Yalpanam - is the northern part of Srilanka, once the prime
location for the Tamil Liberation movement during the civil war, as it was
under the control of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from the
year 1985 to 1995. Beautiful landmarks like fort, library building with war stricken
bullet wounds and the memorials of
civil war are in the state of deep sorrow as it has lost many valuable human lifes in this place – there was sickening silence and anger buried in the soil which
has lost war against the Srilankan army – that resulted in more check post for
checking the movements and identity of the travelers, as most of the time it is
only the Singhalese dirvers were used in the buses like ours from Colombo to
Yalpanam.
I am from Chennai, and not fully understood
the struggle of the Tamils in Srilanka, but during my younger days in schools,
I use to hear about LTTE and their fight against the Srilankan army,
as there use to be protest and slogans during that time by some political
parties extending their supports to the Tamil in the nearby country, their
protest gave us school holidays and support for LTTE Captain – Prabhakaran – was
taken as a symbol of braveness among Tamils in Tamil Nadu too…I could remember
the videos of LTTE warriors surrendering their weapons - machine guns, missiles in movie theaters during the interval.
I was moved by Dilipan memorial, which is in the main area of Yalpanam with his
photo, which I witnessed for the first
time in my life, His life was heart wrecking story of a freedom fighter who died
in the fasting protest adopting Gandhian style of non-violence moment for the
liberation of Tamil elam from Srilanka unlike LTTE..….but he too failed!!!
Besides the impact of civil war, the city
is now renowned with more promising future and development that are been brought up by the Srilankan government for the people who
are intelligent and focused on their well being with their duties and daily routines, with
their excellence in academics and improvement in the life after years of civil
war – I could still sense their deep rooted pain and agony in the hearts and
minds of Srilankan Tamil as they have not forgotten their struggle which ended as failure, they are in their prayer songs and in their thoughts as their fellow citizens sacrificed their life!!!
Pictorially, I personally felt Yalpanam as an extension of
Tamilnadu in terms of the climate, culture, location, its ethnicity along with
the people, places, temples and the language spoken (of course with Srilankan
Tamil ascent ) where the majority of them are Tamils, I could hardly find
anyone talking Singhalese. Yalpanam has the beautiful green and fern of Kerala even in the style of
talking Tamil language in the Malayali style...or been spoken as esai
(musical) Tamil. Local transports in Yalpana, such as buses, auto rickshaws
plying like our Chennai city only with the different currency.
Nallur Kandaswamy temple gave the divine feel, it was the
center of the city and the main area around which we stayed and roamed around –
I could spend very less time for shopping as it was all busy day in the
official process, we could make it only after 7 PM and couldn’t make it lively
in the shopping spree and visiting more prominent places nearby…as I
experienced the journey from Columbo to Yalpannam – the landmarks and the
temples on the way was been cleverly scheduled.
I could see the tamil people are very devotional people and proud to declare themselves as this is the land of shiva (Shiva bhoomi), prayers are in Tamil and detailed in all the temples I visited. Even in the eelam chindambaram temple in karai nagar which was in the large area with mini zoo and lots of greenery...
Every country has it's unique food - though Jaffna / Yalpanam is almost like Tamil Nadu - it has its variance is some food items besides the usual banana leaf food of south Indian style, I tasted Pal appam, spicy sambal and fried rice, along with the Orange Barlie drink. Tea was very good even though we had it in a small shop called
Kannan Lodge which is quit old and has seen the different shades of the war sticken Jaffna but now returning to normalcy.... I was in a habit of buying newspaper but was shocked to see the price of English newspaper Rs.30/- (1 INR - 2.48 Srilankan Rupee) but still...spending Rs.30/- for a newspaper!!! Naaa...
I did the last minute shopping in a hurry during the late hours of the day in the main bus stand area where I have seen very few shops opened at that time..one among that attracted me is the Malayan Cafe (photo below) - may be its referring to the native Malaysian had their business in Srilanka..quite an famous outlet...I could pick up some authentic Jaffna special stuffs like candy, coconut oil, tea powder, Rani sandalwood soap, woodoo...with all these purchase as a sovereign from Jaffna / Yalpanam...another memorable last ride was to Jaffna international airport which is just a make shift building having only 2 international flights a day...hence we were received with more smiles and warm greetings as we are from India and the people there were mostly Srilankan Indians..but before that there was a very lengthy process of security check in the entrance which is again a shed with young Sinhalese security giving us through check for our luggages and also givings us friendly adieu .... with all these memories studded with varying wonderful thoughts, gaining afresh experience in this land has given me a new bliss.
