Henry Charles Brennan

Doctoral Edit 6. Attachment The upcoming sections of this chapter evaluates and explicates how the notion of “belonging” influences the ideas of home of the Sri Lankan- displaced Tamils. It also addresses the relationship and the degrees of belonging that they have to their homes. To understand this relationship between the displaced Tamils with their original Ur and their negotiations with displacement and resettlement, I propose to analyze the three dimensions of belonging, that isare; commonality, mutuality and attachment, as propounded by Pfaff-Czarnecka and Gerard Toffin (2011) in The Politics of Belonging in the Himalayas, (xv pp). This provides a useful tool to analyze the various forms of belonging, which I observed among the displaced persons in relation to their original homes. In the upcoming sections, I address how the displaced persons, both in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, show their diverse kinds of attachment to their native homes or Ūr in the rural areas of the Northern provinces of Sri Lanka. The meaning given to attachment to Ūr in the Tamil context, needs to be seen in the light of how the relationship between the rural and urban lifestyle is symbolized and discussed. In the following section, I attempt to elaborate on the notion of attachment (to Ur) from its relatively close to its relatively weak form, to which my data is linked. This is done in order to discuss the mutual process of formation of identity and ascribing meaning to places. Furthermore, this discussion plays a fundamental role in influencing the interviewees' decisions either to return to their Ūr or resettle and re-integrate in their present location. The empirical point of departure for this chapter is drawn from my own collected data about displacement of Sri Lankan Tamils from their places of origin in the Northern provinces of Sri Lanka either to the capital city of Colombo or to South India. Such narratives are used as a means of understanding how they ascribe the meaning of attachment to their homes and how this is related to the negotiations with displacement and resettlement in today's world. The migration of Sri Lankan Tamils from their places of origin is an age- old phenomenon as has been depicted by V. Daniel (1984; 1996) and S. Thiranagama (2011), but the context and meaning attached to their displacement and homes have changed over ages. This is connected both to structural and economical aspects as well as to the cultural values which are ascribed to their places of origin. Accordingly, the relationship and the degrees of attachment they have to their homes remains an “under-researched aspect” till to date (Jones 1999: 01pp). In the following paragraphs, this issue will be addressed and will be used to investigate how people’s attachment to their Ūr can be understood. Finally, after portraying the different narratives, I argue that people from different age groups, 1 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj gender, classes and castes have different kinds of attachment to their homes which are elaborated in this chapter. I, further, show that most of them, presently being resettled elsewhere, feel intense attachment to their Ūr through past memories. Being displaced, their new locations appear to be the “reverse” of belonging: abandoning roots and attachments is its pre-condition,” as termed by Pfaff-Czarnecka (Pfaff-Czarnecka-Toffin 2011: xxiipp). In contrast, the returnees have returned for a better life; however they are facing difficulties in coping up with the changed environment and the changed people. Also, life has become difficult after return as they have to start everything from the very scratch. Initially, many of the elderly persons experienced different forms of exclusion at their present locales in Colombo or at Tamil Nadu in South India. However, they succeeded to recreate a kind of attachment while still having the longing of their past life at their Ur. Compared to the kind of attachment that the original places used to have, it becomes more challenging to have new attachments and ties at the new locations. Religious sites such as temples, places of socialization like neighborhoods, public meeting places, shops as well as private homes, brought back the feeling of attachment to the past experiences and give way to future expectations. For them, their home is related to their experience of life course as well as in the formation of their self-identity. Remembering their former homes is a one way of keeping alive their past memories and relating it to their present lives to maintain their sense of continuity, identity and protecting the self. In contrast, there are few middle-aged, as have been discussed, who have negative feelings about their Ūr where they once lived and emphatic that they will never return there due to the long spans of time staying being away and also the absence of basic socio-economic needs. There are even some, mostly the young generations, who hate their homeland, as it has taken away everything from them. Moreover, they were at a very young age at the time of displacement and have only heard stories of their homeland from their parents but have nothing to recall. For them, their present location is their home and consider their former Ūr as a strange and unknown place. Moreover, they want to prosper in their lives, so are hesitant to return to a place which cannot offer them any kind of opportunitiesopportunity. However, their parents are nostalgic about their Ur and keep on telling stories to their children so that they know who they are and where do they belong with the hope of penetrating instilling some kind of attachment towards their homeland. But they are in an ambivalent position whether to return or not. They are well aware if they return, their life will be steeped in uncertainties as they have to start from the very scratch, as things have changed there. Also the future prospects of their children are very minimal in compared to their present locales. Yet, 2 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj many dream of returning to their Ur, as they are emotionally and spiritually attached to their homes or places of origin. At the same time, it also occurs to them that their children will never return which means they have to remain alone there. On the other hand, the displaced persons at the welfare centers in Jaffna, believe that their return will help them to regain their lost social status and also the lost life. This is one of the most important reasons which has motivated them to long for their return. They are counting their days to return to their former homes to have a better future and living. Whereas refugees in the camps of South India are most likely to get rid of their “refugee status” but not very much in favor of return due to emotional attachment to the present land and future prospects which are unavailable in their homes. Attachment to Ūr : actual return to get related with past memories and people “In 2010, after almost 20 years, I returned to my homeland (Moore Street in Jaffna)... a place where I belong to, though my parents stayed back in Colombo. I knew return would not be easy as there is very little opportunity in Jaffna. Still, I believe that I have to perform certain duties towards my homeland, towards my own people... Also, in Colombo, I used to feel like a stranger...Yet after returning, I am totally surprised with the changing culture, changing attitude of the persons.” This is the statement of Mr. A. Rahman1, a 33 years old Tamil-speaking Muslim, who has returned to his (partially damaged) home in Jaffna after 20 years of displacement. This account highlights the notion of attachment which is an emotional bond that people establish either with specific areas, where they prefer to remain and where they feel comfortable and safe, or with specific people and sometimes even gets emotionally attached to the past memories. Also, often people feel attached to the status he/she enjoyed at their home environment which insists them to return to their Ur. Mr. Rahman was born and brought up at Moore Street in Jaffna in his father's house and spent his childhood days amidst his own environment and people. This, no doubt, created a very strong interest in his neighborhood. As being a young child, his early days of socialization was limited to the immediate geographical environment as have been shown by Mesch and Manor (1998) in their study on local attachment (506 pp). He played and socialized with his neighbors who became important ‘agents of socialization’ (ibid.: 507 pp). This centrality of place in the process of socialization increased his interest in the community and nurtured his attachment to his home. Moreover, Moore Street used to be a place where he knew almost 1 Mr. A. Rahman was interviewed on 22nd February 2013 at the University of Jaffna. 3 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj everyone and vice versa. This naturally earns him a specific status in the society which is lost after displacement. Thus regaining lost social status is also another reason for his return. In 2010, when he returned, he reconstructed his home in order to make it a habitable place and ‘‘unknowingly it resembled our old one’’, said Mr. Rahman astonishingly. This activity of rebuilding the home in the same pattern as the old one also developed new attachment within him. Simultaneously, he joined one of the NGOs in Jaffna to survive as well as to help the Tamilspeaking Muslims to return to their places of origin. Thus, he further took up the initiative to encourage and support his fellow displaced Muslims to return to their homes. He set his example in front of them and tried to convince them about their return. According to my informant in Jaffna, around 950 Muslims returned to their original homes in Jaffna from Puttalam until mid 2015. Despite the joy and happiness which marked the moment of his return, he was upset to see the changing environment which emerged within their culture and, more importantly, among their community, under the conditions of war-related displacement. Life was indeed difficult upon return for people like Mr. Rahman who has been under constant suspicion by the Sri Lankan military. In addition, job opportunities seemed to be very far less in the Northern partregion. Yet, this uncertainty and military control could not hold him back from returning as he prioritized the intimate connection of his own surroundings, the relational and friendship ties that he remembers even after two decades and the urge to do something for his own small world and his own people (Pfaff-Czarnecka; Toffin 2011: xxipp). In this scenario, I argue, as did by Relph (1976), that this intimate connection between my interviewee and his home ‘became apparent’ only when he experienced displacement and the hardships which followed thereafter (40 pp). His awareness of this bond mostly derived from the sufferings caused by displacement and from the mere idea that he might lose the ownership of his home, in Jaffna, if he integrates into Colombo. This also proves his strong sense of belonging, not only to his place, and to his people, but also towards the ownership of his home. Though, it has been stated by Giuliani (1991) that ‘the longer the residence the stronger the attachment’, yet Mr. Rahman always ‘‘felt difficult to be permanent in Colombo, and so did not actually get attached to my house there as a home as I always believed it was a place to live in for the time-being and sooner or later I shall be returning to my homeland’’ (141 pp). Thus the relevance of the length of residence has been examined in this case with contradictory 4 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj result which shows that staying in one place, i.e. in Colombo, for almost