Operation Manik Farm by Dilshy Banu

     Dilshy Banu’s Operation Manik Farm tells what happened in Manik Farm IDP camp. The author, a Communications Coordinator at Handicap International Sri Lanka, says that it was her own experience at Menik Farm that inspired her to write the book. “Although this story is categorised as a fiction, the incident each character goes through bear witness to the relief services done in Manik Farm Camp Complex and the complexity of the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka” (back cover). The story is related by an omniscient narrator who sees what goes in the camp mainly through the eyes of Sushma, a humanitarian worker whose race is never established and Prathana, a Tamil IDP. Different points of view are presented on the last stage of the war and the relief work through the four characters: Sushma, Prathana, Captain Priyadharshana, and Dr. Sumudu. The Final War is depicted as a necessary yet traumatic act. Captain Priyadharshana who had lost both parents due to LTTE activities tells Prathana, “I wanted to stop these killings, so I joined the army” (158). Sushma who observes Capt. Priyadharshna efforts to entertain the children in the camp states:

I mean I have no direct experience of war, but always heard that the Sri Lanka Army is so cruel to the people trapped in the war zone. I believed it until I saw a few Army officials who were kind to people and actually being very supportive in facilitating the Humanitarian Efforts (108-9).

     The novel displays a positive attitude towards reconciliation: “Prathana felt sorry for Captain Priyadharshana and understood that like Tamils in Sri Lanka, Sinhalese in Sri Lanka also went through the same pain” (139). On post-war nation building, proposing to Prathana, Capt. Priyadharshana says, “Then we could start a new generation of new understanding between Tamils and Sinhalese of Sri Lanka and build an understanding future” (139-40).