Harmony Narrative A son remembers advice of a father who taught him never to hate

Many who are abroad find life tough there and they move away from their culture but for those of us who remain here, we might not have posh lives and foreign 

citizenship, but we are still in the land of our birth and we remain here trying to create for ourselves a peaceful future – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

By Suryamithra Vishwa

We are in the last lap of the month of July. Every year this month brings to Sri Lankans memories of a darkness that sears our minds. It was a time when mob violence took over sanity and the image of the nation was tarnished. The anti-Tamil riots of 1983 occurred 37 years ago but the memory of it lives on. 

Last week we featured the narrative of a carpenter who was then 18 years old who together with other youth went around in small gangs saving fellow human beings from having their houses burnt or looted and their lives ended prematurely by marauding criminals.

I did not become a doctor like my father, or any famous personality like him, but I became a human being like him. To-date some of my best friends are Sinhalese. I do not see the ethnicity. I see the human. I learnt not to judge an entire race by the acts of a few which were in 1983 camouflaged to seem as if it were the work of the entire Sinhalese population. This is not so. I know that and many Tamils know that. But what matters is not the past but what we make of the future

This week we feature the narrative of a son of well-known Sri Lankan Tamil doctor during the 1980s who had represented Sri Lanka at many international medical conferences and whose family narrowly escaped the violence. This narrative is partly a recollection of the July riots but mostly the memory of a father who diligently taught his two sons the lesson to never give in to hate. This therefore can be a lesson to all parents on how to stand up to what is right and above all make the saving of human lives priority, whatever the circumstances.

The name of the doctor and his children are withheld on request. It is the key message of their story that is important and we narrate as follows the words of the now 50-year-old Gobi, as he prefers to be referred to;

“I was then 13 years old. I went to a leading Tamil school in Colombo. My father was always busy in hospital. He was working at a government hospital. He was famous. More than that he was a wonderful human being. He did not do private practice but our house was always full of people coming to him for medicines. These were mostly Sinhalese people. He was known never to charge anyone who came to our home seeking treatment. He was much sought-after in the international allopathic medicine circuit. He used to often go off on international conferences.

“We lived in the area of Wellawatte. Our road had many boys my age. There were Muslims, Christians and Buddhists. We used to play cricket down our road. Our house was nondescript and surrounded by non-Tamil houses. On that fatal day – 23 July 1983, the day the riots started, I set off to school but soon after I reached the bus halt I was told by another school boy not to proceed and that there was some trouble brewing. The day before two of my relatives had come home from abroad and they did not believe any of the stories that began circulating in the morning that armed gangs were heading to destroy houses. Actually by 22nd the troublemakers who plotted this had started organising themselves.

“There was a hole in our door and we could see down the road. We used it as a peephole to see if the thugs were coming to attack us. By that night, 23 July night, it was only my mother, me and my brother and our two relatives who were house guests. My father had gone off to my school which had been converted as a refugee camp that evening when people were directed to schools and similar buildings to house Tamils whose homes were destroyed. My mother was a very gentle and mild, very devout Hindu who had firm faith in the protection of the gods. She showed no outward fear at being alone in the home without my father while the whole of Colombo – the Tamil half – was burning. 

“Our house was sandwiched between Muslim, Sinhala and Burgher houses, so it was probably very hard to pin point us as a Tamil household and as a result, the whole month that my father virtually lived at the nearest refugee camp, treating patients there, we were unharmed. It could also be that the Sinhala and Muslim houses at the top of the road chased off whoever the thugs who came looking for Tamil homes. There were some prestigious families down our road and they would certainly have prevented any of the villains who wanted to stir up trouble down our road.

“My father did his best to serve the Tamils at the refugee camps. But he did so the way he had always done to all the persons who came seeking his help. I do not think he ever thought that he was serving a community special to him because he was from that ethnic group. However he was distraught to see the sufferings of the Tamils. We heard how people were killed. Most of us could not believe that this was happening. But it is now the past. I do not want to dwell much on it.

“After the ’83 riots my father went back to work at the hospital with the same dedication and immune to racial differences. Other senior as well as junior doctors who worked with him began reprimanding him for being so considerate of the Sinhalese even after the black July of ’83. They had opined that going by what happened in 1983, that the Sinhalese were a people who did not know gratitude and that they had killed so many Tamil doctors and asked why my father was even now, when Tamils were so distraught and leaving the country after the riots, were acting as if nothing happened and treating the Sinhalese with the same kindness and extreme compassion as before.

“After tolerating these kinds of comments for a while, my father had called all these doctors together and told them that they should immediately stop thinking in this manner and that their job is not one that segments people by ethnicity or religion. He also told them that it was not their task to judge. My father was well aware that the riots were a pre-planned thing. We have lived amongst the Sinhalese for decades and it was not that they suddenly turned against us. My father had explained to them as he did to us that murders and looters had no ethnic barriers. We knew cases where few Tamils also took part in the looting and so we know the truth in this.”

“My mother complemented my father’s qualities. I learnt from my mother never to hurt anyone. Never to talk roughly. Both of them are not alive today. Most of my other family members are abroad. But I continued to live here, in Sri Lanka. I did diverse jobs and stayed on in my country as there is no other place I could call my home. I did not become a doctor like my father, or any famous personality like him, but I became a human being like him. To-date some of my best friends are Sinhalese. I do not see the ethnicity. I see the human. I learnt not to judge an entire race by the acts of a few which were in 1983 camouflaged to seem as if it were the work of the entire Sinhalese population. This is not so. I know that and many Tamils know that. But what matters is not the past but what we make of the future.”

The war is now over. And it is 37 years since the anti-Tamil riots of 1983. It is up to us to learn what we can from these incidents. I am often nostalgic for the past before ’83. There was a Tamil-owned vegetarian eatery – Murugan lodge – where the food was very tasty and affordable and patronised by Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims alike. These places do not exist now like they did before. But in our minds some of these places exist the way it was and we relive those memories. To live in our country and to live simply is what many like me want

“I think that much of the future belongs to what ordinary citizens do and their efforts for unity. I eat in diverse boutiques; Sinhalese-owned, Tamil-owned and Muslim-owned. I do not regulate my association to just one ethnic group. All in all I am glad I did not leave this country. Yet, during the war we faced many problems. We were in Colombo but we were scared even to entertain any friends or relatives from the north as this would be misunderstood. Checking being carried out at all odd hours in Tamil houses in Colombo was normal during the war.

“The war is now over. And it is 37 years since the anti-Tamil riots of 1983. It is up to us to learn what we can from these incidents. I am often nostalgic for the past before ’83. There was a Tamil-owned vegetarian eatery – Murugan lodge – where the food was very tasty and affordable and patronised by Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims alike. These places do not exist now like they did before. But in our minds some of these places exist the way it was and we relive those memories. To live in our country and to live simply is what many like me want. Many who are abroad find life tough there and they move away from their culture but for those of us who remain here, we might not have posh lives and foreign citizenship, but we are still in the land of our birth and we remain here trying to create for ourselves a peaceful future.”