The Boat People

by Sharon Bala

  How abruptly their time together had come to an end. Now it was Mahindan who held on to Sellian, reluctant to let go. Sellian put his arms around his father’s neck, squeezing hard. Good luck, Appa, he whispered. Just do your best.

  Mahindan choked up at this, the words of encouragement he used to dole out before tests and sports matches returned to him. I will, he promised. He felt Sellian’s hot breath in his ear, smelled his now-familiar scent of Canadian soap and detergent. Be a good boy, he said. Don’t give any trouble.

  Break a leg on Monday, Mr. Gigovaz said to Priya.

  Thanks, she said. I’ll text you when I’m out of the exam.

  The women held out their hands and Sellian took one with each of his. Mahindan remembered that first parting at the dock, how hard Sellian had fought against separation, beating feet and fists at the guard.

  Shall we go to the library? Charlika asked in Tamil.

  Sellian flashed a glassy-eyed, gap-toothed grin and Mahindan could see his thoughts had already sprung forward to the rest of his day – bicycle rides and sharks. How docile he was now as he called goodbye in English.

  We’ll bring him to see you on Saturday, Priya said.

  Mahindan could only nod, a boulder choking his throat as Priya and Charlika walked off with his child between them, all three in jeans and T-shirts, appearing for all the world as if they belonged to each other. As if they belonged. They went through the glass doors and into the sunshine and Sellian did not look back.

  At the hearings room, Mr. Gigovaz stopped, the corners of his eyes creased with concern. Are you ready?

  Inside, there were murmured voices, chairs scraping. Mahindan glimpsed the judge, the interpreter, the blur of reporters, everyone waiting. Light-headed, he grasped the door frame. How am I to do this?

  He closed his eyes and saw the red earth of Kilinochchi, mellow dusk closing in. Chithra’s arms circled him from behind, chin resting on his shoulder. She pressed her face against his neck and hummed.

  Just take a breath, Mr. Gigovaz said.

  Mahindan inhaled and felt Chithra, her warmth so familiar, pressed at his back. It is time, she whispered. You must go.

  I’m ready, Mahindan said, and stepped over the threshold.

  Author’s Note

  In October 2009 and August 2010, the Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea arrived on the coast of British Columbia, bearing together just over 550 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. Those vessels and their passengers were the inspiration for this novel.

  As a writer, I’m interested in people, and as I combed through the articles and news reports about the two ships I searched hard for clues about the asylum seekers and their journeys. What lives had they led? Whom had they lost? And what did they make of this unwelcoming new land?

  Just as in the novel, there was a publication ban on the newcomers’ names, a necessary precaution to ensure their safety. But anonymity and silence also stripped these people of their identities. It was left to others – politicians, journalists, Internet trolls, armchair pundits – to frame their narratives, to conflate them into a faceless mass labelled “terrorists” or “refugees.” Occasionally, I came across something an actual claimant said – statements made at hearings, in rare media interviews, or in footage recorded from inside the war zone. These words, raw and heartbreaking, struck me as precious, so I borrowed a handful and put them in my characters’ mouths. I hope that by using the words of these anonymous individuals, I have, in a small way, given their voices a microphone.

  For all the press coverage and opinion pieces, details about the actual people who made the voyage were scant and the bread crumbs I found – a claimant’s profession, another one’s jewellery, the fact that children were separated from their parents and placed in foster care – were so sparing and bland that I was obliged to rely on my imagination. As a result, the characters in this book are my own and entirely fictitious. Physical appearance and family dynamics, personal histories and motivations – these were all invented along with the specifics of each refugee claim.

  Early in my research, an article about a migrant who had been a mechanic in Sri Lanka, where he was alleged to have done work for the LTTE, caught my eye. His situation made me question the notion of free will. How is personal morality maintained in the face of certain death? Mahindan was created as I wrestled with these questions; I put myself in his slippers and pondered how I’d act. Mahindan is a fictional character, of course, but sometimes I think he is me, or the person I might have become if my fate had been different.

  Fred Blair is also a wholly fictional character. If he seems familiar it is because there are politicians like him in every country and era, their rhetoric predictable and unchanging.

  Ranga’s suicide was inspired by stories from around the world of migrants who have taken their lives while languishing in detention and refugee camps.

  —

  The Boat People is a work of fiction, but many of the circumstances depicted in both Sri Lanka and Canada are based in fact. Gordon Weiss’s The Cage: The Fight for Sri Lanka and the Last Days of the Tamil Tigers and director Callum Macrae’s investigative documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields were crucial to my understanding of the war’s final days. The chapters “Witness” and “Lions and Tigers” are particularly indebted to these sources. A February 2009 Human Rights Watch report titled “War on the Displaced: Sri Lankan Army and LTTE Abuses against Civilians in the Vanni” gave me further insight into the civilian toll.

  For insight into life in the LTTE-controlled north, I turned to In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka by Sharika Thiranagama (chapter one), Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War by Zachariah Cherian Mampilly (chapter four), articles by memoirist Niromi de Soyza, and a particularly helpful first-person account by the late K. Mylvaganam that appeared on the now-defunct website sangam.org.