two decades has not made the attachment stronger instead it has always made him feel detached. “At the time of displacement, I was only 11 years old. In 1988, when the IPKF came to Jaffna, we were displaced for the first time. We went to Chavakachheri and to Vavuniya but returned soon in early 1989. Little clashes started to take place between the LTTE and the IPKF. Finally in the morning on 30th October 1990, LTTE asked us (all the Muslims) to leave Jaffna within 2 hours. My father was standing outside the house, hearing this he started weeping. My family along with others left thinking that after some days we would return. At that moment, we did not have the idea that it would take us so long to return. As we had no other place to take refuge, we went to Anuradhapura as one of our relatives was staying there. For three months, we stayed there. Though it was a big house, but the owners could not afford to let us stay there for very long. So, we went to Colombo and rented a place. It was like a store room with two bathrooms. We were 8 families with children. It was really getting difficult for us, due to lack of privacy especially for the women to survive in that place. After few months, we managed to buy a small plot of land in Negombo and built 8 rooms of teen sheets with bathrooms and a common kitchen. As most of my family members are tailors so we did not find that much problem in getting jobs in Colombo. My mother was a government teacher, so she also got her job back in Colombo. This was how we managed to earn money and bought a plot there. After a couple of years, my cousins started going abroad and money started to come in. My parents again bought a small plot in Colombo and built a house.” While talking about the challenges of return, he also threw light on his past experiences of the eviction of the whole Muslim population (70,000-80,000) from the North, instigated by the LTTE. All Muslim families, including his own, were forced to leave Jaffna on 30th October 1990 within a very short notice. Most of them went to take refuge in Puttalam while Mr. Rahman and his family went to Anuradhapura and later on shifted to Negombo followed by Colombo. They had to struggle hard to survive in the first few months. Soon after, his parents succeeded to establish themselves in Colombo and bought a plot of land and settled down there. Mr. Rahman finished his education and joined in a small business but could not at all concentrate, as his mind was brimming with the thought of his hometown. For almost 15 years, he stayed in Colombo and enjoyed most of the luxuries and comforts the city offered. Yet he could not relate himself to the city. Also, he resists himself being associated with his fellow Sinhalese and Tamil neighbors. He 5 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj felt like an “outsider” in Colombo. Here, this feeling, of his, acts as a determinant to distinguish between insiders and outsiders in boundary mechanism. This sense of an ‘outsider’ developed because he was discriminated on the basis of his language, religion and his “so called traditional Tamil” habit of wearing the pottu. This is what Wimmer (2008) says about dividing the world, on the basis of race, language and religion (1028 pp). The civil war marked a turning point and created a rupture in his life, yet his memories of home overwhelmed him. Life in Colombo has always been a pale shadow of what he experienced in Jaffna. Initial days were spent in his homeland where his character was formed along with building up of affective relations. Settling in different areas, like Negombo or Colombo, was not a choice but a compulsion to survive the destructive civil war. No doubt, these new places offered a good living and a good life for him and his family; however, it recalled loss in every possible way as has been narrated by Mr. Rahman. This is the main reason for his decision to return to Jaffna leaving behind his whole family in Colombo. In his case, attachment to his place acted as the driving force which motivated him to return to Jaffna. “Place attachmentAttachment”, as stated by Altman and Low (1992), is a positive emotional bond developing between individuals and their environment as can be observed here. According to Mesch and Manor (1998), place attachment is important ‘because it generates identification with place and fosters social and political involvement in the preservation of the physical and social features that characterize a neighborhood’ (505 pp). As the authors found in their study that both social relationships and environmental satisfaction are required to develop place attachment, which is also true for Mr. Rahman (ibid. : 517-18 pp). This narrative describes the “intimate connection”, as Pfaff Czarnecka and Toffin termed it, that Mr. Rahman had with the land in Jaffna even after staying away for almost 2 decades (Pfaff- Czarnecka; Toffin 2011: xxipp). His sense of place is reinforced through the relational ties with his neighbors, friends and relatives with whom he shared the same experiences, memories and knowledge while back home. The attachments are intensified through the material possessions (his own belongings), as well as through the immaterial connections- for instance fields, ritual sites and so on. Therefore, according to him, neighbors, friends, relatives the environment and the past memories are the basic ingredients which makes home/Ur. In the following, I attempt to show the experiences, as witnessed by the returnees in the Northern 6 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj provinces of the island, while constructing and reconstructing their daily lives amidst the new environment which comprised mainly of difficulties and uncertainties. Among all my interviewees who have returned, I picked up Samara’s story as she is the one who wanted to return even though she knew her former home has been totally damaged. The attachment to her home through the memories along with the mutual interest of leading a good life in Jaffna brought her back. As my interviewee narrates her experiences of return, she portrays, in detail,s the reason for her return, the dilemmas she is having at her home now and also the survival strategies. “I am originally from Moore Street in Jaffna. It has been 30 years that we have been living here. All of a sudden in 1990, we were asked to leave and displaced to Puttalam… In 2010, my family returned to Jaffna. As we visited Jaffna 2-3 times while in Puttalam, we were aware of the fact that our home has been totally destroyed, nothing was left. After returning in 2010, we lived in a rented room and started rebuilding our home… it has been partially rebuild and finally shifted there last year (2012). While rebuilding it, we kept the old structure as it reminded of my old home. I have the same feeling of home now which was not there in Puttalam or in the rented room.” Samara, a 50 years old Tamil-speaking Muslim lady in Jaffna who has returned to her place of origin a year ago, highlights the notion of attachment to her home even after 20 years. Samara spent 30 years of her initial years at her home in Moore Street amidst her own environment and people. This long duration of stay at her home created a very strong attachment to her neighborhood, which is true to the fact as put forward by Giuliani (1991) in her essay, stating that, “the longer the residence the stronger the attachment” (141 pp). Also, this feeling of home in Jaffna developed with the connection of her past life. Unfortunately, due to the 1990 Muslim Eviction, Samara and her family were forcibly displaced from their homes and were displaced to Puttalam. In 2010, when she returned, she stayed at a rented place near to her Ur and started rebuilding her totally damaged home in order to make it a habitable place. Her family rebuilt it, retaining the same old structure in mind which reminded of their old home. This idea of rebuilding the home in the same pattern as the old one also developed new attachment within Samara. At present, being able to stay at her own home, she feels the same comfort and easiness that she used to feel previously. 7 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj “Jaffna, being the source of good life, provoked us to return. Two important things that made ‘me’ to return was the sweet taste of water from the well and the few neighbors those who are still here…” In spite of having the knowledge about the condition of their home in Jaffna, Samara’s family decided to return. The reason being the aspirations to a better life which they speculated to have in Jaffna once they return. Samara and her family preferred to live a better life in Jaffna which was not at all possible in Puttalam because of the inadequacy in opportunities. To add, relationship to her Ur in Jaffna determines social status which is lost as soon as they were displaced. Additionally, their change in preferences was influenced by the fact that Jaffna offers a better life, and a better opportunity for themselves, both in regard to their jobs and living standards. Like many others, this family has also developed new needs of having good medical facilities as well as those of education along with those of entertainment e.g. Radioradio, television or internetInternet which are available in Jaffna. In order to fulfill this new desires, Samara’s family seek to increase their income and thus wanted to shift to Jaffna where they can have jobs which will maximize their incomes. Furthermore, Samara’s attachment to her home is depicted through her memories. She romanticized her memories by emphasizing on the local traditions and social practices that she enjoyed at her locale. She had strong interests in her neighborhood as that was the place for her to socialize in her early stage of life. From her very early age, her neighbors became ‘important agents of socialization’ as has been stated by Mesch and Manor in their work on local attachment (1998: 507pp). This is one of the main reasons for Samara’s return to her home. She is mostly rooted in the geographical location and the relationship to her neighbors. Another reason for her return is the sweet water that she used to have from the well at her home. For her, this sweet water represents home which was unavailable in Puttalam. Her statement reveals that the sweet water of the well is a symbol of nurturing energies for Samara. Attachment to her home through these memories makes her “belong to spaces and sites, to natural objects, landscapes, climate, and to material possessions” as suggested by Appadurai (1986) and Bell Hooks (2009). These are further fabricated through contrasting links “as embodiment, resonance of smells and tastes” (Pfaff-Czarnecka 2013: 17pp) as well as the ownership rights of her home. “However, after return, we are disappointed...! Things have changed which we never thought of. Our culture and community have changed. Hindus and Christians are sharing our locality which 8 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj was previously a Muslim-only locality. To add to our difficulties, we can not find jobs here. Life is full of uncertainties now...” Return failed to fulfill their expectations. She was disappointed to see the changing environment which emerged within their culture and, more importantly, among their community under the conditions of war-related displacement. Life is indeed difficult upon return for Samara as her each and every movement is controlled by the Sri Lankan military. Moreover, during the pre-war days, her locality comprised of Muslims only which did not let her to face the racial and ethnic differences that has become a reality at present. Now, her locality has turned into residences for both Hindu and Christian Tamils, which often leads to communal tensions. In addition, job opportunities seemed to be very far less in the Northern part. Yet, she decided to stay amidst this uncertainty, tension and military control as she prioritized the intimate connection of her own surroundings, the relational and friendship ties that she remembers even after two decades. This is evident from her statement: “All these difficulties are temporary, I know. We would soon be having our past days back. Just we have to be patient...”