“Let me rest for five minutes” the words still haunt me over and over. The deepest, saddest, cruelest words, I have ever heard. No one would interpret the underlying meaning of those words. They are not merely words. They are drops a heart bled; they are painful droplets a body shed; they are blooded tears from a dried pair of eyes; they are the cry of a wingless bird that wanted to rest in peace; they are the words caused by a dove of peace that spread its wings widely over the political sky. The words disturb the core of my senses when I am awake. Terrifying dreams lengthen my sleepless nights. Horror of those words danced around me, over my head, below my feet and inside me.
“Let me rest for five minutes”
“Let me rest for”
“Let me rest”
“Let me”
This is how her words died along with her they said. The words screamed in my head. A whirl of panic sunk me in its darkest, deepest waves. The words have not lost its strength and power even though years have passed. A decade of journey through the time machine has not succeeded in lightening the memories. Still fresh and terrifying, they haunted the mind, body and even that beautiful village
Chemmani*.Once a beautiful village, still remained beautiful with a camouflage of being peaceful. Underneath that peace and beauty lay the midnight horrors.
Even there was peace in the country literally, there was no peace in the minds and hearts and surroundings. Not only the midnights but also the dawn, dusk and midday were frightening.  The vast Chemmani plain was chilled with the morning dew, mist of the dusk and overwhelming fear. The air was filled with frightening memories, haunting spirits and the rotting smell of corpses. The skin was always printed with goose bumps. The tiny dark hair on the brown skins stood straight like a bullet ready to be shot fast.Even the dogs sensed the restlessness of the minds and the air. They howled in the nights nonstop.
Adding terror to the environment, there were stories of hearing screams at midnight. People who went out in the night came back fear stricken with stories of seeing dark mysterious images. The truth awaited in the dark to be revealed.
Jaffna peninsula is a mango shaped hometown of Tamils within the mango shaped Srilanka. An ancient city of Tamils, where their traditions, culture, customs and religion were preserved for centuries. Once praised for its high level of education, English speaking people and high percentage of civil servants.  Jaffna’s peace and tradition were intentionally destroyed by the state military after the capture of the peninsula from the freedom fighters in 1995. In all the countries where family is the basic structure of the society, and where women are the heart of the families, virtue of the woman is the firm foundation for everything. The military intentionally destroyed the virtue, the self respect, the esteem, of our women. Our families’ foundations were found deep down in the wells, or in the bushes, or on the beaches pushed away by the waves.
Corporal Somapala, a soldier in the Srilankan military, was arrested being accused for the military’s human right violations in the peninsula. A corporal, not quite innocent, but not to be accused for obeying his officers, to escape the blow of the punishment, revealed the truths that were buried in the dark. Shocking revelations echoed all around the island. Media flashed the truth to the outside world. A mass grave in the beautiful plains of chemmani was dug out. Mankind shocked to the core. Finally, Krishanthy and her family came out of the darkest grave with other four hundred skeletons.
Krishanthy, named after the flowers bloom in December, a month she was born, really was delicate as a flower. Being a only girl of a well educated, sophisticated family, she was brought up well protected from the external harms of the society. Her only brother Pranavan adored his little sister as a fairy princess. Dark curls of hair hung loose as bunch of grapes around her eyes. Beautiful little brown eyes danced with excitement and  joy. She was known for her intelligence around the village. Her family, friends and neighbor hood knew she would get the very difficult entrance to the medical college, her life long dream.
On her way to the final exam, the gate way to her life time ambition to be a doctor, she was stopped by the soldiers at the check point. Soldiers were ordered to bring her inside the camp for a thorough checking even after she produced her student identification. Without the presence of a lady officer, a it was said in the UN charter, she was thoroughly checked not only once, but for forty times by forty men.  A small build seventeen year old girl with a delicate body soft as a flower was thoroughly checked all over her body inch by inch for forty times by giant like army officers. Born in a culture where sex before marriage, even the knowledge of sexual act is a taboo, she panicked with shock. She had never heard her mum saying anything about what to do when a man lay on top of you. She never heard of sexual intercourse and what would it do to her. Will it hurt? Will it pain? Will it be interesting?  Is it acceptable for the army officers to use her like that? The pain went through her answering all her questions when she screamed for mercy.
“Ah…leave me alone. It is hurting……Please”
Her words were left in vain each time a man entered her. First she begged not to touch her. Then she begged them to touch her gently. Finally she begged them to let her rest just for five minutes.
 “Let me rest for five minutes.”  The beasts never let her rest a second.
 “God, let me die in peace”, she prayed god to help her each time her legs were held apart. God never responded.
“Anna, help me anna, they are torturing me.” She cried to her brother believing he would hear her. Instead they gagged her mouth with a piece  of cloth.
She lost her blood; she lost her voice; she lost her hope in mankind; she lost her belief in god; finally she lost her senses falling into the darkness. Still the checking went on. On and on. Finally,she closed her eyes not to come out of the fort of darkness, not to come out of the cruelty that tortured her body and soul, and not to come out the burial ground dug inside the camp compound.
A jungle fire would not spread as fast as Krishanthi’s arrest news. Her mother fainted hearing the arrest news. What would have happened to her, if she had known that Krishi was already buried? Pranavan screaming “Krishi…..” brought all neighbors to their house. Next door neighbor, a friend, volunteered to go with them to the camp, not knowing he would not see the next day’s sunlight. The army, sensing the threat in the threesome, took them inside for an investigation. They were never seen afterwards. When they finally returned it was from the Chemmani grave, not from the army camp. Poor family died not knowing their beloved Krishi lied in the same grave. Krishanthi lied peacefully resting in the grave not knowing her mother and brother joined her in the death path to protect her all the way along.
Graves opened their mouths gaping for a release. The rotten smell spread in their air. Horror and terror seized the environment. People avoided Chemmani road, but could not avoid the frightening chill of their hearts. Commissions were formed; media screamed for justice: the nations condemned human right violation; Somapala was released with the other accuseds not being able to prove guilty.
Chemmani awaits, with its terror stricken plains, justice to be dug out. Fear stricken faces await to be protected by humanities’ hand. Krishanthi’s are still waiting down in the wells, buried in the zero zone, thrown in the forests, and preyed to the fish, to be found out; To be rested in peace at least for five minutes.

