Saturday Nov 02, 2024
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Saturday Nov 02, 2024
Saturday, 14 September 2024 00:52 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Surya Vishwa
Within the chaos resembling a gigantic dismantled centipede at the Pettah central bus stand (we are speaking of the non AC species of buses) one can witness a combination of the law of the universe when it collides with your own unique luck – and the time table of the bus schedules. They mostly run according to a systematic timing. The buses. But when one’s independent meandering borders on non-punctuality and confronts such bus schedules the choices are few. Either you summon enough mental strength to perch on one leg for a couple of hours or you hustle into whatever seat available.
In the scenario I am now narrating it does not look like the most auspicious hour for me. I enter the hustle and bustle of the bus station in Colombo in Pettah and seek out the bus to Jaffna. It is nearing 7 p.m. When I do spot it, there does not seem to be any chance on earth that I would get a seat. But a kind soul who I initially think is the bus conductor urges me to get in, assuring me of a seat. It later turns out that this is a fellow passenger. Hailing from the North he is travelling with some family members. He vacates his own seat in the now almost full bus. Anyone who can sacrifice a CTB bus seat on an eight-hour bus journey to Jaffna is truly a saint!
Soon we are on the road. Everyone is on their own mini journey within the larger journey of life. The warmth of conversation begins. Cramped together unlike within the pre-booked AC buses, the smiles, conversation and sharing of food comes naturally. These are everyday people who generally think twice about spending over Rs. 1,000 as bus fare.
We are all perched rather gingerly on our bus seats. I do not have to ask where my neighbouring family is going. “Vavuniya. We are going to grandmother in Vavuniya” screams the three-year-old perched on his mother’s lap munching some biscuits and screeches happily when the bus brakes. Those carrying their portable computers – the laptops clutch at their knapsacks.
One becomes a naturalised eavesdropper when on a rather long journey such as the Colombo- Jaffna run.
“Akki, so hope you are ok. I will be back soon. Yes I will get those books,” I hear on my left. He is speaking the Sinhalese language.
One can assume that most of those travelling to Jaffna are Sri Lankan Tamils but of course there are Sinhalese, Muslims and Burghers as well. One cannot stereotype a particular population within a bus based on its destination.
But based on the fluency of how my neighbour is speaking the Sinhalese language I assume he is of Sinhala ethnicity. It turns out he is not. He is of Tamil ethnicity from Vavuniya who is studying a subject related to sustainability and technology at Ruhuna University in Matara, a Southern area home to mostly Sinhalese. He is one of two Tamil students in their batch and in the conversation I overheard, he has been talking to a fellow university student.
He has obviously passed the language proficiency divide – the bane of Sri Lanka’s potential to intercultural communication. I congratulate him on his language fluency.
“My name is Roshan. I did not know Sinhala when I entered Ruhuna University. I have now completed my first year and I talk in Sinhala,” he reveals with a smile. His cap was covering most of his and now he takes it off revealing a face that speaks of openness to making friends.
All around us conversations have started. A youth in civil attire who looks like he is from the military and going on vacation exchanges banter with some other youth. The primary language here that breaks the ice seems to be a genuine smile.
Roshan is eager to speak and I am keen to learn about his time in a campus in the South.
Is he comfortable with so many Sinhalese students, I ask.
“Oh, they are wonderful. I am treated just like their own brother,” he states and enquires about my visit to Jaffna.
I tell him that I am heading to Allaippiddy on route to the islands of Velanai and Kayts to visit Thapovanam, an eco-wellbeing venture celebrating the local community that is being created by Jaffna’s well known psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Prof. Daya Somasundaram and his team.
Roshan tells me that he has never travelled towards Allaipiddy and asks about Thapovanam. He is especially interested in it because of the focus on sustainability.