. In this scenario, I argue, as did by Relph (1976), that this intimate connection between my interviewee and her home ‘became apparent’ only when she experienced displacement and the hardships, which followed thereafter (40 pp). Her awareness of this bond mostly derived from the sufferings caused by displacement and from the mere idea that she might lose the ownership of her home in Jaffna if she integrates in Puttalam. This also proves her strong sense of attachment not only to her place, to her people but also towards the ownership of her home. Thus, by analysing her narrative, I argue that sweet water and neighborhood are her ingredients of making what is called Ur. Next, I examine the story of attachment to Ur of a middle-aged Muslim woman, Farzina2 who has returned to her homeland in 2010 after almost two decades. She describes the story of her return which has an influence on her life. Her story also reflects the kind of attachment she has to her home after two decades: ‘I returned to Jaffna in 2010 and am living in the same area nearby to our original home but in a 2 Farzina was displaced to Puttalam in the 1990s when the LTTE asked all the Muslim populations to leave Jaffna. In 2010, almost after two decades, many of the Muslim families including her family returned to their original homes in Jaffna. I interviewed her on the 7th of March 2013 at an NGO in Jaffna. 9 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj rented place. Although, we are staying in Jaffna but still I do not feel to be at home. I am not at all trying to make this rented place to feel like home. I know this house is temporary, so do not want to relate myself with this house. Often I feel like homeless. I still now consider my past home to be my own as we were surrounded by our relatives. My current location is a strange place for me. I cannot do whatever I feel like. I have limitations here as it is a rented house. My relatives have moved and I am alone here. I do not know anyone here. If I get a scope to buy my own land I shall definitely do it. For the time being, I cannot afford to buy any land due to financial problems, but still hope someday I shall have my own home on my own land.” She describes her years in Puttalam in terms of ‘limbo’ as stated by Giorgia D. and Helen M. (2006) while writing about the experience of the UK refugees back to their homes, (10 pp). Farzina’s return to Jaffna provided an end to the inner feelings of uncertainty and limbo as she stated that ‘everything I did in Puttalam seemed fake… Returning to Jaffna gave my identity back. I love to be here, I grew up here, Jaffna gave me everything. I feel like belonging to this place…’. To Farzina, Jaffna presents itself as a choice, a desire or an identity. It centers on a community and a society. She has been raised up in the town which provided her with physical comfort and with a sense of connection and belonging not only to her family and household but also with her friends and neighbors. In Puttalam, she never felt like belonging. However, her return to Jaffna has not fulfilled her wish of staying at her own home, as it does not exist anymore. Since her return, she has been staying in a rented place which is nearby to her place of origin. Nevertheless, her current location does not deliver the same kind of feeling that she used to have in her ‘own home’. Most of her old relations have either integrated into Puttalam or have moved to some other place within the country. She is left alone at her new locale in Jaffna. Farzina believes that home is not only about a place but also about the people through whom she feels ‘at-home’. And these experiences generate within her a constant shift in her understanding of ‘home’ and ‘homeliness’. Thus the idea of being homeless evokes certain emotions in Farzina like despair, isolation, grief and hopelessness. Moreover, the new location has turned into an estrangement, as she neither knows her neighbors nor she isis she acquainted with the place where she is living at present. Her rented place fails to provide the material comfort that she expects from her own home. In addition, she cannot live freely and independently as she has to follow certain rules and limitations as prescribed by the owner of the house. She is not even interested in making her new place as her own old home as she expects to build up her own home on her own land in the nearby future. She lacks insufficient income to buy a land which she can 10 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj claim to be her own, where she will have no limitations and can do whatever she feels like. Home is a combination of a place and a feeling wherein the person-environment relationship creates feelings of well-being (Watkins; Hosier 2005: 198pp). To make things goingacceptable, adjustment is required to the new relationship between the person and the place. When this adjustment fails, people start feeling homeless as Farzina is feeling in her new place. To her, the definition of home is rooted in physical comfort and in the personal history which has developed out of cumulative experiences through life and enduring memories. She used the space at her home according to her personal preferences, which is not possible now. She felt the loss of emotional privacy at her new domain. Though she is not technically homeless, yet feels that she has been without a “true home”, since she was forced to leave Jaffna in the 1990s. Thus, her narrative reflects the attachment to her Ur which compelled her to return inspite of all the uncertainties. In addition, it also presents a picture of the difference between 'owning a house and renting a house'. Though she is staying near to her place of origin, still she cannot make it as her Ur as it fails to provide her the physical comfort and privacy, which according to her, are the most important components in making home. The following narrative presents another deep attachment to Ur among a Muslim couple in Jaffna who returned with the aspirations of having a better future. However, return proved to be disappointing as everything has changed at their home. Yet, they decided to resettle for the love of their homeland which I have analysed in the upcoming paragraphs. “I am originally from Jaffna. The conflict forced us to leave Jaffna and move to Puttalam in 1990. We stayed there for over a decade. In 2002, I returned to Jaffna after the Ceasefire Agreement had temporarily ended the civil war and settled down here…Life became indeed difficult upon return as we lost almost everything, we had a house and we had everything. At the same time, I now had to start from the very beginning to earn my livings here. No one helped me to rebuild my home. Government only provided the dry rations…Yet after returning, we are totally surprised with the changing culture, changing attitude of the persons around. There are many differences from 1980s. We used to have huge number of coconut trees at the entrance of our house which are missing now. That kind of feeling ‘at home’ is not there at present. But still Jaffna is my home. I have come here to protect my land, my mosque. I cannot run away from my duties. I was born here; I have also some duties to perform for my motherland. Whatever happens I am not leaving Jaffna. All the time, I was in Puttalam, I wanted to return… 11 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj My wife also is of the same opinion. Presently, I am working as a daily wage laborer, but if I find a good job outside Jaffna, then I shall definitely go, but will come back after saving some money and establish my own business in Jaffna only. We pray to God to give us peace and a good life. No matter what struggles we have to face, we already faced a lot and lost a lot, so we do not fear of losing anything now than our own homes.’’ Mohd. Abdullah3, a 56 years old Tamil-speaking Muslim, was among the victims who experienced the Eviction of October 1990 by the LTTE during the ongoing conflict. They were forced to leave their places of origin within a very short notice and landed up to the welfare centers in Puttalam. After spending more than two decades at the welfare centers, Mohd. Abdullah returned to his fully demolished home in Jaffna. Even though he was ecstatic about his return, he was upset to notice the dramatic transformation his pre-war place of residence had undergone, over the past few years. Changes took place all over throughout his home area, within his culture and among his community. In his memory, his area in Jaffna, that is the Moore Street, belonged to Muslims only. His home was surrounded by his own people. His return is inevitably nostalgic and about returning to memories of youth. However, at present, his neighborhood consists of Muslims, Tamils and few Sinhalese as well. Initially, he was fearful both of his new Tamil and Sinhalese neighbors and of the Militants. Gradually, neighborly relations started to establish as stated by Jansen (2009) that ‘no one wished to live in a stranger’s house’ (47 pp). Though, he has succeeded to develop a relationship with his new neighbors, yet the kind of affinity that he felt towards his own people is missing. Also, relationships had changed over time as they were magnified in imaginations and unmatched by the experience of the visit. He was disappointed that old relationships were ‘not what they used to be. There is a huge gap to fill on both sides’. We pretend to know each other, but we don’t’. The parody of being close to someone, having imagined that person for years and built up a picture and then being worried about holding an everyday conversation with them was a concern. Everyone in his locality has become a stranger now. The discrepancy between past and present was shown by uneasiness about ‘not knowing how to act and react’. He displayed a high level of self-awareness and took a great deal of care in his action towards others. His return was in a sense a meeting of past with present, of imaginations and reality of the present. Mohd. Abdullah is trying hard to re-establish 'a sense of normal life, which in its turn is defined 3 Mohd. Abdullah was interviewed on 7th March 2013 at an NGO in Moore Street in Jaffna. He was displaced in 1990 from Jaffna and stayed in Puttalam with his family. In 2010, he returned to Jaffna. 