our guest house. We stop at a wayside enterprise calling itself ‘Sorry Baby’. The “sorry” bit is puzzling. The proprietor and the waiters should be the opposite of sorry to see a busload of hungry customers at their doorstep. The man making kotthus gives us women a welcoming smile.

Chuckles our soprano, Mary Anne: “Hey, he knows his business!” Smiling soldiers on bicycles stop as we wave to them. We ask whether we could take photographs with them. They oblige readily. “Hondhata gaththaa da?” they ask with broad grins as they cycle away.

Finally we find our guest house and sit down to breakfast. We have steaming-hot pittu, a cream-brown version of the Indian special; the softest of string hoppers, with crab, prawn, cuttlefish, and chicken, and an interesting dish of chickpeas and brinjal, made sweet and sour, accompanied by kotthu and rice. Oh boy! We ordered the same dishes for all our meals that day.

After our late breakfast, we laze on chairs and relax before the concert. Soon it is 3 p.m., with just an hour to go. We clamber back into the bus. In the excitement, I lose a part of one earring, which had been held in place with a piece of chewing gum. The gum was a suggestion from our principal cellist Dushy when my earring came loose on the bus.

We arrive at the concert venue, the cavernous Veerasingam Hall. We all feel very hot in our all-black outfits, black shirts and trousers for the men and concert black for the women. As we walk in, we see a hall that is half full, with mostly schoolchildren. We were hoping for a full hall, but there is still time for last-minute and late arrivals.

It is 4 p.m. Time to begin the music. The orchestra is ready to perform, but the hall is still half full. Well, half-full is better than half-empty, they say!

It is so hot inside the hall that the perspiration is dripping down our faces and backs, soaking our concert kits. We look at the sheets of music in front of us through a mist of perspiration.

We start playing. In the middle of the overture to Handel’s opera ‘Agrippina’, somewhere in the audience a cell phone rings. Then a second cell phone rings. Through the corner of my eye I note that someone is getting up to send someone out of the hall. Close to the stage, from the front row, a foot-tapping audience member is keeping time as oboist Hasitha plays a rhythmic solo.

The applause at the end of the concert is rewarding enough – at least for a half-full hall. The audience crowds round the stage for a close-up look at the musicians and their music instruments. They seem clearly grateful for our presence. They must appreciate the effort to bring one hour’s worth of serious Western classical music all the way from Colombo, a journey that will add up to some 25 hours of travelling time, coming to Jaffna and going back to Colombo.

“Many thanks. Please come again,” they chorus. “Yes, come back again. Soon. We want to hear more of your wonderful music.” “We are sorry the hall wasn’t full, but we’ll make sure it’s packed next time.”
“Yes, you MUST come back. All of you. Please.”

With all the advance publicity for our concert in Jaffna, with notices put in the Tamil and English newspapers, and the generous sponsorship of Concerts Norway, the concert could have had more people. This was a disappointment.

Western classical music has a long way to go up here, just as we had to come a long way to bring Bach, Handel and Mozart to Jaffna. We foresee an uphill struggle to push serious Western music into this world of confused Westernization.

We spend the rest of the afternoon touring Jaffna. Much of what we see is saddening, the results of recent history: we stop to gaze at the magnificent Jaffna Fort, that has taken so many batterings, and the imposing Jaffna Library, next door to the Veerasingam Hall, where we gave our concert.

Jaffna is teeming with visitors and pilgrims from the south and other parts of the country. Many are doing their own cooking out in the open, preparing meals on open fires.

I am confused by the mixed messages I am receiving. Here I am in a great city, and surrounded by gaudy commercial Westernisation. This is not my idea of an ancient city with a rich history woven with strands of Sinhala and South Indian culture.

It is time to head home. We will spend the night in the ancient city of Anuradhapura. It’s been a long day, and we are looking forward to sleeping on the bus over the next few hours.

