Gorilla Page 3

  After this incident, everyone began calling Jungle-wild ‘Gorilla.’ It didn’t seem like he minded. They even traced relationships using the name Gorilla, as in Gorilla Kumba and Gorilla Kunji Appu. His older son Rocky Raj was studying in the Catholic school then, and some of the other boys and the teachers began to call him Gorilla too. But Rocky Raj hated it, just as he hated everything to do with his wild father.

  * * *

  After the nets that had been staked out in Paravai sea were stolen, the fisherfolk complained to the Movement. They pointed to those in Kunjan Fields as the most likely suspects—and Gorilla was one of those captured by the Movement and brought in for questioning.

  The Movement thrashed Gorilla within an inch of his life, and he understood that things were not as they used to be. He couldn’t play his usual games anymore with the Movement around. So he went to Colombo in his usual fashion, and stayed at Fourth Cross Street. On the fifteenth day of his stay in Colombo, he received a note.

  Kunjan Fields

  Allaipiddi

  18.01.1985

  My Dearly Beloved One,

  I pray to the Mother of God for your good health.

  Yesterday our eldest son, Rocky Raj, left a letter and went off to join the Tigers. When Jeyaseeli and I went to Vangalavaadi and inquired of the Tigers there, they said that they knew nothing. When Rocky met Jeyaseeli in the morning yesterday, he told her that he was going to the clerk’s house for play practice. I think you need to get back as soon as possible.

  Your loving wife,

  W.J. Genoa.

  * * *

  On the North Road, a taxi appeared, passed Kunjan Fields and entered the village proper. Some people saw Gorilla inside the taxi and told his younger son, Michael Raj.*

  Michael Raj’s eyesight was very poor. It was only by going right up to a person’s nose that Michael Raj was able to recognize faces. His physique was definitely not like a fourteen-year old’s. He had unusually long limbs. He was light-skinned, with curly hair, and tall as half a palmyra tree. His palms and fingers were hardened like tree bark from the work he did hauling sand. Within five minutes, he could fill the box of a tractor—a tractor box contained a 3/4 keep measurement—with sand. When he was in third grade, the headmaster had written across his certificate with a red pen and sent him home for good.

  Hearing the news that Gorilla was going in a taxi into the village, Michael Raj ran home to tell Genoa. Then he stuck a kris knife into his waistband and sped to the village on his bicycle.

  When Michael Raj entered the village, there was pandemonium at the clerk’s house. The front yard looked like an elephant had rampaged through, for Gorilla had torn the front fence up and flung it aside.

  Now, however much one felt enmity towards another, no one in that area would enter the other’s yard or house by force in order to quarrel. If such a break-in should occur, nobody stood for it—the person who had made the forcible entry surely had to be killed.

  Gorilla was standing on the street. When he had torn the fence, he had cut his hand. The cut was bleeding. He was wearing his veshti as always, like a thug, wrapped halfway up his thighs. He had removed his shirt, rolled it up and stuck it between the branches of a nearby tree. Facing the clerk’s house, Gorilla yelled out obscenities—he had a loud guttural voice. As he spoke, he threw his long, gleaming black hands and legs about, in all four directions, jumping as he yelled.

  ‘Dey! Clerk! Let my son go. Where did you send him? Come on out, you eunuch! If I don’t send you today to the number six ward for the wounded at the general hospital, then I am not a son of a Jungle-wild. So he comes to you to learn about communism? Dey! You dirty, licking dog! You have six daughters so you need communism. Why do I need communism? You stupid dog, where is my son? I’ll break his leg and lock him up in the house. Where did you send him?’

  The clerk’s wife came out to the front yard and looked around. There was a crowd of spectators watching through the gaps in the fence. The clerk’s wife also began to shout.

  ‘Dey, You are mad. Why are you shouting in front of our house? Your son never came here and my husband never sent him anywhere. We will not be victims to your rage, okay?’

  Gorilla retorted with more yelling, refusing to believe her. ‘Sister, if your husband doesn’t tell me where my son is right now, you, sister, will be wearing the white sari of a widow.’