12 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj by three issues: creating sustainable livelihoods, finding a place of relational identification and developing a site of cultural attachment' as has been observed by Stefansson while working with the Bosnian returnees (Stefansson 2004: 174pp). In his writing about the Bosnian returnees, the author argues, that in spite of the radical wartime changes, many of them are strongly motivated to return to their homes. Similarly, my findings about the Jaffna returnees demonstrate their strong yearnings to return to their homes as is found in this case. Mohd. Abdullah, presently working as a daily wage laborer, is has not been able to lead a modest life, for which he is seeking for financial help to from many organizations, so that he can start his own business. He has faith in God and hopes to come back with to a good life soon. He is too trying to develop a place which is characterized by security in order to have a better future, similar to what Turton (1996) proposes about Mursi refugees in Ethiopia. Nonetheless, he is in search of a 'cool ground', as discovered by Jansen (2009) in his findings about the Bosnians where individual and collective lives can be relaunched (45 pp). Zygmunt Bauman (1999) in his book, In search of Politics, uses the German term ‘Unsicherheit’ to denote the three dimensions, that is, insecurity, uncertainty and unsafety unsafe environment, in order to analyze the decision of displaced persons, who are reluctant to return (17 pp). I found an intensifying version of this in Jaffna, where there is a widespread fear of living under political control and enduring militarization, even after five years have passed since the war has ended. Mohd. Abdullah feels the difference of living in post-war Jaffna than in pre-war days. Familiar places have become unfamiliar to him. Upon his arrival, he observed the visible changes that have taken place in his area which has become unrecognizable. Most of the houses are broken and abandoned. Trees have grown all around them. Fields are overgrown. The old mosques are all demolished. There are no places where they can go and pray. He was more oriented to the past, to his own lost properties and to his own people. Despite his dire living at present in Jaffna, he compared his current situation favorably to the ‘awefulawful’ years of displacement in Puttalam. No other place than Jaffna could tempt him as he and his wife were amongst the few first who moved from Puttalam to Jaffna. When describing that day, Mohd. Abdullah exclaimed, ‘I was so happy to return home. This is mine! This is where I belong! This is where I want to be! ’ Thiranagama (2009) suggested about the return of the minorities to their home ‘that the relationship of the two - what was once home is not just one about relationships to the past, but about the possibilities of belonging in the future, the possibilities of finding a future in which one can flourish personally 13 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj and collectively’ (130 pp). I concur with her suggestion as Abdullah’s attachment to his home is both with the past and the future in which he can establish himself. Jaffna, for him is a ‘home’ which offers a story about former sociality and emotional and spiritual sustenance. The next three stories, that I present, show the attachment of the young generations towards their own Ur. However, there is are also aspirations to the good life, which Ur fails to provide. In the upcoming narratives, I justify the reason behind why almost all of the young generations are moving outside their homes to establish themselves. I, also, examine their feelings of happiness to be back in their places of origin, which is reflected in their statements and are having the obligations within themselves to perform some kind of duty towards the development of their motherland. Attachment to Ur: actual return to get connected with broken memories “I miss my neighbors, I miss one of the tree (Annamunna in Tamil) in my home. It was a small tree. My friends and I used to climb that tree and plucked up the fruits. Those fruits were really tasty but a bit allergic. We also used to play under the shed of that tree. Unfortunately, the tree is now broken during the war. And the soil is not that good to grow such a type of a tree again.” In the case of young Sangeetha4, attachment to her home is attachment through her childhood memories while in home. The memories from her childhood in Kilinochhi town, in the northern province of Sri Lanka, were entirely positive. She romanticised her childhood memories by emphasising on the local traditions and social practices that she enjoyed a lot. She had strong interests in her neighborhood as that was the place for her to socialize in her early stages of life. She played and attended school in her neighborhood and made quite a number of good friends. From her a very early age, her neighbors became ‘important agents of socialization’ as has been stated by Mesch and Manor (1998: 507pp). There were many leisure activities which children of her age used to enjoy like climbing and plucking fruits from the trees. Playing under the shed shade of the tree is also another kind of leisure activity for Sangeetha and her friends which she misses a lot nowadays. Her statement reveals that the Annamunna tree is a symbol of nurturing energies for Sangeetha in her childhood days. Attachment to her home through these memories makes her “belong to spaces and sites, to natural objects, landscapes, climate, and to material possessions” 4 Sangeetha, student in the Jaffna University, is a Tamil Hindu woman (in her mid 20s) interviewed on 21st March 2013 in Jaffna. 14 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj as suggested by Appadurai (1986) and Bell Hooks (2009). These are further fabricated through contrasting links “as embodiment, resonance of smells and tastes” (Pfaff-Czarnecka 2013: 17pp) as well as the ownership rights of her home. “I am originally from Kilinochhi. I was first displaced in the end of 2007. In total, we were displaced 6 times from one camp to the other. Finally at the end of 2009, I returned to my original home. Though we had rebuild our home, but we do not have the same feeling that we used to have before...Our ancestral home was a really big one consisting 5 big rooms with one big hall and dining room. We had huge balcony in front of our house. We also owned a big garden where usually all the vegetables were harvested. But due to lack of money, now though we have rebuild our homes, it is like a small cottage with only two rooms in total. For others also, their big homes have now converted into small cottages. Those homes which have been totally destroyed received 3-5 Lakhs SLR but as our homes were partially destroyed so we received 1.5 Lakhs SLR but in installment.” During the final stage of the Vanni war in late 2007, Sangeetha and her family were displaced. After taking refuge in six different refugee camps within Kilinochhi district, her family returned home in December 2009. Now, after returning, everything that was considered as valuable to her are either destroyed or are gone. Return has failed to provide the same kind of attachment to her home that she used to feel previously. Her home is partially damaged with only two rooms in a habitable condition instead of the seven big rooms. It needs to be repaired which requires a whole lot of money. Though the Government has provided a certain amount of money, but thatit is not sufficient to rebuild their house. For them to arrange the rest of the money is really difficult, as there are very less scopefewer opportunities to earn money at present. It is assumed that if Sangeetha and her family succeed in rebuilding the house which resembles the same old one then there is a scope of a new attachment growing up within Sangeetha. Furthermore, all of her relatives and friends have migrated elsewhere. “We also thought of going elsewhere but could not because of our land and home. We (especially me) have so many memories attached to this place, how could we go elsewhere?”. The distance in time and space have enabled her to differentiate the positive experiences from her childhood by cultivating feelings of belonging to the place of origin. Her attachment to her home is losing its strength, as she has become alone now. Her neighbors and friends, their pet animals and her beloved possession, the “Annamunna tree”, are all lost. She is no doubt facing strong 15 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj disappointment after return. The experience of her return has let her down as she is not able to relate her present home with the past one where she had spend most of her childhood days. Yet, home, in this case, often has highly personal meanings, like where Sangeetha lived since her birth and to which she has returned after displacement, are associated with roots and continuity. It is often linked to important life stages like childhood, adolescence, parenthood and expressed in terms of experience and memories. Sangeetha associates her home with security and safety along with a place for her work and leisure activities. Often she uses her place to tell answer the question, “who we areare we?” - depicting her identity and her Ūr. A vivid childhood recollection for her is the pain of leaving behind her past home, her own neighborhood, friends and, most importantly, the tree and what it symbolizes. The degree of meaningfulness of the childhood experiences and memories, that Sangeetha had, “translates into the degree of attachment to the place itself” as put by Melinda (Milligan 1998: 02pp). On one hand, the memories of childhood home is are ingrained with fuzzy feelings of security and comfort, fixations of happiness (Bachelard 1964) while, on the other hand, the traumatic events, like war and displacement, penetrate the store of dreams of childhood homes. Thus, Sangeetha feels that childhood memories, friends, family and her very own Annamunna tree are the factors that make ups “home”. “I am originally from Navaly in Mullaitivu district…Since October 2012, I am living in a Paying Guest in Jaffna for my higher studies. We do not have scope for higher studies in our hometown, so everyone of my age has to move out either to Jaffna or in the South. After losing so much, I really want to support my parents, and to do this I have to establish myself first. This is not possible if I confine myself to my hometown as there is no opportunity. I want to earn enough money and do not mind if I have to leave my home…” Sheila, a 25 years old Tamil girl from the North of Sri Lanka described her bitter experiences of the civil war, poignant stories of her displacement and return and also highlighted the life after return in her former home. She is originally from Mullaitivu district in the Northern part of the country and completed her schooling there. In order to pursue higher studies, she left home and moved to Jaffna and stayed as a paying guest from October 2012. Aspiring to have a good life both for herself and her family, she shifted to Jaffna while visited visiting her family during the weekends. Her aspirations are mainly ‘associated with the family’s socioeconomic status’ as has been revealed by Mau and Bikos in their study on educational and vocational aspirations while 16 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj talking about high school students’ aspirations (2000: 187pp). Due to the war, they have lost almost everything, so Sheila intends to support her family with the income that she will be earning after finishing her studies. She wants to earn a good amount of money which will help her family to relive their good old days which they used to live in the pre-war days. She is more likely to place importance on having a high status job which will enable her to earn enough money to support her family. Higher education, for Sheila, is considered as desirable and increasingly necessary for fulfilling her ambition of earning money. Unfortunately, this is not at all possible if she remains at her hometown in Navaly, in the district of Mullaitivu, as there is no scope to do higher studies. They have the scope to study till the Advance level in her hometown. Because of this, most of the young generations of her age are leaving their homes and moving either to Jaffna or to the south, where they can have ample scope opportunities to establish themselves, and in turn, can support their families as each of them share the mutual experiences of losing their belongings. In this scenario, Sheila’s parents also play a significant role as they have allowed her to move out of their home and study elsewhere irrespective of her gender. Kahl (1953), in his study of the educational and occupational aspiration, first suggested the importance of parental encouragement in their children’s aspirations to the good life. He also pointed out that the