Srilanka Diaries

True Stories

My Srilankan Mother

As I have mentioned in my earlier episode, I had some interesting experiences as part of IPKF in Trincomalee located on the Eastern Seaboard of Srilanka…

We landed in this beautiful place with its shimmering and clean white beaches for which it’s known…..

 Actually it’s local and correct name was Tri kon malai…meaning

Three angled hill..

 For the British rulers this Tamil name seemed to be a long tongue..so they simply anglicized it….called it Trincomalee for official purpose and simply Trinco for conversation

 Since we landed in the best season in September 1987..our job as Peace keepers between the two opposing forces, that’s militants of LTTE, fighting for the rights of Tamilians in Srilanka versus Srilanka armed forces backed by militant Buddhist collective….

Had been a roller coaster ride

Within two months of our arrival we were deeply in the thick of military flare-ups…..And Trincomalee was burning since it had a sizable populations of Tamils as well as Sinhala hell bent upon fighting each other to finish The task of my unit was to keep these blood thirsty opponents at safe distance from each other

 No matter what we did,  some violent group of arsonists and looters would attack the other side to kill, burn down the houses and loot what ever came their way

 I was keeping watch on one of these flash points called Marthadi Road junction where three roads leading to Colombo, Trincomalee and met…

 One day in the early hours my patrol in that area reported that a large group of armed Tamils had attacked the houses of Sinhalas near Mudcove road junction in Trincomalee downtown……

 I rushed immediately with reinforcement to that area and found my patrol fighting the fires….the attacking group had vanished on arrival of our patrol in that area

 On reaching the spot I found that though the homes had been ransacked, the looters did not get much time for looting as our patrol had responded fast

 There were seven houses which were attacked belonging to Sinhala people…I visited these and later stationed my troops to safeguard these till the owners came to retrieve their valuables

 We informed the Srilanka police headquarters at Orrs Hill area nearby to inform the owners accordingly………

 However, one home caught my attention during my inspection of the damaged homes…in that I found clothes and many valuables strewn all over…I found family albums, personal letters, music cassette s and other personal tit bits which made me imagine the profile of the owner…

 I guessed that the owner must be a young person, fond of western music, a photographer and with an open enjoying disposition….. My attachment for this home grew further and by next day I got all the valuable assets of this home transported and kept safely in a store with a list of items that were kept in our custody

 A week later, I was informed that the lady owner of the house had come to take away all the household items left in that particular house

I instructed my guards there to bring that lady to my camp after she had got everything loaded in her hired truck….

 It was late afternoon when that lady along with her household goods truck was brought to my office

 She was in her mid fifties, looked tired and seemed apprehensive as to why she had been asked by IPKF to come to the camp.

 As I entered the room, she got up and nodded slowly to greet me with folded hands

 There were two more men seated behind her who seemed to be the truck driver and his assistant…their clothes were well used and were barefoot

 As I entered I responded to her with folded hands and smiled at her

 ” How much was your loss ” I asked her in English, as I presumed that the home owners would know English due to presence of English magazines littered amongst other articles on the floor which I had seen during my visit to the house

” Thank you for saving my home from much damage…your Army people did s very good duty ” she answered

 We offered tea and some biscuits and then told her that my reason for calling her to the camp was to hand over her more precious house hold items which include a fridge, a Japanese TV set,  a small electric generator and some other items

 I gave her the list of items that we wished to hand over to her

 She saw the list and was in tears ” you did so much for me…how can I thank you ???”

 ” No need to thank…I was just doing my job ” I replied

She wanted me to keep the TV set as a gift from her which I politely refused….

 It was time to bid good byes and she boarded the truck after collecting the items from us and was still in tears and very emotional

 Finally I walked up to her with a carton full of her family photos and albums,the music cassette player with about 150 cassette and other personal item’s like letters and greeting cards which I had carefully retrieved

 She came down the truck after seeing those items and hugged me ” my son is far away in merchant navy and now I have met my second son ” she whispered

 After a while she wiped her tears and gave me a slip of paper on which she wrote her detailed address in central Srilanka town of Kandy….

” If you ever happen to come to Srilanka later, please come to visit me ” she said while waving from the truck till it turned out of sight

Col Verinder Kumar Bali, Veteran Indian Army