  The Sri Lankan civil war, and the incidents leading up to it, has been recounted as faithfully as possible in the novel, with one exception: the length of the ceasefire that began in 2002 has been compressed for dramatic effect. While in the novel it lasts only a few months, in actual fact an uneasy truce held for four years.

  For a crash course on Canada’s legal system, I relied on Refugee Law by Martin Jones and Sasha Baglay, “The Complexity of Determining Refugeehood: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Decision-Making Process of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board” in the Journal of Refugee Studies (volume 15, no. 1, 2002), and “Refugees Who Arrive by Boat and Canada’s Commitment to the Refugee Convention: A Discursive Analysis” by Alexandra Mann in Refuge (volume 26, no. 2). “Sun Sea: Five Years Later,” a report by the Canadian Council for Refugees published in August 2015, is an eye-opening account of how the government dealt with the arrivals of the MV Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady.

  Several articles, discovered in the earliest days of my research, set the novel’s tone: “Tamil, Tiger, Terrorist?” by Fatima Cader, Briarpatch (July 7, 2011) and “Strangers by Sea: A Tale of Canada’s Boat People” by Michael Valpy, Globe and Mail (August 13, 2010). The expression “arrival of the fittest” is borrowed from Rachel Giese’s excellent piece of the same name published in the Walrus (June 2011).

  Key sources on the Japanese internment were The Politics of Racism: The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War by Ann Gomer Sunhahara and This Is My Own: Letters to Wes and Other Canadians 1941–1948 by Muriel Kitagawa.

  The character of Prasad was partially inspired by Lasantha Wickrematunge, a brave Sinhalese journalist who was assassinated in Sri Lanka in 2009 for his fair-minded reporting. His haunting final essay, posthumously published in the January 13, 2009, issue of the Guardian, provided fodder for Prasad’s work, as did some of the facts of the intimidation campaign that dogged his career and life. Please read it.

  The novel’s Tamil characters have a dangerous habit of dismissing all Sinhalese people as villains. The truth is, there were heroes on the other side too, men and women like
Wickrematunge who, at great personal risk and cost, protected Tamils and advocated for their rights.

  Gratitude

  Thank you to the talented writers of The Port Authority whose fingerprints and red pens have been all over this project from the start: Melissa Barbeau, Jamie Fitzpatrick, Carrie Ivardi, Matthew Lewis, Morgan Murray, Gary Newhook, and Susan Sinnott. There are no words in this language or any other to convey just how much you mean to me.

  Stephanie Sinclair has been The Boat People’s best and loudest champion. More than an agent, she is a wizard, making the magic happen behind the scenes.

  My editors Anita Chong and Melissa Danaczko asked all the tough questions and made me sweat for every sentence. Margo Shickmanter provided invaluable feedback on the crucial final drafts. Thank you to Erin Kelly, Anyka Davis, Nora Fathalipour, Joe Lee, John Sweet, Gemma Wain, Andrew Roberts, and everyone at McClelland & Stewart and Doubleday U.S. who laid out the welcome mat, gave The Boat People a home, and made my biggest, wildest dream come true.

  I’m grateful to the brave readers who critiqued early (dreadful) drafts: Kristen Romme, Lisa Pickersgill, Annamarie Beckel, and my mother, Swarna Bala.

  Lisa Moore likes to say: “Put your characters in peril.” Thank you, Lisa, for your wisdom and generosity. I have done my best!

  Nadra Ginting told me that decomposing flesh smells like rotting fruit and then, in patient, excruciating detail, explained how to perform an amputation. “Lady Doctor” is for you, Nads.

  This book owes a debt to the vibrant and supportive literary community in St. John’s, to the more established writers who held doors open, and to the organizations that nurtured my work: the Writers’ Alliance of NL, ArtsNL, the Arts and Letters Awards, the Literary Society of NL, and Memorial University. May we always have the benefit of well-funded cultural institutions.

  Important parts of The Boat People’s narrative grew out of my family’s experiences during the ’58 and ’83 riots. I am thankful to my father, Mohan Bala, who shared those stories.

  Deep and sincere gratitude to those who took my writing seriously before it was a career, and in particular my extended family of Baird and Pickersgill in-laws, a smart and loving clan with impeccable taste.

  Tom Baird makes all that is good in my life possible. He is my first reader and chief supporter, the giver of unlimited shoulder rubs. He believed in The Boat People before anyone else – before even me.

  Discussion Questions

  for The Boat People

  1. Why do you think the author chose The Boat People as her title? Throughout history, the term “boat people” has been used to refer to different waves of migrants. Who did you think the boat people of the title were going to be? What other examples of “boat people” are you aware of?

  2. Consider the book’s epigraph by Martin Luther King Jr.: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.” How does this epigraph relate to the plot or set the stage for the themes explored in the book?

  3. Author Sharon Bala has said that she wrote the novel as a “meditation on empathy.” Discuss how the novel explores both the need for empathy as well as how it is tested.