attitude of the parents regarding the importance of their children’s occupational success for personal happiness was one of the main factors. In addition, she also explained her feelings of attachment, through memories, towards her home: “I miss my rural environment, good relaxed conditions. Sometimes, I get fed up studying all day long and then wish to relax and do practical things such as cultivating a potato field or going out fishing or playing with my friends as I did before. I also miss the freedom to do whatever I want outside my house without anybody neither noticing nor interfering…” Here, the positive aspects of her rural home are closely related to different aspects of nature. Cultivating nature represents a link to her social and cultural background. But when cultivating potatoes turns into a leisure activity, it also entails a break with this kind of background. For Sheila, nature is also associated with free space connected to independence and freedom. In nature she can be alone and outside social control. Nature is also important as an arena for outdoor life and playing. In addition the value she connects to nature is related to her childhood experiences. Growing up in a rural area is something she has appreciated all throughout her life. 17 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Sheila presents a childhood in rural areas as being idyllic and in contrast to the town-life of Jaffna. Having freedom and living close to nature as an arena for physical activities are important aspects of what she thinks of as a good childhood. “But moving out from my home is also very important for establishing myself…” Sheila expresses her disagreement of staying with her parents at her own home because of the lack of opportunities. There is no future for her in Mullaitivu, so she has to move out keeping aside her strong attachment for her home and nature. Her rural background and the nature near her home are important, but she is ambivalent about how to incorporate these aspects in the formation and management of her desired future. She also has the desire to come back and use her education to start up some developmental activity in her home area, but for that she needs to establish herself first. Another example, now is portrayed in the following paragraphs which shows attachment to Ur as well as aspirations for a better future, with the aim of doing something good for one's own homeland: ‘I am originally from Mullanganavilai in Kilinochhi. After getting displaced in 2007 and experiencing all kinds of sufferings, finally my family and I returned to our original home in late 2009, after the war came to an end… We were not aware about the condition in which our original home was in. It was only when we returned; we saw almost everything has been destroyed. Nothing was left. The Government and the NGOs provided help with some temporary sheets in order to rebuild our house. But as our house was not fully destroyed, so we did not receive any monetary help from the Government. Like our relatives and neighbors those who have migrated elsewhere, we too had the scope of moving somewhere else than to returning to our native place, still my parents thought of returning as it is our own land. We do not have to pay money for the land, only we had to rebuild our house. My father could also resume his farming gradually. Tariqur5, a 20 years old Hindu-Tamil boy narrated his story of displacement from his home. Unlike my last interviewee, he was one of thosethem who were displaced during the last phases of the Conflict, but only for a shorter period of time during the last phase of the civil war. He is also 5 Tariqur was interviewed on 11th February 2013 in Jaffna. 18 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj lucky enough to return to his own home within two years of displacement. While they were away, his family members had no idea in what condition their home is in and what kind of struggles they had to face once they return, yet they chose to go back to their own land. They have an intimate relationship with their land to which they belong. It is the place where Tariqur and his family have been nurtured, taken in the air and properties as has been observed by Daniel (1984) in his book, Fluid signs: Being a person the Tamil way in the context of South Indian Tamils and their conceptualization of Ur. Home as a place and a feeling, in general, conjures the sense of belonging, control, comfort and security. The foundation on which the notion of home have been built up is on ‘the importance of shelter, storage and display of valued belongings, a place for self-expression, locus of activity, privacy and control, familial linkage and emotional freedom along with habituation in place and memory of personal history’ (Watkins; Hosier 2005: 199pp). Individuals develop their definition of home based on the memories of their personal history and experiences throughout their lives. Normally, the Tamils believe that home or land reveals ones character so it is very important to them to start a conversation with a stranger by revealing one’s own home which will make room for further interaction. As Thiranagama (2011), in her work on the concept of home, assumed that ‘because one is a person, one has an ur, and because one has an ur, one must either love it or feel obliged to love it. Ur …became … an everyday language of love, affection, sentiment and memory …’ (19 pp). So unlike their relations, Tariqur and his family instead of migrating elsewhere decided to return to their original home. This in a way will help them to save a bit of money as they do not need to pay rent for staying. Also, his father, being a farmer, could start his farming on their land and gradually they will be able to reconstruct their home and make it a habitable place. However, they were not at all aware of the destruction that took place after they left. It was only after their return, they discovered the loss that they had to partakeendure. The Government and NGOs provided little help by providing temporary sheets for rebuilding their homes, but not a single penny was offered to them as because their home was partially damaged. Nevertheless, soon after his return, he was disappointed with the changed attitude of the people around him. Though he has the same people in his neighborhood, but their attitudes changed totally with the end of the war. This is mainly because of the loss that each family in his neighborhood suffered. One or two members from each of the houses are either dead or are missing. He cannot find anyone of his own age to spend time with. He expressed his 19 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj disappointments as: “Since we returned, there is no one in the neighborhood with whom I can feel at ease and spend some time. The neighbors are the same, but from each house, one or two members are missing. All are in utter grief, their attitudes have changed. Mostly, the boys belonging to my age are missing, either they are killed or have fled somewhere else in order to survive from the hands of the LTTE or the Military. Many of the neighbors or relatives are resentful or intolerant towards me as I am doing well while their children are missing or dead. Thus our relations have changed. Everyone has become individualistic. They have become concerned about their well being only.” Their economic condition also deteriorated as a result of the displacement. Their main source of income was farming, but after return, their land is not that fertile to harvest huge quantity of crops, unlike past days. Although, his father has restarted farming, but can only earn a small amount from it. One of his elder brother works as a masonry from which they earn a bit as well. Together, with this income, they are trying to survive. Tariqur and his two other brother and sister are still studying with the hope of supporting their family as soon as they finish their studies. Tariqur and his family used to live in a bungalow type of a house which had 7 rooms in total with a huge balcony and a garden. Due to the war, their house has become a small cottage comprising of only 2 small rooms. It is really difficult for his 6-members family to survive in such a small house when they were used to stay in such a big mansion: Our ancestral home was a really big one consisting 5 big rooms with one big hall and dining room. There was a huge balcony and a garden in front of the house. But due to lack of money, our home has become a small cottage with only two rooms in total…Our lifestyle has deteriorated now. With the aim of supporting his family, Tariqur has moved to Jaffna to acquire higher studies. In his town, but there is no opportunity to study after A-level6. Also, his hometown lacks many other opportunities which are required for a person to establish himself. So he moved to Jaffna to gain his University degree with the help of which he hopes to find a decent job and will be able to help his family to overcome the difficult situation they are going through. To flourish, if he has to move elsewhere, he will do it as his career comes first and he wants to establish himself. He does not want to lag behind in order to remain at his hometown with his family. Surely, he will visit his 6 Advanced Level or A-level is the selection examination for University admissions. 20 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj family and spend time with them, but settling with them is not a good option for Tariqur. In his case, his idea of a good life lies in earning a huge amount of money so that he and his family do not have to face any further difficulties in living, they can get back their past lives. In addition, he has a sister to look after. If he flourishes well, they can get a suitable groom for his sister and will be able to pay the dowry as much as demanded by the groom’s side. Furthermore, he is truly affectionate towards his hometown when he talked about his wishes of doing some developmental work for his hometown so that his hometown prospers, but for that also he needs to establish himself. Following is his statement which explains his aspirations about the good life: “From June 2012, I am staying in Jaffna to pursue higher studies. In my hometown, we do not have the opportunity to study after Advanced (A) level, we have to either discontinue our studies or have to move elsewhere. So, I have moved to Jaffna. Furthermore, in Jaffna we have the tuition facilities which are not available elsewhere in the Northern districts. After completing my studies, I will look for job and if I get one with good opportunities then will not hesitate to move. But as my family are in Kilinochhi so will try to visit them quite often. But it depends on time. I do not want to lag behind, I want to establish myself well enough in my future for that if I have to leave my home, and I am ready to do so. Moreover, I am also determined to do some developmental work for my hometown, so for that I need to establish myself first.” Attachment to Ūr : aspiring to return to regain past life Peter De Silva7, a Christian-Tamil (43 yrs old) resident at the Gobindpur welfare center in Jaffna, spoke about his attachment to his Ūr in Myleddi8, its fertile soil, its sweet water and the whole landscape. For him, the landscape, which he knows and appreciates, represents home. Being at home for Peter means a place where: “I know people who are around and you share the same dialect and the culture…This is how I feel to be attached to my home.” His case is quite similar to that of Mr. Rahman, yet slightly differs as he is not allowed to return to his Ūr even after almost three decades because of political reasons. He is eagerly waiting to return to his place, to his own home as he is emotionally connected to that place where he was born and brought up. Peter’s story also depicts the sense of attachment to place as has been 7 Mr. Peter De Silva was interviewed on 16th February 2013 in Jaffna. He is the President of 9 such welfare centers in the Jaffna District. 