Poornima Weerasekara in Conversation

February 9, 2017 at The Other Place, Gulou, Beijing

DE: I’d like to begin by asking you a little about the events behind this story.

PW: This particular story was inspired by some the interviews I did in border villages in Sri Lanka. So, border villages were areas that were not under the control of one particular entity. They would change hands between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government because they were in the frontiers of the northern and eastern province. Life in these villages was quite peculiar, because for many there’s a lot of uncertainty, there are constant attacks and shelling. A lot of these villages have seen a lot of violence. If there is some shelling or if there is some guerilla warfare in the vicinity you have to take what you have and run to the jungle. You could be cooking, you take your rice pot, you just take your reed mat for the night, some kerosene oil and just go.  The most obviously valuable thing they had was gold. You’d always keep it somewhere close, tied to your clothes so you could just run with it. This story was about a woman who was away from her home, who was washing clothes when there was an attack and she had to run away with a stranger for she had left her baby at home and she’s worried about her baby. We don’t know whether she meets her baby again. I met a real woman like this and in her situation she did not find her child because she had left her child with her mother and she couldn’t find out what happened to them.

DE: So in your mind, what’s the difference between writing as a fiction writer and writing as a journalist? What changes?

PW: Writing as a journalist limits you in certain ways because you really have to stick to the facts. Also, if you look at journalism in Sri Lanka, especially in the last stages of the war (2006 onwards) there was a lot of censorship, so we couldn’t write a lot of the things that we saw, especially the people’s stories. And because of that for many journalists, fiction was the only way to get out what they what they had seen. Because when you’re a journalist, also, you are part of the trauma. You talk to people who have been traumatized but it also has an influence on you. It impacts you. Kind of like washing your dirty laundry, you want to get it out of your system and when you can’t put it in your actual news story you want to put it out in some other way so I think that’s what fiction meant to me.

DE: At the very beginning of this story you have these cracks in the dam wall caused by mortars and you also have cracks in this woman’s stomach where she’s maybe had a C-section. Is that correlation purposeful?

PW: When I was writing it, I didn’t plan it out. It wasn’t a conscious connection. But all I can say is, as someone who has not just spoken to people who have experienced violence but also having seen it and undergone it myself, we do have a physical reaction to the kind of things that we see and experience. So in a way I think you can say this woman, the pain that she feels in her sutures on her stomach, this correlated to what’s happening in her village. Water plays a very important role in villages in Sri Lanka. They say historically, a village was built around the dam or reservoir and the temple. And a lot of people they think that our conflict was a religious conflict or an ethnic conflict, but really a lot of it was about access to resources; access to water. And so because of that I think that this particular image of the woman having a physical reaction to the dam being attacked in her village is a kind of metaphor of what happened to us as a people. We all are still kind of…not suffering, but rather we’re still in a way subconsciously reacting to the things we’ve seen and experienced.

DE: I was also curious about a small detail in this story where the woman folds jasmine buds into the diapers. Is this a common practice in Sri Lanka?   

PW: It’s something I saw with my own mother. Because, at least back in the days when my sister was small we didn’t have disposable diapers, so you would have a piece of cotton cloth and you’d tie it on the baby and once the baby soils it you wash it, then you boil it in hot water, dry it, put it in cold water with jasmine flowers so that it doesn’t smell of poop anymore. So yea, I think mothers go to that level of detail to make their babies feel good.

DE: I found the man in this story kind of enigmatic because on the one hand he’s helping the woman but I also wondered if he might be threatening because they’re left together and she’s in a very vulnerable position with him.

PW: What I wanted to show there was the kind of slightly peculiar kind of culture I found when I was traveling in these border villages. Because Sri Lanka is a conservative society and there is a certain kind of distance—physical distance—between men and women. Even in my case, even my friends wouldn’t necessarily touch me or come to close to me physically (although we are good friends). But when I went to these villages, what I saw was there’s a more physical intimacy. A greater deal of physical intimacy and physical closeness. What some of these villages told me, was that because when you have to run, not just go away with your family members, you go with your neighbors or somebody from another village or a stranger. And when you go into a forest, you don’t know when you’re going to come back. It could be a day. It could be a couple of days. And because there’s this uncertainty in their lives it warps the kinds of traditions and taboos that are there in normal times and it creates this space for looser relationships. And sometimes you know, you come back and sometimes you’re pregnant by another man but it’s okay, your husband still takes you back because…it’s a different subculture that existed in that area because life is so uncertain. Much more uncertain than in another area that wasn’t at the forefront, the frontlines of the conflict.

DE: Do you think that was temporary? Or has it had a more permanent effect on the culture of that area?

PW: I think it’s had a more permanent effect on the culture of that area because I also went as recently as 2014, which was five years after the war officially came to an end. And it still is a bit “looser” to use that word, because you can’t necessarily backtrack. You can’t just go back to being “Oh no, we’re like so traditional.” So I think it’s had a more permanent impact.

DE: There’s a kind of a repetition in the writing. I wonder if you could talk about the choices you made as a writer for that?

PW: Because most of the story is set in flashbacks, but the actual action that is happening is that they’re running. So I have to keep reminding the reader that this man and woman, they’re running. And then tell their backstories in between. It’s a very short piece. The only thing that happens is two people running. And you don’t know who they are, why they’re running, what they’re running for. So all those things are set in flashbacks while they continue to run. So because of that, that action is repeated. Just to kind of remind the reader ok, we’re still just running.

