The Seasons of Trouble

by Rohini Mohan

  They drove through the night without stopping. Sarva didn’t sleep a wink. At dawn he was groggy and feverish; his nerves were shot. He brushed his teeth, rinsing from a bottle of water, and changed his shirt in the van. They entered through the back gate of the embassy. Later, when he would overanalyse what had happened and superstitiously attach meaning to every minor event, he would consider this the first bad sign, an omen that his life would soon be ruined: you never enter through the back door.

  Then he was annoyed about having to give his statement to a Muslim official. They speak a different type of Tamil, Sarva hissed to Randy. ‘He might write things wrong—wrong on purpose, I mean—and misrepresent me!’ The second-largest minority group in the country, Sri Lankan Muslims also spoke Tamil, and their vocabulary was indeed slightly different from Sarva’s Jaffna Tamil. But so was that of plantation Tamils and Indian Tamils, and Sarva would never have become suspicious so quickly of someone from those communities. This was another of the Tigers’ unfortunate legacies to the Tamils. Even a Colombo boy like Sarva could buy in to this unfair stereotype of the backstabbing Muslim.

  Randy just whispered to Sarva that he’d better shut up because he had no choice here. ‘I’m sure the interview will be all right,’ he added, more reassuringly.

  The interview couldn’t have gone worse. Sarva’s nerves made him mix up the dates, contradict himself, and forget crucial details. He was a babbling mess, and even as he exited the office, he knew he would not get an asylum visa. He found Randy waiting outside in the van. ‘Kote vittiten,’ Sarva said, choking on the phrase, one he used in school when he failed an exam.

  ‘Leave it!’ Randy said. ‘We’ll go to the office and you can meet Elizabeth,’ he added with a wink, forcing Sarva to laugh.

  Elizabeth Ogave turned out to be a tough South African woman, stout and as tall as Sarva, with a manner that screamed efficiency. As soon as he saw her, Sarva felt better. She was the election project coordinator at NP and was confidence personified. She spoke compassionately, and her quick manner shrank any obstacle into a petty nuisance. Sarva imagined she would beat up any number of people for him. ‘What a woman!’ he whistled to Randy when she was out of earshot. By the time it was five in the evening, and Sarva was already falling for Elizabeth, she decided to send him back to the Bataramulla seminary.

  ‘Is that okay?’ she asked, and he liked her for pretending that he had any say in the matter.

  Brother Hendrick was happy to have Sarva back, and threw him a welcome-home party with the rest of the residents. ‘No drinks,’ he said, ‘except tea.’ Sarva told a rapt Brother Hendrick about Elizabeth, exaggerating her good looks and his own smooth talk. He forgot for a few hours why he was there until someone fished out a camera to take photographs; then he left hurriedly with an unconvincing lie about hearing his phone ring.

  A few days later, Randy came by with a long face. The Sri Lankan immigration authorities had deported Elizabeth, too. Sarva’s heart sank. The NP was hurtling towards shutdown.

  ‘You may be out of job soon,’ he told Randy.

  ‘Yes, man, and you may be dead soon.’

  That night, Randy smuggled a bottle of Old Reserve arrack into the seminary, and Sarva got plastered for the first time since his shipping days. The only line he recalled from that night was Randy assuring him, ‘There are others, don’t worry!’ He might have meant other NGOs, but it could as well have been about other women.

  And sure enough, in a week, Sarva had reason to feel hopeful. Randy said a local NGO had agreed to take on Sarva’s case, and one of their employees would come to the seminary to meet him. The NGO was Colombo-based and worked on press freedom, illegal detentions and disappearances. It had recently started campaigning for the release of some high-profile detainees.

  This was uplifting news, but did he really have to face another interview? ‘They speak Tamil?’ a tired Sarva asked Randy. ‘Will you be coming to translate?’

  ‘No, the woman is Sinhalese,’ Randy said. ‘Her name is Miss Shirleen. You can talk to her in Sinhala directly.’

  ‘Aiyo, she is Sinhalese?’ He wasn’t sure anymore if this NGO woman was a safe bet.

  Soon after his meeting with Miss Shirleen the next day, however, Sarva dialled Randy. ‘I expected an old lady, but who did you send, man?! My eyes popped out!’