8 Myleddi is situated in Jaffna in the Valikamam North region. It is very near to the sea coast so its soil is very rich and fertile. 21 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj rightly Rightly put by Hidalgo and Hernandez (2001) in their study on Place attachment: Conceptual and Empirical Questions, as ‘a positive affective bond between an individual and a specific place, the main characteristic of which is the tendency of the individual to maintain closeness to such a place’ (274 pp). Generally, as observed by the authors, it is the tendency of human beings, like Peter, who to always look out for the place where they were born or find a place where they feel comfortable and secure (2001: 274pp). Besides, Peter still continues to identify with his Ūr, which explains the tremendous power of attachment to his ancestors' home. In addition, according to Mesch and Manor (1998), there are certain factors like home ownership, length of residence, stages in life-cycle and social relationships which helps in the development of attachment to a place (505 pp) which becomes evident from Peter’s narratives in the forthcoming section. Also, I got the opportunity to listen to the stories of a few other displaced persons housed in the welfare center, which are so similar to that of Peter’s. They, too, are emotionally connected to their home and consider their Ūr to be amongst the first pieces of information and, as has having been pointed out by Thiranagama, that they think of providing to introduceintroducing themselves to an outsider in terms of their homeland origin, which would reveal their status, character, culture and identity (Thiranagama 2011: 18pp). Unfortunately, Peter is unaware of the fact that if his home is still there or has it been destroyed as the residents of the area are not allowed by the military to visit those places as it belongs to the High Security Zone areas: ‘We don't know precisely what the land is being used for…’ he stated in a curious voice. ‘We are told by the local government officer that the region, encompassing 6,381 acres, or 25 square kilometers of land is being used for a public purpose by the military’. From social media, ‘we have come to know the existence of the "Thalsewana Holiday Resort" within the region which is functioning under the Security Forces Headquarters.’ ‘...we have filed petition to the Sri Lankan High court in order to return to our homes but till now have not got any response’. Peter's place of origin falls under the HSZ area which has not yet been opened for their original residents due to several political and economic reasons. According to a report submitted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)9, the government states that the 9 http://www.aaas.org/news/sri-lanka-images-military-zone-reveal-no-significant-increase-publicfacilities- aaas-reports Accessed on 10th of October 2014. 22 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj military's acquisition of the HSZ region, encompassing 6,381 acres, or 25 square kilometers of land, is being used for public purposes. Also, the AAAS analysis confirmed the existence of "Thalsewana Holiday Resort" (formerly the Harbour View Hotel) within the military zone which is "functioning under the Security Forces Headquarters." Another coastline development also was seen to the west of the resort, and AAAS researchers further identified a number of new and expanded or improved roads as well as increased land-use for farming. This shows how the Government is fooling around the IDPs, like Peter and his fellow neighbors, who are unaware of these developments, as they cannot even gain access in to the HSZ to check on their former homes. However, the Thalsevana Holiday Resort ensures local tourists, from other districts, visiting the area quite often. Being afraid of losing his home, he has filed petition to the Sri Lankan court in order to get back his land, but have not yet received any reply from them. At the time of displacement in the 1990s, he was told that his land would be given back with the end of the war, but it has already been more than four years that the war has ended, still there is no sign of getting back the land. As Thiranagama (2009) puts it: “For Tamils, ‘home’, as a place where one could belong, was not always synonymous with a Tamil homeland where the future was bleak and uncertain” (138 pp). Similarly, Peter’s quote, “all I want is the opportunity to return to my own home…” gives us the idea that by home he means his own former home rather than his homeland. While speaking about his home, he mainly emphasized on the sense of attachment he has to the fertile soil and sweet water, and to the degree to which his land meets their economic needs: “We are confident enough, if we return, within a year we will regain our old lives that we enjoyed 30 years back. Also, we will help the Government to help the poor with our money. That is the kind of (fertile) land we own. We do not feel hungry at our place. If you sow a seed, within 3 days it will convert into a tree and you start enjoying its benefits. And our water was like a sugar cane juice, it was that much sweet. From the sea, we had so many different kinds of tasty fishes.” Peter and his fellow neighbors romanticized on the sense of belonging they have to the fertile soil and sweet water, and the degree to which their land meets their needs. They identify their lands to beas being their sole source of income and are confident enough that within a year of their return they would be successful in regaining their lost lives that they enjoyed 30 years back. Also, they would help the Government to help the destitutes with their money. They believe that their lands are so fertile that within three days of sowing seeds they can start their earnings. Their land 23 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj provides them with different kinds of tasty fishes and vegetables which are enough for their daily diets. They need not have to spend money on their foods at their homes. Also, their lands provide opportunities of doing different kind of jobs like,; fishing, farming or any other small business, which is not possible in the welfare centers. Thus return will help them to prosper economically as well as to regain their lost social status which is, as stated by Appadurai (2004), ‘is materialsymptom of deprivation and desperation. It is lack of security and dignity. It is exposure to risk, and high costs and for thin comforts. It is inequality materialized’ (64 pp). They see themselves as a group isolated from other locals who are staying either at rented places or at their own houses. Nevertheless, they aspire to have a good life in their future which is possible only after returning to their homes. Here, Hage’s argument, “…home has to be a space open for opportunities… so that one can perceive opportunities of ‘a better life’: to develop certain capacities…personal growth… the availability of opportunities for ‘advancement’” (1997: 103pp) fits well with the aspirations of the IDPs, like Peter, in the welfare centers. Aspirations form parts of wider ethical and metaphysical ideas which derive from larger cultural norms. They are always formed in interaction and in the thick of social life. And aspirations about the good life, about health and happiness, exist in all societies though they might vary from people to people. “Life is rather difficult here...we are forced to work as masons or daily-wage laborers...!,” said Peter. Presently, Peter is involved in the same struggle with the same kind of jobs of either masonry or daily-wage laborers with his neighbors, in which he is highly unskilled. Common acts performed at the welfare centers, like sharing the same occupation, is a good example of experiencing commonality. Also, their shared aspirations to have a better future are another way of expressing commonality. Peter’s narrative showed his feeling of ‘collective identity’ with his fellow neighbors at the welfare center where he mostly used the term ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. He always represented a group of persons who always feel a sense of belonging to their former homes and wanted to return to regain their old lives and status. They, also, identify themselves with their places of origin. In his everyday life, Peter usually meets many locals who display negative and stereotypical 24 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj attitudes towards him as he is a ‘mukam pille10’’. This often leads to harassment and discrimination from the locals. “We are recognized as mukam pille by the locals”, said Peter angrily, but with a grief. The locals, according to him, feel that camp people are lower caste people so they are not worth of talking to even if they share almost the same background of fishermen or farmer. Their cultures are considered bad and it is not advisable to the local children to play with the camp children. They fear playing with the camp people will also make their children ill-cultured. The locals feel that the camp people resent them because of their ‘well-off status’ as Thiranagama observed in case of the locals and the ahathis (refugees) in Puttalam but in the opposite way (2011: 149pp). Therefore the existence of an ethnic boundary between this two groups comes to the forefront. This These boundaries, as according to Barth (1998), are mostly the social ones that 'defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses' (15 pp). In addition, Barth explains that, 'if a group maintains its identity when members interact with others, this entails criteria for determining membership and ways of signalling membership and exclusion. Ethnic groups are not merely or necessarily based on the occupation of exclusive territories; and but by the different ways in which they are maintained, not only by a once-and-for-all recruitment, but by continual expression and validation...' (Ibid.: 15pp). Peter and his fellow neighbors at the welfare center also complained of continual discrimination in the administrative and bureaucratic structures in their area. Thus identity plays an important role in their life. Their changed new identity of “mukam pille” makes them devoid of many opportunities from their surroundings. Like, when they go to the market to sell their vegetables or fishes, locals avoid buying them because they are bad-cultured people. They are always engaged in fighting and drinking. Also, while filing petitions to the local governments in order to get back their lands, Peter many a times,on many occasions, faced discrimination due to being a camp peopleperson. Nobody is ready to listen to his pain and sufferings. This specially made him aware of his loss of social status and identity from being an ordinary local to now being a from the camp people. Therefore, this loss determines his desire to return, in order to regain his lost status and identity. This has been correctly justified by Relph (1976) in his writing, where he states that ‘the associations and commitments that do exist between people and their homes may … become apparent only in time of loss and hardship’ (40 pp). Therefore, losing his social status at his present location made him to feel more attached to his home in 10 “Mukam pille” is a Tamil word which means camp people. This is a common word used by the locals in Jaffna to identify the displaced persons staying in the welfare centers. 