We are woken up at a checkpoint in Omanthai and asked to get off the bus with our luggage. Five sleepy-looking army staff – two men and three women – apologetically start looking through our luggage.

The boxes and cases carrying our music instruments must intrigue them. It’s unlikely they have seen anything like this before – black containers in a variety of weird shapes and sizes. If this was war-time, these objects would have come under the severest scrutiny.

At Anuradhapura, we get off at our hotel. I share a bedroom with Mary Anne. For the next three hours we talk about the concert and our Jaffna experience. We fall asleep, and when we wake up it is late morning, and we have almost missed breakfast.

Some of us hire bicycles to see Anuradhapura. Lakshman marvels at the ancient city and reminds us of almost three millennia of history and grandeur. Here too, gaudy commercial Westernization stands next to ancient dignified history.

Kesara, our resident photographer, is clicking away. I sit in the shade and sip a Dilmah Moroccan green tea with a cinnamon stick, thinking of Yarl-Paanam, slowly healing and opening up to the rest of the world in her first year of true peace in three decades.

We went all the way there and made music. It was worth it.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Sri Lankan Sinhalese And Tamil Community Celebrate Traditional New Year

Colombo DPA – Sri Lankans are set to celebrate their traditional New Year free of the threat of terrorism for the first time in 26 years, after the army defeated Tamil rebels in May.


Sikhs, Sinhalese, Tamils, and people of South Asian descent across the world celebrated their new year Tuesday. The celebration is known to Sikhs as Vaisakhi, Puthandu to Tamils and Aluth Avurudu to Sinhalese throughout the world.

Traditional sports festivals and other celebrations are among the events planned for April 14, as locals take time off and travel all over the country, including to the northern regions held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) until their defeat last year.

The traditional New Year is celebrated by both the majority Sinhalese Buddhists and the minority Tamil Hindus, who account for around 73 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively, of the country's 20-million population.

Sri Lankans are enjoying their new freedom to move around the country, as previously strict security regulations were relaxed. "We are having close to 10,000 visitors to the (northern) Jaffna peninsula from the south of the country," said G Kuganathan, news editor of the Tamil daily Uthayan.

"The majority are Sinhalese who were unable to come here during the war," he added.

During the past 20 years the main road between the south and the Northern Province capital Jaffna was closed, except during a Norwegian-backed truce from 2002 to 2006. Even then, few holiday-makers travelled to the north.

But this year, both civilians who were caught up in the conflict and soldiers are enjoying the most peaceful New-Year season for nearly three decades.

"We have given leave to soldiers - except for the minimum required number - enabling them to visit their parents in their villages," military spokesman Major General Prasad Samarasinghe said.

In the areas worst hit by the fighting last year, soldiers are organizing celebrations for the predominantly Tamil villages, he said.

"We are relaxed and have no tension this year as in other years. Even I can take time to visit my parents," Samarasinghe added.

However, an estimated 75,000 Tamil civilians displaced by the war still remain in camps unable to return home, largely due to the unfinished clearing of landmines, the government claims.

New Year celebrations have also been organized for the displaced persons' camps in the north.

As the checkpoints that used to dot the country's roads are disappearing, Sri Lankans are also travelling to other holiday destinations.

"This year we have seen more people in the market places," Wasantha Chandrapala, a journalist based in the eastern town of Ampara, said. "One reason is that there aren't any security problems and the people can move freely."

Ampara was one of the towns seriously affected by the violence, including several fatal bombs during the war.

Nearly three decades of war cost Sri Lanka the lives of over 100,000 civilians and around 23,000 soldiers. An estimated 7,000 soldiers were maimed and more than 300,000 civilians displaced in the final phase of the conflict.

The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa won a landslide victory with over 60 per cent of the vote in last Thursday's parliamentary elections, largely due to Rajapaksa's popularity for ending the war.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also chipped in with her own new year message. In the message released by the US State Department, Clinton said that every year the celebration brings the hope of new beginnings and fresh promise, but this year it carries added resonance.