  Randy burst out laughing. ‘Yes, of course. This is our special treatment for torture victims.’

  Shirleen was breathtaking, and Sarva was smitten the minute he saw her walk into the seminary in a stylishly worn sari. That she was also a young lawyer and activist and would be accepting his case immediately made her an angel fashioned by God especially for him. He found her polite and was flattered by how attentively she listened. Throughout the interview he had to hold down a fit of boyish giggles. She called him ‘Sharva’, with an h, and he swore to himself never to correct her.

  Shirleen took copious notes as he told his story, and he was able to give a clear account of events this time. What a relief not to have an interpreter, he gushed to her, and tried to downplay his unease while describing in Sinhala the racism he had experienced.

  She had already met with his mother, and judging from the way they’d been harassed, Shirleen surmised that it would not be safe for Sarva to stay in Sri Lanka. He told her about his failure at the Swiss embassy, and she assured him she would think of alternatives.

  That night, Sarva dreamt of America. It just came to him, for no specific reason, that if there was a place he should live other than his home country, it had to be the USA. He hadn’t ever been there, but it already felt familiar somehow. Long Beach, where his uncle was, sounded inviting. Or perhaps New York, where all the superhero movies were set, where King Kong had clambered up that tall building with the pointy antenna at the top. His uncle’s daughters said the taste of food at McDonald’s was different in the US; people ate it casually for lunch and dinner, they said, while in Colombo it was a treat, something for a special occasion. The only western music Sarva had ever known was Michael Jackson and he had obsessed over Thriller as a teenager, squealing and shrieking in the room he shared with his brothers and doing the moonwalk for the entertainment of visiting relatives. He was in jail when Jackson died, and Sarva had consumed the obituaries and pictures of the funeral in newspapers in the prison library, feeling connected to thousands of mourning American fans. He was sure he could make a good life there.

  When Shirleen came back to meet him a few days later, another beautiful woman accompanied her. He was all in a tizzy. Were all social workers stunning, or was Randy playing a prank on him? The new activist would help Sarva with applications for an engineering course in Denmark. Sarva hadn’t been to Denmark but knew they spoke Danish there. He asked if he wouldn’t stand a better chance of education and employment if he went to an English-speaking country. Say, America? No, he was told, America and England were some of the toughest countries to get into.

  Sarva sought out Brother Hendrick at dinner that night. ‘Why can’t Sri Lankans be let into America?’ he asked. The string hoppers he ate were dry, and he drenched them in spiced coconut milk and squashed them in frustration.

  ‘Calm down, man!’ Brother Hendrick said. ‘Lots of Sri Lankan Tamils have already gone and maybe they filled the quota.’ Since the 1983 riots, thousands of middle-class Tamils had fled to the US, armed with their English-language education, and were now a sizeable diaspora, owning businesses and working in multinational corporations and hospitals. The recent wave of emigration was of poorer, less-educated Tamils. This development coincided with the US government toughening immigration laws and enhancing screening procedures for asylum seekers from all over the world. It was further exacerbated after the US, Canada and Australia invested significant resources in intercepting the MV Sun Sea, a ship carrying 492 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees, including women, children and many who might have been linked to the LTTE. In August, when the ship docked in British Columbia, all the adults, except the mothers of mi
nors, were detained.

  It irritated Sarva that his destiny was dependent on such events. On his phone that night, he googled ‘Immigration Sri Lanka USA’ and spent hours reading articles. He tried the English ones first, but struggled. Angry with himself, he moved on to Tamil websites. One featured a harrowing interview with an anonymous Sri Lankan Tamil—an undocumented immigrant working under a fake social security number and constantly afraid of getting caught.

  Sarva clicked on another. A report said that fewer Tamil immigrants were being given asylum after the LTTE had been proscribed as a terrorist group and the front organisations funding it from America had been shut down. Another blogger wrote that the US government didn’t want its own neighbours, the Mexicans, crossing the border. How were people from the other side of the world meant to get in?

