Thursday, September 26, 2013

MY STORY-Reuniting with a friend


Hi Friends!
This is my first venture into writing. And I kick off this blog with a true story of mine....

In 1999 first day at college-“Hi! I am Yasovarman Perinpanayagam from Srilanka” I introduced myself to the other classmates at the Asan Memorial College of Arts and Science, Chennai, India. Then I heard “I’m …………… from Srilanka ” from another boy in the class, but I did not get his name right. My curiosity grew as I heard somebody was from my country and asked for his name again, he replied “I am Sripalan from Jaffna in Srilanka”. It was a great relief for me to have my countryman in the class.

Since we hailed from the same place we became very close friends in no time. He used to relate me the harrowing experience he had in escaping to India to seek refuge. He had come to India by ferry with his parents and fiancé and his Advanced level books. I was on a student visa and staying with an uncle as a paying guest. His extraordinary trait was that he would be carrying all his educational books wherever he was moving due to war. All our Indian friends were very sympathetic towards us as they knew the situation back in Srilanka. We studied together for 3 years and we spent a lot of days in combined studies at his place and I became very familiar with his family members as well. They were very hospitable and warm and invited me for lunch very often. Even I was very eager to have Srilankan style food as I was away from my family.

After graduating I returned to Srilanka and secured a job in Colombo in 2002. In a couple of years’ time Sripalan got back to the island and settled down in his wife’s town Kilinochchi in the northern part. Once he came to meet me in Colombo and I was very much happy to see him back. Then we were in touch time to time over the phone but not very regularly as the northern parts were not connected well with the other parts of the country by telephone.

In 2006-he called me from Kilinochchi for the last time before the war erupted again. He sounded a bit nervous and said “Yaso, Appa [father] has passed away in a prolonged illness. I am not sure when I can see you again.  I am trying to move to Colombo as the situation here is getting worse day by day”. Afterwards I sent a small amount of money and a letter through a relative because postal system couldn’t be relied upon those days. This was the last contact I had with my friend.

Subsequently the war broke out in all parts of the country. The worst affected parts were the north and east. We started hearing the battle news from all corners of the world. We could imagine the epic proportion of the disaster from the visuals and news. I grew very much worried about him as the situations was reaching its peak.

In 2009-At last the war ended eating up many thousands of valuable lives and wreaking havoc to the assets. The northern part of island was strewn with dead bodies and raw flesh and blood.

I started searching for him everywhere through whomever from his area. Our college friends in India and elsewhere started asking me about Sripalan. I was left clueless on his whereabouts; therefore I had to answer “Sorry, I don’t know”. As years went by I started typing his name in different forms into the social networks and search engines. For almost two long years I did not get any positive response. Then I stopped looking for him very regularly and intermittently I would check his name on the internet.

In 2011-one fine night after dinner around 10 o’ clock as a routine I sat before the computer and went to the facebook site. When I opened my account and checked my In-box I could not believe my own eyes and I was in a total shock to see a message from the very man whom I thought had been lost forever. The message read “Machan! [Srilankan dialect for a friend] I am Sripalan here, working at Eastern Medical College in Batticaloa as a microbiologist. Please contact me on the number given below when you see this message. Regards, Sripalan”. I reacted immediately and contacted him. The phone rang for a while before he picked up. A voice came through with a sleepy tone “Sripalan here!”. I was elated to hear the voice I had been wondering whether I could ever hear again. I said “Hello! Yaso here”. It was one of the most memorable moments in my life. We both were so happy that finally we were connected. We spoke for some time and I was glad to know that his entire family had survived the war! He promised that he would come over to meet me in person.

 The day finally arrived! It was a Saturday a week after we spoke to each other he travelled from Batticaloa to Colombo. I was very much moved to see him again. We spent the whole day sharing his ordeal and he said it was extremely rare to emerge out of the war without losing anyone from the family. Later we changed topics to our college days and even managed to contact our Indian friends on Skype.

Later in the evening it was time to bid goodbye but this time it was only temporary and knew we would be meeting each other from now on. He left for Batticaloa to go back to his somewhat peaceful life he was leading though it would take years to get over the trauma and the memories of the war he and his family had gone through. We parted at the railway station, at the platform I stood pondering how lucky I was to have my best friend back in my life, as the train rattled towards Batticaloa…