Something funny happened aboard the Yal Devi

By Catapult Thangavelu from Kappang Highway

(April 20, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Just as the Yal Devi was about to pull off from the Madawachiya Station Colombo bound, two white guys evidently in their mid-thirties hurriedly boarded the train. There was a sigh of relief on their faces; a colleague or more of them had rushed them from somewhere in Wanni in what appeared to be an NGO or INGO vehicle.

Each carried a tight-packed backpack and a piece of hand luggage and took the two vacant spots opposite to mine. The train was virtually empty and that was strange unless of course people in the area suspected a possible Tiger ambush. Obviously these two were on their way to Colombo but it took a couple of hours for me to realize they were going home somewhere in Northern Europe.

They did glance at me on a couple of occasions, dressed I was in seen-better days Kalki nationals and must have taken me for a farmer or at the most a low-rung village cultivation officer. My sixth sense gave me the notion there could be some fun on this journey provided I pretended not to know any English and for that matter, hardly lettered. This is one of my arrows in my quiver and I eke out a lot of fun employing it to advantage.

I get a lot of mileage indulging in Tamil only; feel the real nature and the arrogance of the so-called educated more that way. Once a haughty Tamil guy getting off the overnight Yalpanam Express at the Fort Station demanded I carry his parcel of murunga, kaththarikai and nalla ennai (drumsticks, brinjal and gingley oil) from the platform to his waiting car outside.

On another occasion I was nearly thrown out at the Ragama Station from the Yal Devi to Jaffna when the fellow passengers thought I was intruding in to the Second Class when I should be on the third. Fortunately, the cabin officer arrived on the scene and to the hearing of everybody, all of them Tamils, he “excessed” by ticket to the Air-Conditioned bogey with the compliments of the CGR.

Their jaws dropped from Adam’s Peak to Kelani Valley when he told them I was from a leading Colombo daily and was a regular client of the CGR. It was then I realized how much caste and class are strangling factors in the Jaffna society, a kind of Nam-Muddal obsession, may be insanity.

Pretending not to know English came in quite handy during the Kappang Highway assignment. Even Thamilselvan, our dear departed forever false-smiley Zoo-Pah thought Thangavelu was one of them. Our team operated right under his nose! There was one occasion when the Norwegian arch-conspirator Erik Solheim was meeting the not 5.2 Prabhakaran and that was quite a shocking experience to see the dummy playing the Great Leader.

This was just before the Oslo conference where the LTTE ended up speechless without a speechmaker and even that lawyer Rudrakumaran, Mayor Visuvanathan’s son from New York could not help them. What could have Zoo-Pah done who hardly knew ten words in English? They were shoot, shave, kill, traitor, tiger, gun, rocket, bunker and a couple Greco-Saxon words in Tamil slang version.

Back to journey-time on the Yal Devi roaring towards Parasangaweva, it was the nastier looking guy who tried to check whether I could communicate with them. Taking a lot of trouble and with some facial contortions, he asked me, “You speak inglees?” I looked empty of face and said, “yay . . . . . .ya and hand-gestured negatively. He said something to his friend in German with a Munchen accent and came back to me. “You, you go kulambu?

I know karuthak kulambu, fish kulambu and meat kulambu and even brinjal kulambu and why cannot these fellows say “Colombo” I wondered. Anyway I said, “yah kulambu” to keep the ping and the pong going. By this time they must have decided that I hardly knew English, certainly not Deutsch.

For the next one hour or so they were fervently discussing life in Wanni, the Tigers and were in fact quite angry they were asked to leave Sri Lanka and the departure to be instant; obviously something had gone wrong. I noticed from the luggage tag that one was from Germany and the other from Switzerland. Officially they were NGO volunteers and that is what I gathered but soon concluded they have had some special training and had come to Wanni as a posting to undertake some special tasks, call it a devious mission.

They would have died of shock had they known I had spent four years in Germany and mastered the country’s language. They took me evidently for a middle school drop out, the clothes I wore obviously giving that impression and spoke only Tamil. Now and then they would watch me with inquiring and even probing eyes perhaps wondering about some aspects of me they would like to know.

Finally, the shorter guy moved next to me and asked in faltering Tamil, “neengal Kilinochchi arla” (Are you Kilinochchi person?). I head-gestured up and down. At that point the tall guy told the short guy to ask me whether I support the Tigers. I had difficulty controlling my smile but managed it with a face all vacant. “Ungalukku puli virupama?”(Do you like the Tiger?). I pretended a forced smile, and said, “amaam, puli viruppam” (yes, like Tiger). At that point the taller guy seated in front of me made the three-eared bunny signal of approval with his palm and fingers with the thumb and the pointer circled like a rabbit’s face, and a smile that lit his face.

It was quite evident here were two INGOs from Europe enthusiastic about the LTTE and they were being sent home. “Appa ungalukku Eelam venum” (therefore you want Eelam), asked the tall fellow and I said, “yah,” and he was mightily pleased.

Unfortunately, I had to leave all the talking to them and they labored hard to dissect my mind and I tried hard to play poker to keep the embers aglow to really find out what they were up to in Wanni and why they were leaving the country in a hurry.

It appeared from what I gathered from their animated discussion in Deutsch, the quit order was given to them the previous night. Their seats were booked for the flight out of Bandaranaike International on a Srilankan Airlines flight to a European destination possibly Frankfurt. Both seemed familiar with matters of high technology and communications but some of the terms they used were beyond me to make head or tail out of them.

But it was quite clear to me that these guys were not rural development volunteers or anything of that kind but experts in their field or fields and were in Wanni involved in some dubious activities to help the Tigers. They sounded quite critical of the Sri Lankan government and did not even have good words for India.

Passing Polgahawela, I heard them talking about undersea craft and how efficient they could be in the waters off the eastern coast of Sri Lanka. One of them evidently had been in Thailand during his stay in Sri Lanka as if on a brief holiday there. He did make references to a spot somewhere near there closer to the Andamans but he was more elaborate on the pleasure spots of Bangkok and Pattaya, I guess that’s the place.

During our Kappang Highway days we have seen many of these overseas volunteers more than active by the kind of relationships they were savouring with the LTTE personnel than the Wanni people. Although we did have some reservations, we could not believe that people who came as volunteers to work among the Wanni people were more involved with the LTTE. But now we know that this was all a cruel conspiracy to help the LTTE.

The two guys on the Yal Devi have done what their masters must have asked them to do and behind all these there must be some force, certainly international, that must be directing Tiger terrorism in Sri Lanka.

-Sri Lanka Guardian