ABOUT THE BOOK
Can you even imagine what it might feel like to live under the shadows of terrorism? Not for just a day but for 30 long years? Remember 9/11?
A recent recruit in the Army, a woman running a boarding house for young girls in Colombo, a young mother in a terrorist controlled area and a small boy in a remote village all experience the effects of terrorism in different ways with devastating consequences. A young woman loses a loved one at the height of Marxist unrest.
But all is not lost.
There’s always another side and life goes on.
A bored woman cries because the Marxist leader looks different in a photograph, a young woman grapples with society’s disapproval towards single women, a boy forgets his mother tongue and a woman is disgusted with her life in the West.
All this takes place amidst death and destruction; the terror of not knowing. It’s like a 9/11 scenario played in day in day out. Enough drama for nine stories?
SYNOPSES OF THE STORIES
Breaking News is a collection of nine short stories. It is of mixed genre. Four of the stories fall into the “living under the threat of terrorism” genre or category. The Sri Lankan government was locked in a war against terrorism for 30 years and most of the time people lived in fear of being attacked. It was like living in a 9/11 scenario for 30 years. The four stories set in different parts of the country and portraying the lives of people in various social milieu and ethnic background depicts life during these turbulent times. Six of the stories are told from the woman’s perspective or have women as the central character.
Missing Pieces is about a young soldier who steps on a landmine during the first few days of his life in the army. He loses a leg but he also loses hope for the future. (See below for excerpt)
The Boarder is about two women, Mrs. Kaluarachchi who runs a boarding house in the capital Colombo, for young girls, and Selvi, a suicide bomber from the Tamil terrorist controlled north. Mrs. Kaluarachchi has no idea that the girl she takes pity on is really there to destroy lives.(See below for excerpt)
Photographs in her Mind is about Engamma a mother of two sons living in Tamil terrorist controlled areas. She loses her sons when Tamil terrorists drag them away to enlist in their army. (See below for excerpt)
Sepalika is based on a true life incident I heard about many years ago. The story is narrated by a young boy living in a border village who loses his baby sister when the Tamil terrorists ravage their village. (See below for excerpt)
Like Driftwood on the Kelani is the only story that talks about disappearance during the Marxist JVP troubles of the late 1980s that took the lives of many young people. (See below for excerpt)
The other stories are lighthearted and humorous stories about the strange and crazy things people sometimes get into. (See below for excerpt)
Man from the East is about a young girl looking for a suitable husband and the social attitudes towards an unmarried woman. (See below for excerpt)
Breaking News the title story is about the life of a bored young woman living in the suburbs of Colombo who suddenly gets upset when she learns of the death of the Marxist JVP leader. The reason for her getting upset is not because he is dead but because the photograph of him in the papers looks different. (See below for excerpt)
Boy from Wellawatte is about a young boy who goes to the UK for studies and on returning home during his summer break cannot seem to remember any of the local languages. (Read an excerpt)
Emerald Silk is about a young woman’s angst about living in the west and her final break out of the shell to return home. (See below for excerpt)
READ EXCERPTS
Missing Pieces
“There was something very wrong. He knew it the moment his foot touched the ground. His right foot. But he lifted it up anyway. The noise deafened him. It threw him away. Far away. And then he remembered no more. He woke up to a searing pain in his leg. There was nothing where his leg had been, except the pain, incessant, searing, gripping. How could there be pain for something that didn’t exist?”
The Boarder
“She resigned herself to the fate that she would face in the coming days that someone would call and tell her that Selvi too had been an unfortunate victim that had lost out to the terror of the times. How would she break the news to Selvi’s brother? She kept repeating over and over to herself. What could she say to that family that had lost a father, and now a daughter?”
Photographs in her Mind
“While others forgot as time moved on or the images dulled and dimmed like the spots and marks on old photographs, hers wasn’t so. She could never dull the image or shut out the memory. Her eyes would be closed but the images would stand right in front of her eyes. She blocked her ears with the thumbs of her hands, yet the sounds she heard continued to deafen her. The sights and sounds worked inside her, running over and over inside her very being as she watched the days go by. Engamma’s fears never abated. They lived inside of her, they lived off her. And soon they took over her whole being, looking out at the world through her eyes, showing the world what they had seen and heard so the world too was afraid to look and hear her fears.”
