1983

I was studying in eleventh standard in Madurai. It is during this time devastating riot against Tamils broke out in Sri Lanka. Protest marches were organized at various places by various groups in Tamil Nadu. Few of my seniors in our school too demanded we need to show our solidarity with our suffering brothers and sister. The principal questioned rationality of going on a protest march and wanted us to concentrate on studies. The students’ secretary literally bounced on him and accused him being a traitor of Tamil language and Tamil race. Finally he succumbed to the pressure and declared that the school will remain closed indefinitely.

Then the protest march from our school to the collector’s office began, thousands of students from 5^th std to 12^th std participated along with teachers. Slogans were formulated, and everyone was shouting. One of the slogan was aimed at the then president of Sri Lanka, it sounded poetic and rhythmic in Tamil but sounds crude in English, yet let me translate: “wife of Jeyawarthane, is our concubine”.

This slogan captured the momentum and even 5^th STD students started repeating it. Our chemistry teacher, picked up the one student and asked him,” Do you understand the meaning of the word concubine? Or at least do you know how old his wife is? His wife is 78 years old, and you are just 12 years old”. When the senior students became aware of the age of Jeyawarthane and his wife, they need to change the slogan, then and there they coined a new one; “Declare the daughter of Jeyawarthane as the national property”.

Libido plays a crucial role whether it is a religion or racial protest; it makes no difference who is a protestor. Literate or illiterate, poor or rich, villager or city born, everyone is a victim of libido when aggression is on rampage. Sigmund Freud will be laughing at his opponents who undermined his theory.

There was a government college nearby and their principal put the notice saying that the college will remain closed indefinitely, one student corrected the notice thinking there is a spelling mistake, he wrote; "The college will remain closed definitely".