I told him that it is a location of around 10 acres bought by Prof. Somasundaram in 1985 as bare land and then developed with the cultivation of coconuts, jackfruit and other fruit and a medicinal variety of trees. Thapovanam is a combination of the word Tapas meaning retreat or contemplation and vanam meaning forest.
Soon we arrive at Vavuniya and Roshan waves goodbye, promising to write up his experiences at Ruhuna university and send it to us for publication in the Harmony page, a media initiative that is alert to the positive side of life and which is committed to celebrate it.
In another four hours it is time to say hello to the beautiful Jaffna peninsula referred to as Yalpanam in Tamil and Yapane in Sinhala.
Thapovanam
The time is nearly 3 a.m. and Krishna from Aillaippiddy is there in his auto. This convenient three-wheeler is referred to across Sri Lanka as tuk tuk. Krishna is part of the community team of Thapovanam. I apologise for waking him up from slumber and we proceed. The sea breeze is soon upon us and we pass some Catholic churches and enter the island that is Allaippiddy, home to many Christians as well as Hindus.
Waiting for us is Prof. Somasundaram, Ranuka and her husband Nickson who is part of the Thapovanam village community who help in maintaining and developing the premises further.
After a short rest, all travel fatigue is wiped away with the heavy breeze, a permanent cooling system donated by the ocean. Mornings are a pleasant time. On school holidays as today, there are invariably young children playing, learning or practicing the piano at the premises. There is a 100-year-old piano invested in by Prof. Somasundaram to help the children of the area develop their musical skills.
“Well, I am learning too. Every morning I am learning from my daughter who is giving me classes from overseas using modern technology,” he laughs.
One very noticeable fixture at the premises is 10-year-old Ashwina who speaks English fluently and has won every conceivable prize at school, whether it be for speech, music, dancing and running.
She is a student of the Kalamandram (music centre) run by the Catholic Church.
She has also mastered yoga and there seems to be very little she cannot do. Her father, Nickson is a fisherman and has built several sea based cadjan structures used by fishermen which the Thapovanam offers for short experiential stays for its visitors.
Several families in the vicinity along with the committee members and manager of the premises – Piraveen Rajh and a senior advisor/concept developer, Vijayashankar Murthi are part of the Thapovanam family that seek to foster the overall vision of cultivating a tourism model based on community welfare.
Thapovanam, named way back in 1985 by Prof. Somasundaram, aspires to be a haven that explores the healing of yoga, education and meditation training as well as nature focused camping retreats for individuals, families and groups such as from education institutes and organisations.
“We are now developing mini libraries on the sea where we encourage reading for relaxation in the Cadjan built huts located on the beach. Our fishermen community of the area we work with use these for their fishing and we are planning constructing some anew so that visitors can read while immersing their legs in the seawater,” says Piraveen. He hails from the island of Punguduthivu and has worked in the State as well as non-State sector.
Celebrating inner peace
He explains that the overarching goal is to celebrate inner peace. Peace and healing is a luxury that the people of Jaffna know well, having gone through the harshness of wartime existence where Prof. Somasundaram was one of the few psychiatrists in the world to have lived completely with war affected populations in the worst of times, experiencing being displaced multiple times. He is the author of the books Scarred Minds and Scarred Communities.
From 2009, with the end of the conflict, Sri Lanka has had the opportunity to craft at macro level tourism models explicitly for helping in education upliftment and climate change adaptation.
As I walk amidst the foliage and enjoy the calm of Thapovanam I contemplate as to whether Sri Lanka has capitalised on this factor.
“We seem to pay more attention to creating huge luxury buildings as our tourism development,” quips one of the committee members of Thapovanam.
The OM sound echoes across the premises through the recording that is played in the main brick building constructed many years back soon after the purchase of the land.
Apart from two brick made premises which have the basic necessities for a peaceful stay, Thapovanam is committed to the protection of nature and the exploration of sustainability.
There are open air nature focused kitchens, training halls and meditation spaces built with Palmyrah palms, coconut palms and nature linked materials.