  ‘Brother, don’t think you are the only one who can act like an Island Reconvicted Criminal. We’ve got people too. The minute they hear about this, my folks from Mandai Island will come and murder you,’ the woman responded.

  ‘Only thing they could do is pluck my pubic hair. Dey, you eunuch, come outside… Are you a man? Dey, in 1979, I know that you sent in a petition about me to the government.’

  The clerk came running out of the house suddenly. He had tied his veshti up like pants. He ran at Gorilla like a man possessed, a machete in one hand. As he came up to Gorilla, he flung the knife at Gorilla’s face. Gorilla feinted to the side, ducked down and grabbed the clerk’s hips with both hands. The clerk dropped the machete and grabbed at his veshti with both hands.

  Gorilla did not plan on beating up the clerk. So he planted tiny slaps on the back of the man’s head as he growled, ‘Where did you send my child?’

  The clerk must have had a plan as he ran out of the house to fight. For as Gorilla was dealing with the clerk, his eldest son-in-law crept out of the house like a cat, and running up to Gorilla, hit him on his back with a wooden plank. With the force of this unexpected blow, Gorilla let go of the clerk and stood frozen for a moment, his mouth agape in shock. The clerk grabbed his machete and swung at Gorilla’s legs. All this while, Michael Raj had been standing under a tree on the side, watching what was going on. As he saw the fight take this new turn, he dropped his bicycle and ran towards his father. The son-in-law saw him and turned tail.

  Michael Raj chased him and caught him in four leaps. He placed his kris knife against his ribs and gave him a light cut. Gorilla then lifted the clerk over his head, twirled him around, and threw him onto the street.

  * * *

  ‘We will meet in the new nation of Tamil Eelam,’ he had written and signed clearly amidst the roses and butterflies of a New Year’s greeting card. The fourteen-year old Sivanandhi and her old father read it and wept.

  Their little red-earth village was about ten kilometres from the city of Jaffna. The young man who had sent her the card was her brother, who had joined the People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). He had assumed the name of Mao, and was at a training camp set up by the Indian government in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu.

  Tamil families suffer deeply because of young boys joining the revolution, a group that is ever-increasing. The homes of these young men who have left for training are drenched in sorrow. Their mothers long to see them at least once before they die.

  The Tamil Movements have stepped up their recruitment activities. They have been working upon school children. At Jaffna Hindu College alone, 163 students did not return to school after the holidays.

  Example: from the village of Mandaitivu, a tenth-grader named Gnanaraj, age 16. Hailing from a serene village in the islands, he joined the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) for training. His motivation? The Sri Lankan navy had hacked to death all the other men in his family.

  Young Rahim was in a training camp run by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Lebanon. (The training and support the early Movements got was pretty wide-ranging.)

  Juli, who had been studying at the higher secondary level, was trained with the group TENA. ‘The weapons drew me,’ he said, casually. But he changed his mind because of the lack of active duty with the Tamil Eelam National Army (TENA) and along with three other young Tamil boys, escaped from the TENA training camp and joined the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO).

  In the training camps of Tamil Nadu and in the jungles of Vavuniya, many young liberation fighters were for
med. When the Sri Lankan army intelligence intercepted the wireless dispatches of a liberation group, they heard the word, ‘new books’ being used. And in a speech on April 9, the group EROS that had training camps in the Indian district of Uttar Pradesh, said it needed ‘new books in a hurry.’ New books meant new people.

  The revolutionary groups go from village to village and hold propaganda meetings. This has been a great success for the liberation Movement, for many young people have signed up for training. Last month, at least 600 crossed the Palk Strait and entered India. Apart from this, a large number of young people get trained locally.

  The minute they enter the training camp, the new liberation fighters are indoctrinated with the idea of Tamil Eelam. From the beginning they are given a tough training in handling weapons and fighting in dangerous situations. ‘After a thorough training, we will start engaging in a continuous series of guerilla attacks and thereby move towards the path of a people’s revolution,’ said Sri Sabarathnam,* the leader of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO).

  (‘The new plan of the Indian government is to get international sympathy for Tamil terrorism,’ says the Sri Lankan President, J. R. Jayawardene.