  American elections were won and lost depending on how a capricious majority decided to define a minority population—no different from Sri Lanka. In Sarva’s homeland, the hard-driven Tamil plantation worker was deemed okay but not the Tamil university student protesting discrimination. The happy-go-lucky Burgher with his glass of whiskey passed muster, but not the Burgher with a government job. The trading Muslim was fine, but not the praying Muslim. The devout Sinhala Buddhist was all right, but not the inquisitive, sceptical one. These groups had to fit in, flow into the crevices the majoritarian state created for them.

  Even when he thought he’d shed all distinctions that could identify him, Sarva was still recognisably a Tamil. Three years earlier in Negombo, when he ran the video parlour with Deva, a young customer had enquired about their videography packages for his sister’s wedding. Sarva gave the customer the rate card. Admitting that he had only shot Tamil weddings, Sarva had asked the customer how many hours a Sinhala Buddhist wedding would go on for and what rituals were most important to capture. The customer looked surprised. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked. ‘Pereira? You’re not Sinhalese?’

  ‘Nuwara Eliya—Tamil,’ Sarva said. It had not taken long for the customer to mutter that he’d get back to him and walk out.

  The question of who came from where had always burned with implications in Sri Lanka and, as Sarva was learning, everywhere else, too. It stood in his way, reminding him that however hard he might try to break away, his identity would always limit his options.

  Sarva’s English wasn’t good enough to fill in the Danish college applications or write his statement of purpose, so Shirleen did it for him. The image of the top of her head, bent over the paperwork, was etched in his mind. Her dark hair, which she usually tied back in a bun, was streaked with grey.

  Sarva was baffled by Shirleen. Why did this Sinhalese help him, a Tamil? He didn’t see why an educated, privileged, gorgeous woman would walk through the heat and dust to help a nobody like him. She worked hard for Sarva’s safety, for no payment, taking great risks to do so. Her compassion was sincere, and most of all she believed him. Sarva could have sworn that every Sinhalese possessed a thveshagunam, an evil spirit of vengeance. But in Shirleen’s presence he felt guilty thinking that way. He tried to trust her—there was no real reason not to—but the scepticism was unshakable.

  In the following months, he would meet another Sinhalese who challenged his stereotypes. Jehaan was Shirleen’s senior colleague and the one Randy had been petitioning to take Sarva’s case. More people from the NP were being expelled, and the staff were feeling the heat. The TID raided Randy’s house in Colombo, and he had come back home to find his wife furious and daughters in tears. A week after that, Randy drove Sarva from his safe house to Colombo and booked him into a posh hotel in Mount Lavinia. ‘I have to go underground,’ he said. ‘I will hand your case over to Jehaan.’

  Sarva was upset, but he had seen this coming. He asked if the new person would be Tamil.

  ‘No, Sinhalese. But you can trust him more than me,’ Randy said.

  When Sarva first met Jehaan in the hotel room, his mind flew to the phrase ‘simple living, high thinking’, a maxim of his father’s. Jehaan was slight of build, shorter than Sarva by half a foot. He was in his mid-thirties: his head was shaved, masking a receding hairline. He wore a thigh-length half-sleeved kurta and cotton pyjamas; his sturdy sandals were frayed with walking; and his canvas bag seemed stuffed beyond capacity with papers. Jehaan was also on crutches, and this muddled Sarva’s assessment of him. He was relieved to learn that the disability was temporary, the result of a bad fall.

  Jehaan had brought along a reed-thin man aged about fifty to act as translator if needed. But they ended up speaking entirely, and comfortably, in Sinhala. Randy talked Jehaan up, explaining that he was responsible for launching the global campaign for the journalist Tissa’s release from prison. It was thanks to Jehaan that several civilians, journalists and activists who had been attacked were able to leave the country unharmed and get political asylum in Europe. He was an expert at documentation, an underrated skill that turned neglected local cases into global issues.

  Everything about Sarva was on file, Jehaan said, and he had been briefed by Shirleen: ‘She said yours was a genuine case and that your life is truly at risk.’

  Sarva would stay at the hotel at NP’s expense for several more days until Jehaan could arrange a new safe house. His days passed with a great deal of eating and TV-watching. Randy forbade Sarva to contact his family and friends even if they were in the same city.