There are more nature focused creations that are to be fashioned.
The place is currently popular for day events of education institutes and different organisations.
It seeks to be a hub for capacity development and encouragement for staff of institutes who wish to rejuvenate for better company strategy boosting and human resource maximisation.
Meanwhile I seem to have acquired a mini shadow in the form of Ashwina who thrusts forward a chocolate she has received. She insists I eat it.
“You eat. This I got for you,” she says in perfect English and then goes onto sing a hymn she has learnt from school.
“I play the big drum in school. It’s very big,” she informs. There are around 30 students in her class and she manages to be within the first three students where academic results are concerned.
Her mother, Renuka is expecting her fourth child and is eight months pregnant and Ashwina looks forward to the baby.
Her dream is to become a doctor.
“She is a genius. She can take on the world,” quips Prof. Somasundaram.
She may not realise that her parents are heavily in debt.
A place that economically and holistically nurtures families
“Every morning her mother is faced with people who come to ask her for money. The families here borrow for mere daily survival,” he states, explaining that the Thapovanam hopes to be a place that economically and holistically nurtures families.
Vijayashankar Thedchana Murthi whose expertise includes being an economic development officer of the Nallur Divisional Secretariat is ideating on how a people centric tourism model will help the Northern region come up from its war scarred poverty.
Although the years of the Northern region being a war zone ended in Sri Lanka in 2009, the ravages of the long drawn conflict on humans in the area are still evidenced in some forms. Some families have still not rebuilt their war damaged houses. Many still hold emotional scars. Suicides are high. Families of fishermen seem to be high on committing suicide being unable to pay their debts.
“People have so many daily issues that have to be solved. Yet, we sometimes seem to be stuck in politics,” notes Vijayashankar.
“Opportunities for youth have to be provided. Them receiving cash or technology items from relatives in foreign countries are not going to solve their problems,” he notes.
He is currently strategising where those such as volunteers or retired teachers from diverse countries can be attracted to the North.
We discuss how families in the area can benefit through organic cultivation based home industries, yet another goal of the Thapovanam, to prevent the onslaught of non communicable diseases such as cancer.
Vijayashankar is currently on no pay leave from his job and is dedicated to help initiatives such as the Thapovanam to be a catalyst of positive community change.
The local parish Priest of the Philip Neri church Fr. Bernard Regno echoes the sentiments and goals of Thapovanam and states that a tourism model that does not take into consideration the cultural values and traditions of communities can wreak havoc. “This Allaippiddy area has a significant number of Catholics who co-exist peacefully with the Hindus of the area,” he explains.
He has been a Catholic priest for nearly four decades and has borne the brunt of difficulty faced during the ethnic conflict.
“There is still a lot to be done. The church is a place of solace for the people and we have to find ways to initiate stable means of earning for families who are struggling immensely economically,” he emphasises.
Discussions with village communities reveal that the latest trend of sea cucumber cultivation for exports is resulting in some economic instability with unreliable business partnerships of middlemen who do not pay the dues to the fishermen resulting in much misery.
Most educated youth do not have pathways for earning.
The Thapovanam management is trying to rectify the situation within their scale. They are trying to promote Thapovanam as a hub of nature, agro-economy and entrepreneurship for the community.
The Thapovanam community is now developing ways of incorporating the village citizens more in their day camps on offer. The last such event hosted was two months ago for medical students who had a day retreat, taking part also in awareness raising on the harm of pollution.
“This is one of the biggest problems we are trying to tackle,” explains Prof. Somasundaram who is involved in several anti-pollution initiatives.
“We are looking at more environment safeguarding models of tourism where we raise awareness that plastic being washed onto beaches is a global phenomenon that impacts humans seriously,” explains another environmental activist working with Thapovanam.
Those who are interested in supporting Thapovanam to develop a community centric form of tourism can contact Prof. Daya Somasundaram on – 0094 775609200.