  ‘By bringing the various extremist groups under its control, the Indian government is keeping them from becoming a danger to India,’ explains Vasudeva Naanayakara, who says that he believes in the rights of Tamils for self-government.)

  In these training camps, many innocent young men are accused of being spies and killed by the leadership of the Movements, claim some who have come out of these organizations.

  There are about five thousand revolutionary fighters, waiting in training camps, waiting for the right moment to jump into the field.

  Take note of something else. There are five thousand mothers waiting for the return of their children.

  * * *

  Rocky Raj didn’t sleep a wink all night. He stayed awake, waiting for the church bell to ring. In readiness, he had packed two of his shorts and a couple of shirts, all rolled up and stuffed in a bag. He had also stolen his brother Michael Raj’s running shorts, which had been hanging on the washing line outside, and stuffed them into his bag. He had heard that running shorts were a necessity during the training.

  When the church bell of the Immaculate Mother of God began to ring from within the village proper, Rocky Raj got up silently, gathered up his bag and prepared to leave. In the light thrown by the dimmed hurricane lamp, he could see both Michael Raj and Princie* sleeping on the same bench. His younger sister had thrown her leg across her brother in her sleep.

  Rocky Raj hurried out into the shed next to the hut that was used as a kitchen. He lifted his veshti and pulled out from his underwear the letter he had written last evening, and a box of matches. Holding his bag under his arm and the letter between his teeth, he struck a match and found the sugar container. He opened the sugar container and dropped the letter inside. ‘Mother will get up in a little while, make tea and then open the sugar container and see my letter. By then I will have gotten past Allaipiddi,’ he thought.

  It hadn’t become light yet. From Rocky Raj’s hut, the North Road was about twenty feet, if you were counting. On one side of the North Road, there was a statue of St. Anthony. The people of Gurunagar and Paasaiyoor had built it when they came here to work. (They say that St. Anthony is the patron saint of fisheries.)

  Rocky Raj hid his bag behind St. Anthony’s statue, and went a little distance into the northern sea. When the water came up to his knees, he washed his face and arms. His fingers and toes were covered with a rash that burnt with the touch of salt water. For years, Rocky Raj had been suffering from this skin disease. He had tried applying the paste of certain leaves said to be effective against skin diseases. He had obtained a milk-like lotion from the nurse who visited the village council office once a month and applied it with a hen feather all over the affected parts of his body. Every day, without fail, he tried bathing in the salt water of the sea. It was of no use. The rash listened to none of these treatments.

  In the distance, he could see the fishing boats getting ready to come ashore. Rocky Raj went over to the St. Anthony’s statue and knelt before it.

  ‘I don’t know, St. Anthony, when I will get to see you again. If I go away somewhere and die, I don’t know if even my body will get to come back here. Blessed St. Anthony, pray for me to Jesus.’

  He said the Lord’s Prayer five times. ‘O St. Anthony, you who performs miracles, please change my father into a god-fearing, serene, good-hearted soul. Please let us obtain Tamil Eelam as quickly as possible,’ he prayed with deep emotion.

  * * *

  What, this seventeen-year old boy begs God, ‘Please grant us our Tamil Eelam’? True… and listen to this!

  If you mentioned the poet Velanai* in the years 1978 and 1979, everyone knew whom you referred to. The man was very famous. Every two months when he was taken to prison and released, the Sudandiran newspaper would bellow, ‘Freedom Fighter Poet Released; The Racist Sinhala Dominant Regime’s False Case Has Been Made Public,’ and the Theepori would publish, ‘Poet Velanai Returns the Winner; Will the Old Dog, J.R., Bow His head in Shame?’

  The poet was known to the public as an educated young man who gave speeches at the meetings organized by the Front, a capable organizer of village activities, and the pet of Member of Parliament, K. P. Rethinam.

  When the dead bodies of Inbam and Selvam* were left by the police in Allaipiddi, near Elandaiyadi, those who went to see the corpses, whispered, ‘This boy Inbam came to visit the poet all the time.’

  In those days, the Sinhala navy men who went home on leave and came back to take up duty at the Naina Island navy camp usually travelled quite casually from Jaffna town in the local bus and then caught the launch at Kurivattan.

  When he came across such a navy man, he would kill him for revenge, decided the poet. For this, he needed a gun.