Sepalika
"There was no time to send a message to the army camp on the other side of the village. It was too far away anyway and would take about half an hour for anyone to get there even on a bicycle. Besides, the Tamil terrorists were approaching from the side where the road turned off towards the direction of the army camp. Whoever it was that went to inform the army would be attacked instantly. They would never make it even halfway. Everyone else from the village was already running into the jungle. It was deep undergrowth. Everything looked dry and parched. Even the trees looked tired. We hid ourselves on trees and under bushes and waited silently for the terrorists to pass. We usually knew when they had left. They never stayed for more than a few hours as they were wary that the army might get wind of their presence. But we didn’t come out for a long time; instead we waited until we were very sure they had left. "
Like Driftwood on the Kelani
"The public really didn’t care about the suicides. It was one less miserable life to contend with. Besides who were they, and what right did they have to interfere in someone else’s destiny? If someone wanted out he could have out. Life these days wasn’t worth living. Who were they to complain if someone wanted to end his or her life right there in the river? What was one death in comparison to all those forced deaths of the disappeared?"
Breaking News
"Pauline had a lot of admirers, all equally well-bred English educated people like herself. She had studied at a private school in Colombo and was whiling her time writing to the newspapers: The English press. She had no idea how to string a sentence in Sinhala and rolled her eyes up to the heavens if anyone mentioned Tamil. She was an exclusive member of the unwritten social minority that lived in Sri Lanka but professed an ideology that was as distant as the shores of the North Pole."
Boy from Wellawatte
"Maybe the stars were losing their influence after so many centuries of being consulted. Maybe the astrologers had pushed one too many buttons of the stars and they had decided not to tell. Or maybe the stars were just tired of hanging around all dressed up every night with no place to go except the same old spot on the sky and nothing much to do but grin and shine like the fancy painted women hovering around the night spots of the city. Maybe, like everyone else, the stars too were now charging and needed a little extra something to get their creative juices running. Maybe the encouragement the people were offering wasn’t enough."
Man from the East
"It was a major calamity, no less in significance than a landslide or a flood, to be unmarried after a certain age. And it wasn’t just the relatives who stirred the fires and kept the idea running, neighbours and distant friends added fuel. It was as if all of society expected everyone to be married. Or else."
Emerald Silk
"He lived in a place no less similar to a cardboard box. He called it his home and expected her to creep in with him; to snuff out her dreams of a future, to share the cramped existence he called life. Her back ached with the memory of crawling through the endless compartments he called rooms to finally lay flat on her aching back, exhausted. Only for a few hours and then the bliss was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell signalling the entry of the world into those cramped circumstances of a home. And she was forced to get up and smile her tears away. They talked about the beast living inside a box. How modern, how defined. Yet her eyes screamed for the traditional, for the usual that he rejected in his quest for the modern, not really knowing what he was seeking. He interpreted her screams as a high for the beauty of that existence. His existence. Never hers."
Can you even imagine what it might feel like to live under the shadows of terrorism? Not for just a day but for 30 long years? Remember 9/11?
A recent recruit in the Army, a woman running a boarding house for young girls in Colombo, a young mother in a terrorist controlled area and a small boy in a remote village all experience the effects of terrorism in different ways with devastating consequences. A young woman loses a loved one at the height of Marxist unrest.
But all is not lost.
There’s always another side and life goes on.
A bored woman cries because the Marxist leader looks different in a photograph, a young woman grapples with society’s disapproval towards single women, a boy forgets his mother tongue and a woman is disgusted with her life in the West.
All this takes place amidst death and destruction; the terror of not knowing. It’s like a 9/11 scenario played in day in day out. Enough drama for nine stories?
SYNOPSES OF THE STORIES
Breaking News is a collection of nine short stories. It is of mixed genre. Four of the stories fall into the “living under the threat of terrorism” genre or category. The Sri Lankan government was locked in a war against terrorism for 30 years and most of the time people lived in fear of being attacked. It was like living in a 9/11 scenario for 30 years. The four stories set in different parts of the country and portraying the lives of people in various social milieu and ethnic background depicts life during these turbulent times. Six of the stories are told from the woman’s perspective or have women as the central character.
Missing Pieces is about a young soldier who steps on a landmine during the first few days of his life in the army. He loses a leg but he also loses hope for the future. (See below for excerpt)
The Boarder is about two women, Mrs. Kaluarachchi who runs a boarding house in the capital Colombo, for young girls, and Selvi, a suicide bomber from the Tamil terrorist controlled north. Mrs. Kaluarachchi has no idea that the girl she takes pity on is really there to destroy lives.(See below for excerpt)
Photographs in her Mind is about Engamma a mother of two sons living in Tamil terrorist controlled areas. She loses her sons when Tamil terrorists drag them away to enlist in their army. (See below for excerpt)
Sepalika is based on a true life incident I heard about many years ago. The story is narrated by a young boy living in a border village who loses his baby sister when the Tamil terrorists ravage their village. (See below for excerpt)
Like Driftwood on the Kelani is the only story that talks about disappearance during the Marxist JVP troubles of the late 1980s that took the lives of many young people. (See below for excerpt)
The other stories are lighthearted and humorous stories about the strange and crazy things people sometimes get into. (See below for excerpt)
Man from the East is about a young girl looking for a suitable husband and the social attitudes towards an unmarried woman. (See below for excerpt)
Breaking News the title story is about the life of a bored young woman living in the suburbs of Colombo who suddenly gets upset when she learns of the death of the Marxist JVP leader. The reason for her getting upset is not because he is dead but because the photograph of him in the papers looks different. (See below for excerpt)
Boy from Wellawatte is about a young boy who goes to the UK for studies and on returning home during his summer break cannot seem to remember any of the local languages. (Read an excerpt)
Emerald Silk is about a young woman’s angst about living in the west and her final break out of the shell to return home. (See below for excerpt)
READ EXCERPTS
Missing Pieces
“There was something very wrong. He knew it the moment his foot touched the ground. His right foot. But he lifted it up anyway. The noise deafened him. It threw him away. Far away. And then he remembered no more. He woke up to a searing pain in his leg. There was nothing where his leg had been, except the pain, incessant, searing, gripping. How could there be pain for something that didn’t exist?”