Betrayals
Since born, betrayals left its marks.
The path I walked through
Bore the thorns of betrayals.
The fruit of life was never plucked
Without the scratches of thorny betrayals.
But each time,
Oozing blood and the pricking pain hurts
With the violence of a point zero bullet.
Each time I say,’ I learnt a lesson.’
At the end of the day healed scratch and consoled pain
I start the life again with the new born freshness
Full of hope and excitement.
Another version of Homo sapiens
Cross my path; with my readymade heart of compassion
I begin to believe in humanity.
Hope and confidence brought with the sunlight is
Again gone at the end of the day
With the dark of dusk covering the heart.
Midnight, heart prevails in darkness;
Nerves breakdown; 
I laugh with agony – depression
A step prior to so called mental sickness.

I woke startled
Yearning for the tick of the lizard
Under the florescent bulb
In search of a tiny insect.

On the other side of midnight,
Life was very slow,
Marked by the tick of the lizard.
Stress free, relaxed, and
The ends met smoothly with harmony.
The dangers and sorrows
Left in the mist and the dark of a dawn
Failed to spoil the hope and peace
Left in the heart.

On the other side of the midnight
I lie on the cold bed
With a chunk of nostalgia
Aching in the heart,
Killing the moments with the tick of the clock
In my effort to synchronize
My body and mind to the tick of the clock.
‘Faster, faster’ the unheard command
Chasing me to a fast pace.
The long stretched, snow covered, slippery path
Lies before me
To be walked fast;
To be worked fast;
To meet the ends of the life
Which lie in the opposite horizons.

Do they know?
Underneath the steel cover
There lies a beating heart.
Size of a strawberry;
Full of emotions; and
Wave of love
Overflowing the ridge to be ashore.

Do they know?
Underneath the steel cover
The heart leaps in search of care and love
With every beat.
The squeeze of the tiny heart
Boost the life in us.
We in turn boost the life in you,
Caring, loving and always giving.

Do they know?
Underneath the steel cover
There lies scars and puss.
The face of poverty;
The face of war;
The face of lost and death;
The face of young men shredded into pieces;
The face of women with torn cervixes;
The face of the betrayals:
The face of the cruel world
With its tightly sealed mouths.

Do they know?
The steel cover is full of scars.
Still the heart underneath beats
With the hope and great expectations
To be cared;
To be loved:
To be understood.
A caring hand to tear the steel and say,
“Oh! You are a gentle woman
As any one out there in the sophisticated world”

The day never saw the rising sun,
As the smoke covered
The souls and the sky.
History Screamed
With it’s stained pages.
Bloody roads;
Smoky sky; and
The tear filled eyes
Scarred  the history.
They ran along the streets
Screaming for help.
Once their friends now the foes
Turned deaf and aggressive.
They lost their babies in the boiling tar;
They lost their daughters to the prey hunters;
Whirling smoke demolished their assets;
They lost their hopes once and for all,
To be friend with the foes turned friends.
Being boarded on the ship,
They saw the dawn in the horizon
Of the sacred land,
Awaited their arrival
With an extended hand.
Ashore, shoeless feet felt
Assured, ‘this is the homeland’.

How many times?
Lost memory squeezed itself
To find
How many times I lost my addresses?
Just turned thirteen,
When they murmured the first time
Of them.
Overnight we lost our address.
Searched the dictionary
For the meaning of the new name,
“Refugee”, we acquired.
Hurting to lift off the new face
We moved on to save the souls.
Since then,
How many times I lost my addresses?
With the tick of the clock
Gone the decade twice.
Here I am with a new face.
Got an address with the face of an “Immigrant”
Still…………..
Fighting to find an address for me
With the face of my own.

Being colourless inside,
I bear the colour of a rainbow outside.
I bear a prism in my heart
Full of feelings, emotions and intelligence
Yet blank on its all sides.
Prism overflows with sway of the universe;
Prism dances, rolls and twists
Faster and faster.
Here I change,
With the colours of a rainbow.
Red in anger;
Black if I am sad;
White when full of peace;
Green in love:
Blue goes as my lucky colour;
Indigo suits me best;
Eyes brown and the hair pitch dark.
My skin bears the Srilankan brown
Here I live as a Canadian.
But my computer says, I am British in “colour”
Here you go
Seeing me in many colours
But sincerely
I am blank inside.
Colourless.

Unseen lines
Keep you bound in your body,
In your home and sometimes
Out of your home,
Out of your country too.
Bottled emotions,
Denied expectations,
Feelings that were cut in the bud
Roll and roll; again and again;
Bound in the body
Distressed and derived.
Oceans stretch their wavy hands beyond their borders;
Wind and birds go beyond the fortified forts;
Sky deceives with its unseen horizon;
Clouds wander beyond the limits.
Why not me? Why not me?