Sri Lanka It's Happening

March 1, 2005

I read the Yakada Yaka by Carl Muller during the weekend and it has left me feeling a bit depressed. That may sound strange Carl Muller's writing is humorous and he is very good story teller.

I had read some of his other books and thoroughly enjoyed them - except for Colombo. Colombo was quite a disapointment perhaps because though it strikes a raw nerve. The book though a work of fiction paints a very black and truthfull picture of Colombo's darkside. As the author would say, it is a work of faction.

So too the Yakada Yaka. Though the characters in it may be fictional the story is the story of Sri Lanka railways and of the Burgers. The latter parts of the book tells the story of how burgers have been forced to leave the country.

They have not been the subject of mob ethnic violence that the tamil minority had to face in 1983, no have they been hounded and harrassed by the members of the general public. Yet many of them lost the status, respect and wealth that they once used to enjoy due to the short sighted actions of the politians.

As Carl Muller so rightly put it; if it is ok for Sinhala Nationalists to import trains and carriages from Europe and the operating instructions are in english why must engine drivers be forced to pass their exams in Sinhala?. English is one of the country's national languages after all.

The short sited Sinhala only policies of the current president's father - the then prime minister SWRD Bandaranyake is the root cause of today's problems between the Tamils and the Sinhala. The burgers unlike the Tamils did not take up arms, it's not their way. Instead many of them decided to leave these shores and they were warmly welcomed in many oher countries such as England and Australia. And thus began the great brain drain of sri lanka.

Today there are only about 50,000 burgers in Sri Lanka and their numbers are dwindling fast. There used to be two burger families in my neighbourhood. Both these families migrated last year. The exodus continues and surely the few remaining Burger friends that I have will leave sooner or later.

Posted by raditha at March 1, 2005 11:09 AM