  But Sarva broke the rule once and called an old classmate who ran a computer shop. Before he left the hotel, his friend sent him a used Dell laptop and an Airtel data card. It might be years before he could emerge from hiding, and even a man on the run needed entertainment.

  JEHAAN ACCOMPANIED SARVA to his next safe house, leading him along routes that were treacherous and unpaved yet beautiful. It was obvious he used these roads often, with others who depended on him just as Sarva did. As they wound their way over a forested hill, Sarva became petrified of getting lost. He was frantic about what would happen if they had a flat tyre or if an elephant crossed their track. Most of his injuries had healed, except for the occasional pulsing that coursed down his lower back, through his legs and to his feet when he sat or stood for too long.

  Sensing Sarva’s restlessness, Jehaan asked the driver to stop at a clearing. He asked Sarva if he would like to stretch his legs. They stepped out and walked a bit until Sarva saw that Jehaan was struggling with his broken leg.

  ‘We don’t have to do this,’ Sarva said.

  ‘We have to,’ Jehaan said. ‘I want to show you the stream at the top.’

  ‘In that case, let me help you.’ Sarva carried Jehaan in his arms for some of the way. It could’ve been embarrassing, but Jehaan’s obvious awe at Sarva’s strength made them both laugh.

  Sarva heard the stream before he saw it, gurgling, swishing and crashing. He heard animals grunt and birds shriek, and for a second imagined something terrifying coming out the woods—a wild animal, a nameless creature, a soldier. But in a few minutes his breath became less laboured. For what felt like hours, he sat in the stream quietly, letting the cold water push past him. Jehaan sat on the bank, his feet in the water. His face was still, lit with pure joy.

  When they talked, Sarva was uninhibited. He poured out everything that was on his mind except the persistent question of why Jehaan was helping him—why he didn’t hate or fear Sarva for what he was accused of doing.

  Had he asked, Jehaan would have explained that his organisation had indeed been worried about taking on clients who were accused of being Tigers; but he had persevered, because Sarva had been acquitted in court. Jehaan might even have confessed to what was considered blasphemy in Sri Lankan humanitarian work: that if Sarva were a Tiger, protection would still be his due; no human deserved the torture he had undergone.

  For more than a decade, Jehaan had protected victims irrespective of their identity. As he was helping Sarva, he was also assisting Sinhalese journalists, Muslim activists and Tamil women, but Sinhalese acquaintances often asked why he was �
�into protecting Kottiyas’. He would say it was sad that he needed to give reasons for defending someone’s basic rights, to question the need for violence, or to ask for greater accountability from an elected government.

  Initially it had disturbed Sarva that, unlike Randy, Jehaan, who was in all regards friendly, rarely spoke about his private life. He knew that Jehaan was only a few years older than him, was Sinhalese, and could not speak a word of Tamil, though he knew the alleys of Sri Lanka’s smallest towns, including those in the Vanni. But that was the extent of Sarva’s knowledge of the man. He did not know that Jehaan had gone to an exclusive boys’ convent school, that he had not changed jobs in years, that he lived with his parents and loved his evening glass of arrack. He had friends in the military and argued fervently with them till he left in a huff, but kept in touch with them and returned to the subject another day. He hated interviewing torture victims—that was why he had sent Shirleen to Sarva—he was obsessed with train travel, and he did not like talking about love. Nothing, however, was more personal to Jehaan than his work. He was motivated by deep moral forces: his Christian faith, his need to fight the good fight, and his unshakeable Sri Lankan pride.

  Just like Sarva, Jehaan was running. But whereas Sarva’s flight would stop eventually, presumably after a few years, and he would be free to live his life, Jehaan would accompany other fugitives through forests to safe houses again and again, till the Sinhalese-dominated state, incensed at the defiance of one of their own, turned its wrath on him.

  18.

  October 2010 to May 2011

  BEING INVISIBLE WAS exhausting. In less than a year, Jehaan took Sarva to eight different safe houses: Bataramulla, Hatton, Madulsima, Colombo, Kalaeliya, Dikoya and two other locations Sarva couldn’t even name. A succession of priests opened their doors to him. When he met the love of his life later that same year, he would tell her God must have approved of his hanging round His premises.