  4. The novel is told through the perspectives of three characters: Priya, Grace, and Mahindan, both in the present and in the past. What do you think the reader gains by having access to these different points of view? What do each of these perspectives bring to the story? Whose story did you enjoy most? Whose story surprised you the most?

  5. Examine the relationships between parents and their children in the book. How would you characterize these relationships? What does being a parent mean to Mahindan, Grace, Kumi, Appa, and Hema? What sacrifices have these parents made for their children? Discuss the expectations the parents have for their children.

  6. On this page, Grace’s mother, Kumi, describes how her parents “kept quiet” about what the family endured during the internment of Japanese Canadians, because they “thought they were protecting us.” Later, on this page, Grace recalls her grandmother telling her to “Focus on tomorrow. No point regretting yesterday.” Priya’s parents and Uncle Romesh also choose not to tell Priya or Rat about their past in Sri Lanka but for different reasons. What would you have done in their shoes? How did you feel about the bond that develops between Kumi and her granddaughters as they join in her “family history project” on this page? How forthcoming have your own relatives been about your family’s past?

  7. Kumi is suffering from Alzheimer’s. In what ways does her illness reflect some of the book’s themes?

  8. On this page, Priya recognizes Charlie “as someone both fluently Canadian and authentically Sri Lankan, one of those third-culture people who slipped in and out of identities like shoes.” How does Priya feel about her own ability to negotiate between her two identities? How does this compare with how Priya is viewed by her Sri Lankan clients?

  9. On this page, Grace and her daughters review the Japanese terms Issei, Nisei, Sansei, and Yonsei, literally first-, second-, third-, and fourth-generation. Priya and her brother, Rat (Michael), are first-generation Canadians, while Grace is a third-generation Canadian. Yet, despite being born in Canada, they each have their moments of cultural conflict. Examine these instances. As possible first-generation Canadians, how do you think Hema’s daughters (Tara and Padmini) and Sellian will fare in the future?

  10. Many of the characters have to let go of certain possessions over the course of the novel. For example, Mahindan has to relinquish his grandfather’s suitcase, and Priya gives away some of her mother’s saris. What do other characters give up, both literally and metaphorically? In contrast, Kumi is constantly losing personal items, while at the same time trying to locate documentation such as deeds and ledgers related to the family’s former home and business. Sellian also manages to hold on to his Ganesha statue. Discuss the significance of what these characters surrender or hold on to, and how it reflects on their stories.

  11. What is the significance of The Nature of Things episode described on this page, especially in relation to what Fred Blair tells Grace in the final paragraph on this page?

  12. On this page, about the game show hostess on The Price Is Right, Mahindan remarks, “She was not part of the competition. Or she had already won. And this was the ultimate prize, being onstage among all the beautiful things.” Why does he think she is already a winner?

  13. On this page, the interpreter tells Mahindan, “You have come to a good place. There is room for you here.” Later, on this page, former prime minister Brian Mulroney is quoted as saying, “Canada is not in the business of turning refugees away. If we err, let it be on the side of compassion.” Discuss the portrayal of the Canadian refugee system in the book. Has it changed your perspective on the traditional representation of Canada as a welcoming nation?

  14. Discuss the concept of the “model migrant.” Over the course of the novel, we learn of the morally ambiguous choices made by Mahindan and Uncle Romesh. What would you have done? How did you feel about the comparisons Mahindan makes on this page?

  15. What did you make of Grace’s interactions with Fred Blair and Mitchell Hurst, respectively? Do you feel Mitchell Hurst’s suspicion of Grace is justified?

  16. In “Back to hell” (this page), Grace bristles at what she perceives to be ambiguities in Hema’s testimony, whether it’s the use of the word caught instead of recruited, or the varying reports about whether the army soldiers were shooting at the defectors or helping them to escape. Do you feel her reaction is warranted? What do you make of Grace’s tendency to avoid referring to the refugee claimants by name?

  17. Are Grace’s fears justified or is she being over-cautious? What decision do you think she makes in the end?

  18. Many of the migrants learn to speak English over the course of the novel. Did their experiences remind you of your own experiences learning English, French, or another language?

  19. Has your perspective on immigrants and refugees changed after reading t
his book? Is there anything you now see differently?

  20. Were you of the same mind regarding whether Mahindan should be allowed to stay or not throughout the novel? At what points did you waver one way or the other? How did you feel in the end?

  21. Discuss the book’s ending. Why do you think the author chose to end the book when she does?

  22. Some of the book’s most riveting scenes take place in Sri Lanka during the civil war. What other books have you read that take place during a time of war, civil or otherwise? How did those portrayals compare to the scenes in this novel? Had you heard of the Sri Lankan Civil War before reading this book? What were your impressions of Sri Lanka prior to reading this novel?

  23. When asked about how the historical events of her novel increasingly appear pulled from today’s headlines, Bala has said that she never expected the book’s plot to “sound like warning bells rather than history lessons.” How is the novel relevant for us today?

  24. Who would you recommend The Boat People to? Why?