a whirl wind day of visits, flashbacks, and memories
Some of the pictures I’ve included on the previous day: a couple of my old residences, the old college I taught at and Batti town in general. Plus, some faces from my past: Rajes Kandiah, a mentor teacher of legendary proportions in these parts and a dear friend. Father Miller, also known to Tamils as ” the White Tiger” in his connection with the young Tamil Tiger Radical group that waged war on the corrupt, bigoted, mainstay government institution. Fr. Miller is from the New Orleans Province, but has spent the better part of his 92 years, 77, on the island and in Batticaloa working with the poor and marginalized. And Fr. Joe Carol, a young Jesuit, who was a student in university when I was here last.
Rajes took me on a tri shaw, or as she called it a tuck,tuck tour. My driver in Colombo was “Kumara”. Her driver here was Kumar. Both incredible hard working, honest, honorable guys with personalities. They also are worth their weight in gold for cutting through much of the laborious, bureaucratic, red tape that any errand can become here. I should have learned this thirty years ago, though I chose to swim upstream and fight their age old baksheesh system.
My first task this morning was to get a SIM card, so Arjuna could reach me about further plans. Kumar found a kiosk that did sim and no easy feat on a Sunday here. The operator had never seen a phone like mine and clearly jimmy rigged the card to fit my cell. He said give it 30 minutes and it will kick in. I forgot about but Kumar asked to see it when Rajes and I got out to visit a Hindu temple. It didn’t work. Rajes and I went to have lunch and Kumar’s eyes lit up to fix my cell. “Don’t fear Memsahib, I fix.” Sure as Shiva at 1:30 he returned with phone and I called Arjuna seconds later. Ask him how he got it fixed? I asked Rajes. She did and he wobbled his head in island fashion and told her “Not important Madam.”
My main objective was to clarify one thing through a conversation with Fr. Miller; and I had a rare privilege of meeting him again, because he is not well. Parkinson’s and some kind of muscle deterioration in his legs, but in cheerful spirits none the less. The one thing he remembered about me was my involvement with the open team I played and coached for that won the island championship 1985. He called it the “War within the War”. Our Tamil Open League Team traveled by bus across the island to face the National Police Team. We received one call the entire first half even though it was knock down basketball; I yelled, screamed, cursed at the officials in every language I knew, and the officials simply ignored me. Ravi, our best player and center at 6’5″, got sucker punched at the tipoff and lost two teeth. No call. It went on and on like that. We trailed by three at half and won by one. I had a very good game, but mainly because I did not receive the brutal physicality that my teammates did for I was white and these Sinhalese want to appear “”upright & fair” to the Brits, and I was considered for their purposes a Brit. Our bus ride out of the parking lot was a rock and bottle throwing contest as the all Sinhala Police crowd threw everything they could at us. We lay on the floor of the bus.
I came to meet Father with one question in mind: “How did Father Herbert die?” They had gone through the seminary together and come to the island the same year: Fr. Herbert originally to Trincomalee and Miller to Batti. Herbert joined Miller two years later in Batti. Fr. Herbert Coached the under 18 boys basketball team, ran a technical school for youth, was an outstanding spiritual role model, one of the best no nonsense pragmatic priests I’ve known, a mentor and a friend.
I showed up at a few practices. He asked my background, let me scrimmage with the guys and then asked me to be as he said in his southern Louisianan accent: “player/coach, Bill Russell -like” with the open team. He would help but he didn’t have time for two teams with all his other commitments. I did and it stands as a highlight of my life.
“Father, have you had any further discoveries in Fr. Herbert’s death?” “Yes, and no. Wrong place, right time. I was actually asked by the Bishop to make the trip he did. I was out of contact and missed Him and the incident by a half hour. Of course no one told me there had been a gun battle and we simply never saw Father again. The Hindu radical Tigers’ were on a mission to kill all the Police, who had done major violence to youth in their village the day before, and they were on a rampage.
The Moslems locked up their shops and went home. This is in Eravur, a town 10 km down the road. Fr. Herbert was sent to say mass locally, knew the guys involved and tried to quell a growing scene between the Moslem shop owners, the Tigers and the newly arrived Police and Army. Fr. H in his often headstrong, confident way, thought he could quell the riot. He either got caught in crossfire, or worse yet he became the target.
A year later my secretary and sometime driver went to the police station in Eravur to pay a traffic ticket and he noticed this motorcycle that looked familiar in the police parking compound. He wrote down the numbers: all the numbers, serial numbers, engine numbers, etc… You see Fr. Herbert had just been gifted a new motorcycle weeks before the incident because he had increased travel duties for masses, to hear elderly confessions, etc. And low and behold these numbers matched Fr. Herbert’s cycle. What to do? “
ljm22 