The Boarder
“She resigned herself to the fate that she would face in the coming days that someone would call and tell her that Selvi too had been an unfortunate victim that had lost out to the terror of the times. How would she break the news to Selvi’s brother? She kept repeating over and over to herself. What could she say to that family that had lost a father, and now a daughter?”
Photographs in her Mind
“While others forgot as time moved on or the images dulled and dimmed like the spots and marks on old photographs, hers wasn’t so. She could never dull the image or shut out the memory. Her eyes would be closed but the images would stand right in front of her eyes. She blocked her ears with the thumbs of her hands, yet the sounds she heard continued to deafen her. The sights and sounds worked inside her, running over and over inside her very being as she watched the days go by. Engamma’s fears never abated. They lived inside of her, they lived off her. And soon they took over her whole being, looking out at the world through her eyes, showing the world what they had seen and heard so the world too was afraid to look and hear her fears.”
Sepalika
"There was no time to send a message to the army camp on the other side of the village. It was too far away anyway and would take about half an hour for anyone to get there even on a bicycle. Besides, the Tamil terrorists were approaching from the side where the road turned off towards the direction of the army camp. Whoever it was that went to inform the army would be attacked instantly. They would never make it even halfway. Everyone else from the village was already running into the jungle. It was deep undergrowth. Everything looked dry and parched. Even the trees looked tired. We hid ourselves on trees and under bushes and waited silently for the terrorists to pass. We usually knew when they had left. They never stayed for more than a few hours as they were wary that the army might get wind of their presence. But we didn’t come out for a long time; instead we waited until we were very sure they had left. "
Like Driftwood on the Kelani
"The public really didn’t care about the suicides. It was one less miserable life to contend with. Besides who were they, and what right did they have to interfere in someone else’s destiny? If someone wanted out he could have out. Life these days wasn’t worth living. Who were they to complain if someone wanted to end his or her life right there in the river? What was one death in comparison to all those forced deaths of the disappeared?"
Breaking News
"Pauline had a lot of admirers, all equally well-bred English educated people like herself. She had studied at a private school in Colombo and was whiling her time writing to the newspapers: The English press. She had no idea how to string a sentence in Sinhala and rolled her eyes up to the heavens if anyone mentioned Tamil. She was an exclusive member of the unwritten social minority that lived in Sri Lanka but professed an ideology that was as distant as the shores of the North Pole."
Boy from Wellawatte
"Maybe the stars were losing their influence after so many centuries of being consulted. Maybe the astrologers had pushed one too many buttons of the stars and they had decided not to tell. Or maybe the stars were just tired of hanging around all dressed up every night with no place to go except the same old spot on the sky and nothing much to do but grin and shine like the fancy painted women hovering around the night spots of the city. Maybe, like everyone else, the stars too were now charging and needed a little extra something to get their creative juices running. Maybe the encouragement the people were offering wasn’t enough."
Man from the East
"It was a major calamity, no less in significance than a landslide or a flood, to be unmarried after a certain age. And it wasn’t just the relatives who stirred the fires and kept the idea running, neighbours and distant friends added fuel. It was as if all of society expected everyone to be married. Or else."
Emerald Silk
"He lived in a place no less similar to a cardboard box. He called it his home and expected her to creep in with him; to snuff out her dreams of a future, to share the cramped existence he called life. Her back ached with the memory of crawling through the endless compartments he called rooms to finally lay flat on her aching back, exhausted. Only for a few hours and then the bliss was interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell signalling the entry of the world into those cramped circumstances of a home. And she was forced to get up and smile her tears away. They talked about the beast living inside a box. How modern, how defined. Yet her eyes screamed for the traditional, for the usual that he rejected in his quest for the modern, not really knowing what he was seeking. He interpreted her screams as a high for the beauty of that existence. His existence. Never hers."