25 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Myleddi which can only help him to regain his self-esteem. Besides, Peter also gives salience to having space around him, and that is an important reason why he wants to return. The use of space connects him to a traditional way of using it, but often gets transformed into a leisure activity and symbol of life style. He remembers his own good childhood at his home and wants to give his children a similar one, but ‘Alas..!’, murmured Peter as he knew that it is not possible. “We owned a big one-storied house with a huge lawn in front. The lawn was so big that two volleyball grounds could be set up together... Hundreds of coconut and Palmyra trees11 were there in front of our house…But now146 families live in 70 perch12 of land…so you can well imagine how small is our habitable place now.” His Ūr forms the basis of his identity. In his native place, individuals claim to own huge acres of land where they own big house along with enough farming land. Together with his neighbors, the landscapes have been shaped through their farming activities and by their “neighborly care, assistance and control” as discussed by Anne De Sales in her article (2011: 04pp). Here, Peter’s social ties to his neighbors and friends living in the neighborhood are critical to the understanding of his attachment to home. This development of attachment towards his home is also the result of the relationships with other people in his neighborhood. As according to Altman and Low (1992), places are the circumstances where interpersonal relationship takes place and people gets attached to those social relationships. Supporting this argument, Mesch and Manor (1998) have shown that ‘local social involvement, in particular with friends and kin, is the most consistent and significant source of attachment to place.’ (507 pp). The links to his homeland exist in the appreciation of the surroundings, in the experiences of shaping the natural environment, in the legal entitlements to land, in the imaginaries of being shaped by the local topography and by the natural set-up as well as by the many experiences of performing commonality and mutuality through local practices. All these have become past tense as it has already been more than three decades that he is has been away from his home, he is and been displaced. The suffering caused by the displacement has developed the sense of attachment even stronger. In this 11 The Palmyra tree is the famed symbol of the Jaffna Peninsula, a familiar sight to anyone who has grown up there and its symbol most often is used to represent the peninsula (Thiranagama 2011: pp146). 12 1 Perch=0.00625 acres. 26 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj scenario, the agony of losing his homeland becomes all the more unbearable as displacement not only meant abandoning possessions and the relationships, but also losing “dense social ties, solidarity and support” (ibid.). Ūr, to him, has become “an object of longing (inherent in ‘belonging’)” (ibid.). In addition, according to Peter and his fellow neighbors, their camp-life has become even worse in the last four years with the end of the war. The camps are very densely populated thus creating poor sanitary conditions. The extreme overcrowding, together with lack of access to clean water, sufficient food and health care services, had a considerable impact on their health. They also complained about the very little scope of education for camp children, the prevalence of harmful diseases due to the presence of different kinds of insects, drunkenness and lack of privacy for young girls. Despite the deployment of the military to provide protection, the IDPs, as jointly stated, commonly experience violence and abuse at the hands of the military forces who are supposed to protect them. To add to their difficulties, the Government and the NGOs have ceased to provide, since 2011, dry food rations and other basic supports: “Government has asked the Government Agents of our regions not to provide any kind of help to us,” uttered one of the displaced in total dismay. “We cannot live a decent life in the camps, cannot bring up our little children in a good way. With the opening of the A9 Highway, consumption of alcohols, drugs have increased. Mostly, young generations, in between the age of 15-25 are addicted towards these habits. Main reason is that they want to lead a jolly and entertaining life.” Because of the poverty, unemployment and lack of proper guidance, young boys and girls are taking the wrong path. “Do they have any other choice?” angrily shouted the whole group. They also added that drug addictions, negative impacts of the Internets, prostitution, and unwanted child children have polluted the quiet and peaceful atmosphere of Jaffna after the re-opening of A9 Highway in 2002. Until then, due to military strategic and security reasons, Jaffna ‘was in a state of isolation and almost completely detached from the mainland’ (Gerharz 2015: 190-91pp). Due to this opening, movement of people from other parts of the country started which resulted in all these kinds of wrong doings mostly among the youngsters: “Most of the parents work outside leaving behind their daughters in the camps. This gives room to outsiders to come and spend time with the young ones which many a times leads to unwanted pregnancy, kidnappings. Also, often young unmarried couples within the camps, wishing to have fun, give wayleads to unwanted pregnancy. We can do nothing,” said Peter in a shaking voice. Peter’s 27 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj statement proved to be correct when I visited a couple of welfare centers in Jaffna, and often came across young girls aged between 14-17 years roaming with their kids. It took me with aby great surprise to see these girls, instead of going to schools, are raising up their children. Among them, most are unmarried which is considered to be an uncultured practice in Jaffna. Adults also expressed their concern about these uncultured practices by their children. They further added that the basic relationships that used to hold families and villages together have been totally lost in the post-war days. Children are being left alone in the camps by their parents as both the parents are going to work outside with the aim to earn a fewsome extra money in order to lead a decent life. This negligence was described, by the parents, in material, social and emotional terms. Material neglect occurs due to parents’ poverty and a number of interviewees said that children do not benefit from the parental care and guidance they would have received prior to displacement. The quality of the education children receive at schools has gone down and many are unable to pay the fees to send their children to schools. Some even talked about a decrease in respect for traditional practices and behavior, and difficulty in finding ways to pass their culture onto the youth. On the other hand, young generations are said to suffer from idleness and lack of constructive activity, related to both a lack of access to the education system, and a lack of space for children and youths to engage in leisure activities, such as sports and traditional dance. Idleness is perceived to contribute to sexual promiscuity, criminal behavior and alcohol abuse. Alcohol abuse is believed to have serious consequences, including promiscuity and violence (e.g. fighting, domestic violence, sexual abuse and assault). Interviewees complained that young people are sexually promiscuous due to factors such as population congestion, poverty and parental neglect. This, in turn, has health consequences in terms of sexually transmitted infections, and unwanted pregnancies. Moreover, with the transformation in status, their culture has also changed. “All have become selfish,” said Peter in a very depressed tone. “To me, culture is love, sacrifice and belonging. But, nowadays, there is no pure love even within ones family...!” As stated by Rebecca Horn (2009) in her study on the Ugandan IDPs, the maintenance of traditional cultural practices is helpful for the whole community; providing support, ensuring continuity and giving meaning to difficult events (112-113 pp). In addition, community structures such as leadership systems, contribute to community cohesion, and ensure that accepted ways of 28 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj behaving are maintained. However, these are often lost when a community becomes displaced, because leaders are no longer present, or because the resources required are no longer available. Olaa (2001) describes how Ugandan Acholi culture and tradition is ‘rich with mechanisms for solving problems within the community, but the capacity to conduct these activities effectively has been degraded by the continuing conflict’ (109 pp). Similarly, the cultural practices have been degraded in the welfare centers of Jaffna due to the displacement, as expressed by Peter and his inmates. For Peter, the expectation of leading a good life represented something that he was confident about. It is only because of these expectations, people in the camp, are willing to return to their Ūr. Their expectations can only be fulfilled after returning to their own place, as they believe home is made up of a nice environment and a good and respected life. In this context, their place is perceived as being meaningful because it offers a respected life with various kinds of opportunities to earn livelihood by performing certain activities like farming and fishing, experiencing something desirable and also opportunities for personal development. Attachment to his place thus concerns “the relationship between self and environment”, as stated by Gustafson, which is based on the interviewee’s knowledge of the place that is so evident here (Gustafson 2001: 11pp). Similar narratives, like Mr. De Silva, I heard from several other persons, irrespective of men andor women, in the welfare centers in Jaffna. All of them are waiting eagerly to return to their Ūr as it is their only source of income. They believe if they return their lives will improve within half a year and would also start helping the Government for the betterment of their economy. In addition, their loss of social status and identity are important determinants in their desire to return. The next narrative, which I am going to examine, is of an elderly person who is ambivalent in deciding whether to return or not. This is because, on one hand, she is still attached to her Ur in Jaffna and, on the other hand, she also wants to live with her children who are reluctant to return. I attempt to reflect on this ambivalent positioning of hers showing her attachment towards Ur and at the same time her love for her children. 