Had recently re-read a wonderful article ‘Beyond the
scars’ published originally in The Hindu Magazine dated 23rd October
2011 (I retained a clipping). This is about certain impressions retained by a leading
Tamil musician T. M. Krishna from his then recent concert visit to a few towns
in northern Sri Lanka, Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya. Names that
automatically evoke tragic images of a people caught in the apparently
interminable crossfire between two implacably hostile political opponents
fighting a brutal war in the name of the same ‘people’.
The savage scars the war left on the geography almost
everywhere in these parts could not be glossed over even in an officially
sponsored visit. Perhaps more important is the psychological mauling suffered
by the Sri Lankan Tamils in terms of their linguistic, cultural and even
religious identity. As if being a Tamil, speaking the language, loving and
yearning for the rich cultural heritage seemed almost a crime to borrow an
expression from a poem by Brecht.
It is in this backdrop that the enthusiasm, serious
intent of the appreciative audience of a Carnatic music recital in Jaffna was
so moving, somewhat like an awakening from a long nightmare. The accompanying
picture of a large relaxed young audience at the Ramanathan Academy of Fine
Arts, Jaffna (“the faces, the laughter, the curiosity, questioning, smart
answers”) enhances this feeling.
One cannot agree more with the author for tasking the
Indians (particularly the Tamilians) to rebuild the tattered emotional fabric
using many coloured threads of culture and history in that shell-shocked
island. And one hopes strident competitive politics in the mainland would not
snuff out the candle the intrepid cultural ambassadors might manage to
rekindle.
The situation calls to mind the timeless
visualization by Tolstoy in his masterpiece ‘War and peace’, of Natasha’s
subtle awakening to life and new love from the devastation suffered by death of
her betrothed Andrei in the 1812 Franco-Russian war. In a remarkably perceptive
dialogue between Pierre and Natasha almost towards the end of the novel, both
the characters realized through a catharsis of emotional maelstrom of grief and
the new enchantment that there is more to life than death, that one can’t help
feeling glad, being happy and hoping for new life while feeling sad,
occasionally even somewhat guilty of leaving the past in favour of the future.