Dehi: Suwanda, Rasa Saha Katu
DSRK by Himali N.
Liyaanage looks at the war primarily from the point of view of Suhani, a
Sinhalese woman, but brings in the point of view of the Tamil, too, through the
family members of Ramesh Jayabandara, her husband who was brought up by his
Tamil mother and pro-separatist grandfather. Liyanange’s narration receives a
certain amount of objectivity due to the distance between her subject matter
and herself due to her diasporic location. Hence, when the Tamil undergraduates
of Peradeniya celebrated the Central Bank blast with high-fives both Ramesh and
Suhani are disturbed (41). War as a whole is depicted as something destructive
that affects the entire nation (42). It is a “feast for the international community”
who benefit from it in various ways (157). Suhani at the beginning is apathetic
towards the war. Later her own liberal humanist father becomes a victim of a
suicide bomb. Subsequently, towards the end of the novel Suhani begins to see
the then ongoing war as a war against terrorism (158).
Ramesh criticizes
his grandfather Sella Thaththa’s extremist views and identifies himself with
the youth of the country (54). He resents the fact that the Army disregarded
him as a suspect due to his race during a search for JVP activists. Ultimately,
torn between two races he decides to leave Sri Lanka. His materialistic nature
makes him a victim of Professor Mayuran, an LTTE kingpin who uses him as
go-between in a money laundering scheme. Mayuran ruins Ramesh and rapes his
mother to fulfill a personal grudge.
On the issue of
nation-building and reconciliation, inter-racial marriages are on the surface
depicted as having negative consequences both in the case of Ramesh’s parents
as well as in Suhani and Ramesh’s (115/6). Yet, in both cases it is other more
individual issues such as lack of communication that lead to the break up of
the two marriages. Hence, the novel highlights need for communication as a
vital step in the process of reconciliation.
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