DE: Finally, I’m guessing many of our readers aren’t that familiar with Sri Lankan literature. Would you mind to recommend some writers?

PW: I think the best known is the one who wrote The English Patient (a lot of people don’t know he’s Sri Lankan). Michael Ondaatje is one of the few writers who’ve made it big on the international stage because he won the Man Booker. And there’s another Tamil writer (Sri Lankan-Canadian) Shyam Selvadurai, I would recommend some of his books too. He’s a gay writer. He talks about the experience of being gay in Sri Lanka. Plus his family had to flee the conflict, so he talks about that. For a funnier, light-hearted read, there’s Ashok Ferrey who writes Colpetty People. Colpettey is like your Sanlitun. And it’s a very snarky look at people who live in one of the most upmarket neighborhoods in Colombo. But it also captures the multi-cultural essence of a city that has been a melting pot since the time of the old maritime Silk Road. One of my favorite pieces is one that talks about how one family hides another during the ethnic riots.

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They ran.

When they heard the mortars had cracked the dam wall, They ran. Just clutching the half-cooked pots of rice and their tattered mats.

She felt a pang; a searing pulse from where her stomach was cut; where the stitches were put.

They ran.

Into the ashened orange hews of the evening sun, that lay heavy on the dry, thorny bushes. Only the frangipani flowers were in bloom, at this time, when the rains were scarce and the earth was parched.

Elephants were also out in search of water; following wild buffalo tracks. The newborns carefully tucked in between the legs of the strong matriarchs.

They ran.

She held her breasts; their contents threatening to spill out; pink udders of a cow, pulsing with milk; They hurt as they ran.

Before she started running, she was at the well, bashing soiled nappies against a smooth granite stone. She had left a few wild jasmine buds to soak in the tin-bucket. She wanted to hide their scent, in the creases of those pieces white cotton fabric. A few seconds before she was pulled by the elbows and dragged over the mossy pebbles surrounding the mouth of the well, she had been smiling to herself.

But now she was running..

He saw her, squatting by the well. As he grabbed her by the elbow, the woman gave out an animal cry and struggled to break free and run back toward the village. But, there was nothing left there. Everyone would have fled, already alerted by the sound of falling shell fire. So he pulled her along. She in her confusion, let herself be dragged.

They ran.

Until their frenzied fear evaporated. Until, they couldn’t run anymore..

The villagers found the few caves, long abandoned by wondering monks. The sounds of the rounds of ammunition had slowly died down.

Her feverish eyes searched the crowed, for an old wrinkled face. Her ears were pricked for the cry of a hungry baby. But, the air was still. No one even dared to breathe. Her eyes darted left and right but they couldn’t pierce the suffocating darkness of a moonless night. She simply slumped against the rock face, her legs extended, her loose blouse, open, waiting for her baby to suckle at her breast; to relieve her of the burden of milk she carried. But all she could feel was the brittle hand, of the stranger, who dragged her away to safety, away from a fate of being hacked by a machete.

She didn’t resist when he reached out – to place a piece of cloth, torn from the rim of his sarong, where the milky wetness was spreading through her cotton blouse, in concentric circles.

When they heard the mortars had cracked the

dam wall, They ran. Just clutching the half-cooked pots of rice and their

tattered mats.

She felt a pang; a searing pulse from where

her stomach was cut; where the stitches were put.

They ran.

Into the ashened orange hews of the evening

sun, that lay heavy on the dry, thorny bushes. Only the frangipani flowers were

in bloom, at this time, when the rains were scarce and the earth was parched.

Elephants were also out in search of water;

following wild buffalo tracks. The newborns carefully tucked in between the

legs of the strong matriarchs.

They ran.

She held her breasts; their contents

threatening to spill out; pink udders of a cow, pulsing with milk; They hurt as

they ran.

Before she started running, she was at the

well, bashing soiled nappies against a smooth granite stone. She had left a few

wild jasmine buds to soak in the tin-bucket. She wanted to hide their scent, in

the creases of those pieces white cotton fabric. A few seconds before she was

pulled by the elbows and dragged over the mossy pebbles surrounding the mouth

of the well, she had been smiling to herself.

But now she was running..

He saw her, squatting by the well. As he

grabbed her by the elbow, the woman gave out an animal cry and struggled to

break free and run back toward the village. But, there was nothing left there.

Everyone would have fled, already alerted by the sound of falling shell fire.

So he pulled her along. She in her confusion, let herself be dragged.

They ran.

Until their frenzied fear evaporated.

Until, they couldn’t run anymore..

The villagers found the few caves, long abandoned

by wondering monks. The sounds of the rounds of ammunition had slowly died

down.

Her feverish eyes searched the crowed, for an

old wrinkled face. Her ears were pricked for the cry of a hungry baby. But, the

air was still. No one even dared to breathe. Her eyes darted left and right but

they couldn’t pierce the suffocating darkness of a moonless night.

She simply slumped against the rock face,

her legs extended, her loose blouse, open, waiting for her baby to suckle at

her breast; to relieve her of the burden of milk she carried.

But all she could feel was the brittle

hand, of the stranger, who dragged her away to safety, away from a fate of

being hacked by a machete.

She didn’t resist when he reached out – to place

a piece of cloth, torn from the rim of his sarong, where the milky wetness was

spreading through her cotton blouse, in concentric circles.

Poornima Weerasekara is a news editor at finance magazine Caixin. She has also worked as a journalist in Sri Lanka, India and San Francisco. Loves Yoga, traveling solo, long train rides and cooking. She also translates poetry from her native Sinhalese.

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