caste-away

Have I told you about the ancient house where my office is quartered? It's a sprawling, old-style Sri Lankan house with open courtyards and high ceilings, made out of stone and brick, and in the garden, butterflies flit, hyacinths and red lilies bloom, and fruit falls from the neighbouring mango and sarsarapilla tree. (The papaya tree for some reason, stubbornly refuses to bear fruit). The house was built in the 30s, and the inside fittings, antique frosted glass and the like, reflect that. None of the cheap stuff. (Although of course the plumbing and electrical fittings could do with a hand!).

Anyway I was talking to the proprietor today, an old Muslim man who hails from the Eastern province, who is quite a character in himself. His heart, he says, belongs to the rice padi fields of the East, but his head is in Colombo, where his wife and children are. He said that in 1983, during Black July, with the worst of the communal riots when Sinhalese mobs were prowling the streets of Colombo, armed with scythes and chopping up those suspected of being Tamil (to be fair the Tamils did that too, but it is widely agreed that one side was more culpable than the other. This event is also a landmark symbol in the Tigers' quest for freedom, such has it penetrated the national consciousness). Anyway, during that month, the owner (Muslims were left largely alone) hid 4 Tamil families here, in this very house for weeks, in one of the back rooms, locked and refused access to by mobs. And then when it was finally safe, he took them to the refugee camps that had been set up.

The strange thing he said was that while they were in the house, as refugees, they all lived, ate and slept together. In the camp however, the same social stratification governing normal life, began to take hold. People segregated themselves according to religion, caste and origin of birth (northerners held themselves apart from the easterners and likewise). And in Sri Lanka, that was the impediment to true democracy.