“For the first time in decades, Sri Lankans from all parts of the island can celebrate together in a peaceful and united country. This is an opportunity for Sri Lankans of all backgrounds, living inside and outside the country, to renew their bonds and work together to build a prosperous, democratic nation defined by tolerance and respect for human rights,” she said.

Uthayakumari, "There’ll be no New Year until I find my daughter"

KILINOCHCHI, 15 April 2010 (IRIN) - Uthayakumari, 39, lost her husband and a son in fighting between Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and government forces in 2009, and is still searching for her daughter who went missing earlier the same year.

The girl was aged 16 when she was forcibly recruited by the Tigers in 2007. Uthayakumari and her family made an ill-fated decision to stay in LTTE-controlled areas to remain in contact with her.

“People in the country are celebrating the New Year this week. For me, every hour that goes by is an hour of suffering and weeping for the death of my loved ones, and trying to locate my lost daughter.

“They [Tamil Tigers] were on a child-abducting spree - they wanted to expand their ranks. My daughter never wanted to join the LTTE. They abducted her in December 2007 from Kilinochchi town and kept her in their camps on the war front. She was a beautiful child who never liked violence, but the LTTE took her away.

“We were helpless. In those days, the LTTE controlled all these areas [in Kilinochchi], so we couldn’t do anything about the abductions.

"We didn’t want to leave the war zone because our daughter was held by the LTTE. I didn’t feel it was right for our family to run away, leaving her. As the war and LTTE moved from Kilinochchi to Mullaitivu areas, we also moved with the LTTE.

"Later on, in April 2009, we decided we had to leave as the war became unbearable. A lot of shelling was going on.

“While we were fleeing Mullaitivu to government-controlled areas, a shell fell between my husband and my son. They both died on the spot; I saw my husband's body being torn into pieces. I was very near to them. My spirit died that day, and I’m now living like a dead person.

“Soon after the last New Year, I lost the people I loved the most. How can I celebrate another New Year? Nothing feels new or fresh to me.

“I have contacted the authorities to find my daughter. I cannot locate her at all. Please help me to find my daughter. Many LTTE-abducted children were rehabilitated and released by the government, but my child was not on any of those lists .

“For me, there will no New Year until I find my daughter. But I just don’t know where to look for her.”

New urban rituals in the traditional Sri Lankan new year

Like much of South India, Sri Lankans also sport colourful unique traditions associated with the annual celebrations of the new year. However the traditions and rituals associated with the festival are different from those practiced in South India and are heavily dependent on auspicious and inauspicious times which are published in all major national newspapers before the date. These include the observance of a nonagatha period (a few hours between the ending of the old year and the start of the new year where you are not supposed to do anything), ganu denu (literally translating to ‘transactions’ – good time to collect lots of money), the traditional lighting of a hearth, etc.

These traditions are held sacrosanct, and a failure to observe them properly is considered highly inauspicious. But like many traditional festivals the world over, some urbanization tends to creep in – mostly by way of shortcuts, a sudden need to accommodate time zones and great confusion on as to how a lot of new fangled technological devices (that are nevertheless an integral part of daily life) fit in. Following is a hilarious yet very true list of urban new year rituals in Sri Lanka.

01. The Kokis Run

(Kokis is a traditional food that is a must have on the table)

Performed approximately 2 days before the new year this ritual involves a trip to the local supermarket to buy kokis, kavum and other avurudhu (new year) foods because the stuff in the shop is better than anything you, your spouse or your maid could ever manage in the kitchen.

02. The Alco Rush

Performed at about 8.30 p.m. in the evening before the wine stores close, this ritual involves individuals standing in long queues to buy unnecessarily large quantities of alcohol because uncle Bebastian (Beba – drunkard) just might drop by.