  The poet found out that the village chief of Velanai owned a gun; when the chief had lived in the Vavuniya area, he had used a powerful shotgun for hunting. But if he asked the chief for the gun, he would immediately inform the police. And to enter his house and grab the gun didn’t seem possible either.

  The poet tried to come up with a plan to obtain the gun. He was obsessed with the gun and could think of nothing else. Finally, he sent his mother to the village chief’s house to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

  Within twenty-four hours of the marriage ceremony, the poet had diplomatically negotiated a deal with his father-in-law for the gun as his only dowry.

  Within forty-eight hours of getting his hands on the gun, the poet and his companions shot not one, but two navy men. Then they disappeared underground.

  But on the third day, a United Nationalist Party (UNP) member, Sadaatcharam, gave him away, and the poet was arrested by the police at Thellipallai.

  * * *

  After finishing his prayers, Rocky Raj hefted up his bag, and tying his veshti high up his thighs, thug-style, began walking briskly southwards. Till he passed Kunjan Fields, he never even looked back.

  The sky was getting lighter as dawn broke. As he approached the village proper, Rocky Raj noticed a woman swaying out of the village, towards Kunjan Fields. He put his head down and walked fast. ‘It would look suspicious if I were to turn back or cut across the fields in order to avoid the woman in front of me,’ he thought.

  The woman drew close enough for Rocky Raj to look from the corner of his eyes and recognize her. It was Jeyaseeli.* Rocky Raj quietly undid his veshti so that it fell against his legs again.

  It was strange for anyone to show Jeyaseeli respect like this. She had draped a shiny sari over her nightgown in a hurried fashion. With her hair flying all over in the breeze, she stood on the street, rubbing her eyes, barely able to stand straight.

  ‘Did the woman have a drink in the early morning or hasn’t she recovered from what she had last night?’ wondered Rocky Raj. ‘Even Papa’s connections are croo
ked like him,’ he bemoaned to himself angrily.

  Rocky Raj could never bear to be in Jeyaseeli’s company. Whenever he could, he avoided her. But about four months ago, he had needed forty-five rupees to pay his school examination fees. He had his mother Genoa ask his father for money. ‘If you bother me once again for money, I’ll send you to China as child labor; you’ll be wiping tables there,’ threatened Gorilla. Finally, with nowhere to turn, Rocky Raj had asked Jeyaseeli for money to pay his exam fees. Afterwards, twice he’d seen Jeyaseeli on the street and ducked. A few days ago, Gorilla had grabbed Jeyaseeli’s passport, thrown it on the street, covered it with dried leaves and set it on fire. When he turned to Jeyaseeli, threatening to throw her also in the fire, she’d bolted. Since then her feet had not touched even the front yard of Gorilla’s front yard.

  ‘Of all days, I have to see her face to face like this today. If she goes home and says that she saw me with a bag in hand, Michael Raj will be immediately dispatched on his bicycle to find me. No… nothing like that will happen. St. Anthony won’t let that happen,’ Rocky Raj thought, and consoled himself.

  Jeyaseeli now stood in front of him, smiling. She couldn’t even stand straight.

  ‘Marumon, where are you going so early in the morning?’ she asked him. Only when she was drunk did she refer to Rocky Raj as marumon; nephew or prospective son-in-law.

  ‘I am going to the clerk’s house, aunt. For play practice,’ Rocky Raj replied.

  ‘What is the name of the play?’

  ‘It is called “A New House…”’

  When he saw Jeyaseeli narrow her eyes and take note of the bag in his hand, Rocky Raj quickly said, ‘These are clothes for the play, aunt.’

  ‘Oh dear. If you run around acting in dramas like this, what will happen to your studies?’

  ‘I wrote my exams, you remember? Well, I am awaiting the results, aunt.’

  ‘Rocky, are you expecting excellent results?’

  ‘Yes, aunt.’

  Jeyaseeli slid her hand into her blouse and pulled out, from between her breasts, a folded five-rupee note. She gave it to Rocky and laughing with delight shook his hands non-stop. ‘After returning from Saudi Arabia, the woman seems not to be all there,’ Rocky thought.