Jaffna wore a totally forsaken look. The once busy railway station had been destroyed, with just a few crumbling walls to testify to what it had been through. I stayed in a guest house. This was a converted house of 
a Tamil family which had moved abroad fearing anti-Tamil riots. I spoke at a small gathering on the topic 'Tamil Nadu media and the issues of Sri Lankan Tamils'. As elsewhere, here too the people were less than forthcoming in talking about the post-war situation. But I could understand why this was; also why the few who spoke were so upset with the way Tamil politicians in Tamil Nadu hoped the reports of Prabhakaran being alive were true, and along with these the possibility of renewed war.
The cook of the guest house spoke after much prodding. He was a fisherman before the war and took up the job after his release from the refugee camp. Said he, “In the last leg of the war the Tigers took us along with them. We stayed in 11 places, everywhere in bunkers, while on retreat.”
One of Sri Lanka’s major incongruities is that you find Buddha statues and soldiers in close juxtaposition all over the country. They were all very huge. I could not dissect these two images, which always made me nervous. Every time a new Buddha statue comes up, the statue of some Hindu god (Muruga, Ganesh, Mariamman) is seen coming up as a reaction. In Jaffna my friend, advocate Rangan Devarajan, took me to meet Douglas Devendanda, Eeelam Peoples Democratic Party president and a minister in the current government. Said Devendanda: “Tamils can’t survive independently. A separate country is not possible.” He has faced 16 attempts on his life. When I asked him whether, as rumoured, it was possible that Prabhakaran might be alive, he only smiled. Then, as he came to the road to see us off, he said he would not have been able to do so had Prabhakaran not perished.
The journey from Jaffna to Colombo proved to be much worse than I had imagined. This time we took a bus. Only private buses take you directly to Colombo. The ticket price is Rs 2,500. I clambered onto one of six worn-out buses – all of which set off together under heavy military security. Till Savakachery and Elephant Pass we could see some movement of people. But thereafter you saw only soldiers. We crossed Kilinochi, the erstwhile head quarters of LTTE. Today it is a ghost town. A huge overhead water tank had been pulled town, and houses, schools, colleges, temples, churches – all had met the same fate. Lining the road were thousands of headless palm trees that from a distance looked like huge black pillars. Their tops had been lopped off due to fears of possible Tiger attacks. Such desolate scenes were hard to bear. When I tried to capture these images in my mobile a co-passenger said, “Be warned. The army men could be watching you.”
This was A-9 highway, which connects Jaffna with the mainland and Colombo and passes through dense forests. Here once again one saw nothing but soldiers, their guns turned towards the forest. My co-passenger whispered that the soldiers were there expecting possible attacks by LTTE survivors who might still be hiding in the forest!
a Tamil family which had moved abroad fearing anti-Tamil riots. I spoke at a small gathering on the topic 'Tamil Nadu media and the issues of Sri Lankan Tamils'. As elsewhere, here too the people were less than forthcoming in talking about the post-war situation. But I could understand why this was; also why the few who spoke were so upset with the way Tamil politicians in Tamil Nadu hoped the reports of Prabhakaran being alive were true, and along with these the possibility of renewed war.The cook of the guest house spoke after much prodding. He was a fisherman before the war and took up the job after his release from the refugee camp. Said he, “In the last leg of the war the Tigers took us along with them. We stayed in 11 places, everywhere in bunkers, while on retreat.”
One of Sri Lanka’s major incongruities is that you find Buddha statues and soldiers in close juxtaposition all over the country. They were all very huge. I could not dissect these two images, which always made me nervous. Every time a new Buddha statue comes up, the statue of some Hindu god (Muruga, Ganesh, Mariamman) is seen coming up as a reaction. In Jaffna my friend, advocate Rangan Devarajan, took me to meet Douglas Devendanda, Eeelam Peoples Democratic Party president and a minister in the current government. Said Devendanda: “Tamils can’t survive independently. A separate country is not possible.” He has faced 16 attempts on his life. When I asked him whether, as rumoured, it was possible that Prabhakaran might be alive, he only smiled. Then, as he came to the road to see us off, he said he would not have been able to do so had Prabhakaran not perished.
The journey from Jaffna to Colombo proved to be much worse than I had imagined. This time we took a bus. Only private buses take you directly to Colombo. The ticket price is Rs 2,500. I clambered onto one of six worn-out buses – all of which set off together under heavy military security. Till Savakachery and Elephant Pass we could see some movement of people. But thereafter you saw only soldiers. We crossed Kilinochi, the erstwhile head quarters of LTTE. Today it is a ghost town. A huge overhead water tank had been pulled town, and houses, schools, colleges, temples, churches – all had met the same fate. Lining the road were thousands of headless palm trees that from a distance looked like huge black pillars. Their tops had been lopped off due to fears of possible Tiger attacks. Such desolate scenes were hard to bear. When I tried to capture these images in my mobile a co-passenger said, “Be warned. The army men could be watching you.”
This was A-9 highway, which connects Jaffna with the mainland and Colombo and passes through dense forests. Here once again one saw nothing but soldiers, their guns turned towards the forest. My co-passenger whispered that the soldiers were there expecting possible attacks by LTTE survivors who might still be hiding in the forest!
leather, the wind in the hair and the throb between the legs (the bike, that is) is considered the greatest of kicks? Or, the one where the ultimate high is claimed to be afforded by cushy upholstery allowing for a liberating “I’m-in-control” moxie even as the engine makes the 5000 rpm sound and unleashes the studs..? “I dig both worlds,” says the man whose job is the envy of every auto enthusiast. Bijoy Kumar, Editor of Business Standard Motoring magazine, despite his best efforts to be neutral, lets slip his bias for bikes when he says, “Cars are good wife material but motorcycles are full blown affairs you never want to let go!” Tarun Sachar, however, minces no words when it comes to promoting “automotive nirvana”. This petrolhead at Team-BHP – India’s largest automobile community whose raison d’etre is to redline the Indian car scene – sounds dangerously loyal when she (oh yes!) says, “Size counts! Cars, being bigger and better, exude power, confidence and luxury and have the capability of trampling any puny little thing that comes their way (multiplier effect for SUVs).” So does ‘bigger’ really mean ‘better’? The bikers are not breaking into a sweat just yet.
1948 had already dealt a heavy blow to the newly-formed nation. The assassination of Pakistan’s first Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan on October 16, 1951, at a public meeting at Municipal Park, (now Liaquat Bagh), Rawalpindi, plunged the country into a serious constitutional, political and identity crisis. “After Jinnah, Khan was the only leader with nationwide standing. His murder shifted leadership to regional satraps. These leaders had their support base in one province or another. This leadership found it difficult to create consensus on constitution-making cutting across boundaries. Pakistani politics got fragmented as a result,” Dr Hasan Askari-Rizvi, Pakistan’s top defence analyst and a distinguished scholar told TSI. The uncertainty and chaos that engulfed Pakistan after Liaquat’s assassination under mysterious circumstances could be gauged from the fact that between 1947 and 1958, Pakistan had as many as seven prime ministers from different political parties and groups. Palace intrigues became the order of the day.
invited to preview book reading sessions, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (for which she set her fastest record at 4251 words per minute!) and more recently, The Lost Symbol, in London. A teacher of accelerated learning courses and an author too, Anne shares the tricks of the trade with Indira Parthasarathy…