03. The I-Wish-I-Could-Drop-By Storytelling Session

This ritual involves you making up various excuses not to visit hated relatives and colleagues who feel they are owed a visit by you and/or your family during the avurudhu season.

04. The Can-I-Drop-By Storytelling Session

For individuals who are tired of spending New Year’s day with their family, this ritual allows them to explore the option of spending the day with other -more interesting- individuals (most often those who have completed the Alco Rush ritual).

05. The Perpetual Chain-Sarong

Performed during the ganu-denu (gift giving) time this ritual involves finding a sarong someone gave you last avurudhu and giving it to an individual who will do exactly the same thing with it. It’s just sooo avurudhu to give sarongs.

06. The Time Shift Conversation

Conducted with relatives living abroad. If the auspicious time for boiling milk in Sri Lanka is 7.45 a.m. should your cousin in Little Rock, Arkansas fire it up at 9.15 p.m. on the 13th or at 7.45 a.m. on the 14th? Is he allowed to light a fire in his dorm room anyway?

07. The Microwave Rationalization

This ritual involves an individual attempting to explain to an elderly individual -generally the grandmother- why using the microwave to cook stuff when you’re not supposed to light the fire is perfectly alright. Will result in this incident being referred to when anything goes wrong for anyone in the house for the next 365 days.

A Happy Sinhala and Tamil New Year everyone!

Once Under Attack, Jaffna Media Get Reprieve

By Feizal Samath



JAFFNA, Sri Lanka, Apr 14 , 2010 (IPS) - About eight months back, delivery boys for this northern city’s main newspaper were accompanied on their rounds by government soldiers – the first time a Sri Lankan broadsheet was being delivered under armed guard.

Today, almost a year since the war against the Tamil secessionists ended in May 2009, life for Jaffna journalists is slowly changing for the better.

"We were facing threats from some armed groups and we had to seek protection," recalled M V Kanamylenathan, chief editor of the Tamil-language ‘Uthayan’ newspaper. Ironically, its protector – the army – was also accused – alongside other sectors – of intimidating this newspaper group in the once war-battered northern capital.

"We have gone through hell," said the newspaper’s deputy editor, G Kuganathan. "Things are slightly improving now," he confirmed. These days the military is polite and even apologetic when seeking to publish a press release, he added.

In the past, "they would demand publication [of a press statement] and issue veiled threats if it didn’t appear in the newspapers the next day," Kuganathan told IPS. The military still controls Jaffna, though.

Described as having the most vibrant newspaper industry outside the island capital of Colombo, Jaffna also faced the most serious threat to journalists in this South Asian country, particularly at the height of the 25-year battle against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The ‘Uthayan’ and two other newspapers in the northern city that has an estimated population of 750,000 had faced the worst forms of intimidation and threats to the media. Journalists and media workers were killed and newspaper offices bombed.

During the bloody conflict with the LTTE, journalists across Sri Lanka were under pressure from all sides, including the government and the rebels.

At least 15 journalists and media industry workers across the island state were killed beginning in 2006, when one journalist working for an online newspaper disappeared. Another 15 were either abducted or arrested by police based on trumped-up charges.

Yet no one was arrested despite so-called ‘extensive investigations’ by state agencies.

According to Lakshman Gunesekera, a former newspaper editor, Jaffna’s press suffered tremendous pressure from various forces. "They withstood unbelievable pressure," he said in a phone interview from Colombo.

Pressure on Jaffna’s newspapers, all published in Tamil – the language of the Tamil minority, which is mainly found in northern Sri Lanka – came from government agencies, LTTE militants that controlled the city at different times and Indian peace-keeping forces.

Indian troops came to Sri Lanka in 1987 to help enforce a peace pact between the Sri Lankan government and the rebels. When the pact failed, the foreign force turned their guns on the rebels. Even members of the press were not spared.

"Once a senior Indian officer threatened us with death if we didn’t toe the line," said Kanamylenathan in his modest newspaper office in Jaffna.

The pressure on all fronts was such that at one point, according to N Parameswaram, a Jaffna freelance journalist who works for the Reuters news agency and some Colombo-based newspapers, four militant groups wanted their stories published as lead articles at the same time. "The editor had to tell them that that would be the first time in the world that a newspaper had four lead stories," he said.

Two other Jaffna newspapers, though less popular than the ‘Uthayan’, are ‘Valampuri’ and ‘Thinakural’. ‘Valampuri’ is the mouthpiece of the pro- government Eelam People’s Democratic Front.

‘Thinakkural’ is a Colombo-based newspaper with a Jaffna edition. It toes the line of whoever is in charge in Jaffna unlike the ‘Uthayan’, which voices dissent, albeit with some restraint.

Both newspapers suffered threats and intimidation, though to a lesser extent compared to the ‘Uthayan’.

Gunasekera said newspapers have thrived in Jaffna because, next to Colombo, it is a strong socio-cultural centre. "This northern town has the most educated elite (after Colombo) and high literacy, and many want to write or express their views," he said.

Many of the ‘Uthayan’ journalists left the newspaper following death threats while at least six workers, including two reporters, have been killed since 1985 when the paper started publication. Until tensions eased, the newspaper’s office was bombed at least twice by government jets and Indian peacekeeping forces.

Just before the August 2009 municipal council poll in Jaffna, an unknown group threatened to kill the ‘Uthayan’ workers, including freelance correspondents, if they did not cease publication. The newspaper appealed to the President, who immediately ordered the army to protect the daily.

This led to the unusual situation of armed soldiers on motorbikes accompanying newspaper distributors on their early morning rounds in the city.

"I don’t think anyone has faced the kind of intimidation and threats Jaffna’s journalists have suffered," noted Chulawansa SriLal, convenor of Sri Lanka’s Free Media Movement, the country’s most powerful media watchdog.

On at least two occasions, the ‘Uthayan’ has won bravery awards from a group of local media organisations. These are no doubt well deserved.

Jaffna library trying to put the past behind

By Sutirtho Patranobis, Hindustan Times




Compared to many bombed out homes and churches in town, the Jaffna Library is housed in a starkly and stately, milk-white building.

A statute of goddess Saraswati in the courtyard and armed Sri Lankan army patrols outside the walls keep watch as students, retired government servants and academics step inside the library’s noiseless reading rooms with high ceilings to pour over books and journals.

“You need to take your shoes off (before entering) as this is a ‘temple of knowledge’’, former head librarian S. Thanabaalasinham said.

The library building was inaugurated in 1959 by mayor, Alfred Durayappah, assassinated in 1975 by slain Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, his first high-profile murder.

But for all the coats of white paint on the façade, the scars of a violent night in 1981 remain like a torn book in the dusty, dark corner of a shelf.

“We can’t replace them,’’ Thanabaalasinham said about the thousands of rare books and Palmyrah leaf manuscripts destroyed when the library was burnt down by a drunk, rampaging mob of policemen on the night of May 31, 1981.

Around 97,000 books and manuscripts were turned to ashes.

The library building was re-built; then, after a second attack, abandoned. It moved to neighbouring Nallur.

For years, the scorched building remained empty with bullet-marked walls wrapped in the lingering smell of burnt pages.

Rebuilding began in 1998 and the new library building was reopened in 2003. It now has more than 100000 books and 200 regular users.

“We are getting books from all over the world. Last month we received 1000,’’ Thanbaalasinham said, adding that library’s website was ready to be inaugurated. He expects that more students and researchers from across Sri Lanka would gradually start using the library.

He spoke about the library’s India connection. The High Commission of India’s first secretary Siddharth Chari laid the foundation stone of the building, targeted in ’81, in 1954.

“After it was burnt down, the Tamil Nadu government with MGR as chief minister sent books worth Rs 5 million to the library,’’ Thanbaalasinham said.


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