29 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Attachment to Ur: Nostalgia and Ambivalence “I am originally from Jaffna but left Jaffna and settled in Colombo since late 50s due to the 1958 riots. I stayed with my parents and finished my studies in Colombo. I got married in early 1970 and in 1974 went and settled in Jaffna...Me and my husband built our own house in Jaffna in 1978 and started staying there. We have so many memories… I now live on those memories, they keep me alive…Being displaced 3 times, presently I am staying in Colombo with my younger daughter for the last 9 years.” A retired Hindu-Tamil widow, Mrs. Shantha Parthasarathy13 is originally from Jaffna but has been staying in Colombo for the last 9 years with her younger daughter. She enjoys her life in Colombo with all her relatives, yet yearns to return to her Ūr in Jaffna as she has so many memories related to her personal life, which are spatially located intied to her home. To addAdditionally, like Peter, she too continues to identify herself with her Ūr. She is waiting to experience the village life all over again with her few old neighbors and friends. “I always have the yearning to return to the silent village life away from all the chaos in Colombo. I want to feel the village life all over again- specially when I kept the doors open, the sound of the leaves of the Palmyra tree blowing in the wind takes me to the good old days. Even, my elder daughter (in Norway) took me to the deck of her house and asked (in joy), “Amma is it not like the Jaffna noise? …My daughters rode bi-cycles in Jaffna. Everything was safe. There was no feeling of insecurity. People were so honest and trustworthy then. The house in Colombo has also become “home” to me. I am staying there for a decade now. I have also started feeling for it. Moreover my daughter is not ready to move and settle in Jaffna...I am now in a dilemma what to do if I get my home back in Jaffna. ...after the war, the entire society has changed.” Mrs. Shantha feels that returning to her home and reliving all those moments spent with her husband has gotrepresents something new and has a positive meaning. Despite this, she is in an ambivalent situation, whether or not to settle back in Jaffna. She complained about the lack of opportunities in the remote areas which also in a way forge her concern to the welfare towards her Ūr. Also, she has started developing feelings towards her home in Colombo. Here Giuliani’s argument holds true in every sense where she says that ‘the longer the residence the stronger the attachment’ (1991: 13 Mrs. Shantha Parthasarathy, aged 69, was interviewed on 16th January 2013 at her home in Colombo. Presently, working on women issues in the Northern part of Sri Lanka. 30 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj 141pp). In addition, none of her daughters are ready to leave their well-settled life in Colombo and start anew in Jaffna. They are so disappointed with the LTTE, who took away everything from them. They do not have any kind of attachment to their home in Jaffna now. Yet, Mrs. Shantha will go, renovate the house and enjoy some days farming and gardening and return back to Colombo. She looks at it as a place to spend a nice vacation. From being part of an everyday life, she more or less took for granted, she said that it would mean more, because it is something she could not do except at home on vacations. Work activities based on using nature are transformed into nostalgic leisure activities and important symbols to link to her home. No matter what she feels about the her current physical well-being, her existence has always been closely attached to her native locality. always. The social and cultural aspects of her past days in the rural locality are something of which she is proud of. “In Jaffna, our house was constructed in such a way that the air could flow within the house as the town is really hot throughout the year. A traditional Jaffna house with white colored “Lshaped” (she and her husband sketched the plan and got somebody to construct according to their choice.). We planted 10-12 coconut trees in front of our house so that we do not have to buy coconuts and used to farm on the backyard which fetched us with sufficient vegetables. We used to have a library in the house which was always open to students. Our house was always vibrant. We really enjoyed our life amidst the students and the plantations. Our dining table always remained full of books, only at the time of eating we pile all the books together and kept them aside. When we rebuilt our house in Colombo (as it was burnt in 1983 riots), I did the same white color and “L-shaped”. I only realized this when my friends and family visited and said that this house is just like your Jaffna house.” Shantha’s home represents a space where she could relax and get the feeling of her own home in Jaffna and her lost identity. She believes that her insight and experience from this kind of milieu will be an asset for the rest of her life. The value of coming from a rural locality is related both to the practical skills, the closeness to nature and the anchoring in a different kind of social milieu than in Colombo. The way she talked about her home, it represented a positive element in formation and management of her desired identity. Her attachment, even in Colombo, is, in many ways, related to aspects of the past like constructing same kind of houses and leading almost the same lifestyles then and now. 31 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Now, I move on to investigate some stories where once there was attachment to Ur but gradually, due to several reasons, attachment has become detachment. Attachment has been transformed to detachment, not only for the young generations, but also for the middle aged and elderly people. The immediate narrative is of an elderly Sri Lankan Tamil from Jaffna who has integrated into his present locale in Chennai. Even though he is has been in Chennai for more than three decades, he still recapitulates his past days in Jaffna. However, his attachment to his Ur has now become detachment due to several reasons, which I have will elaborated in the next paragraphs. From attachment to detachment “Living in Jaffna and Tamil Nadu means the same to me as I do not find much difference except For the food habits and the language. Indians are really helpful and they helped me a lot during the initial days in Chennai when I was all alone with my four sons. My wife expired, leaving us alone as soon as we started staying in Chennai. At that time, I got full support from my Indian neighbors and friends to stay back in India asas the situation was getting worse day by day in Sri Lanka. We stayed in a rented place after coming to Chennai and had to register with the nearby police stations and still now we have to renew our visa every 6 months from the immigration. Otherwise, things are fine here…But my four sons did face problem with education as in Jaffna they studied in Tamil medium while in Tamil Nadu they had to study in English medium which created difficulties for them in the initial years…afterwards, things became easier and they succeeded to prosper in their lives… Being refugees, we are not eligible to get passports in India., but But, as my sons are IT professionals, their company helped them with obtaining passports because of their merits. Three among them are settled abroad while the youngest one is in Chennai. He is also doing quite well and there is a scopeanticipation that he will also moves to USA soon.” Mr. Suryanarayan, a 73 years old Sri Lankan Tamil refugee staying in India for the last 37 years, falls under the second category14 of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu. They are categorized as refugees outside the camps who, as soon as arrived in India, informed the Rehabilitation Department that they do not want government assistance and they have the means to look after themselves. Being a refuge from Sri Lanka, he has to register with the nearest police station, in order to get a refugee certificate from the nearest collector’s office. Thus, this develops constitutes a social boundary which separates him as a Sri Lankan Tamil from the Indian Tamils. Social boundaries, as has been propounded by Tilly (2004), 'interrupt, divide, circumscribe, or segregate 14 Categories of Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu has been detailed in Chapter 2. 32 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj distributions of population or activity within social fields. Such fields certainly include spatial distributions of population or activity, but they also include temporal distributions and webs of interpersonal connections. We might therefore define a social boundary minimally as any contiguous zone of contrasting density, rapid transition, or separation between internally connected clusters of population and/or activity' (214pp). Mr. Suryanarayan being a Sri Lankan is different from an Indian Tamil in culture and tradition, which he experiences in Chennai. Though he speaks almost the same language as does the Indian Tamils, yet he finds it a bit different from his own language in terms of dialects, certain words and meanings. In addition, he also finds the food habits to be different in both the cultures. Apart from these, he feels the same to be either in Jaffna or Tamil Nadu as with time he has grown a sense of attachment towards his home in Chennai where he has been staying for more than three decades. His four sons were very little when they migrated to India and have been raised up in Chennai. This made him to belong to India rather than Sri Lanka. It is true that they did face some problems during their initial days in Chennai in school because of the medium, but soon overcame everything and succeeded to establishin establishing themselves. At present, they are doing quite good in their respective fields and three among are settled abroad. They have been exceptional in their professional lives, which earned them to have their passports from their companies irrespective of their refugee status. In this context, I show the achievement of the Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in the field of education. There is, perhaps, no other refugee community in the world which has availed achieved such a kinda high level of advanced educational facilitiesaccomplishment. The educational concessions given by the Government of Tamil Nadu is are open to all, irrespective of their refugee status that and has been enjoyed by most of the refugees in Tamil Nadu. Each and every young boy and girl attends school except a few who cannot afford to, due to economic reasons. Sri Lankan Tamil children do not stop at only with basic school education., they They go to colleges and universities for higher education as well. The statistical evidence provided by Organisation for Eelam Refugee Rehabilitation (OfERR) proves that the breakup breakdown of students studying in various courses for- is as follows: Nursery 2784, Primary 8655, Middle 4334, High School 2570, Higher Secondary 1384, Diploma 190, BE 50 and Arts and Science 843, Total 20810. A perusal of statistics clearly reveals that the girls outnumber the boys in all classes and in all streamsareas of study. Thus, in the school levelfor those enrolled in school, there are 9510 boys and 9756 girls; in the plus 2 level, there are 711 boys and 762 girls and in the college level there are 562 boys and 608 girls. 33 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj (OfERR India). The Government of Tamil Nadu used to reserve seats for refugee students in the medical colleges, but this was discontinued in 2003. One of the admirable achievements of OfERR is that it counsels, encourages and motivates Sri Lankan Tamil families to give the highest priority to their children’s education. Thanks to the efforts made by the Sri Lanka Deputy High Commission in Chennai, the Government of Sri Lanka, during 2006 and 2007, held O level examinations in Chennai for the refugee children from the eastern province who had to seek refuge in India. Here again, the OfERR had arranged special tuition to the students. The University of Madras has offered free education to refugee students who will be studying in the affiliated colleges of Madras University. In Sri Lanka, one of the important reasons for the ethnic divide was the introduction of Swabasha15, which means Tamil should be the medium in the Tamil schools and Sinhalese in Sinhalese schools. However, after coming to Tamil Nadu, the refugees realized the importance of English language which is the passport to the outside world. Therefore, many refugee children have opted for English medium schools. This is helping the Tamil refugees to develop their careers in a more internationally-directed way and are not lagging behind, in the long run, to establish themselves as is presented in Mr. Suryanarayan’s sons' cases. Mr. Suryanarayan's quote hints the advantages he enjoyed in Tamil Nadu especially in terms of getting support from his Indian friends and neighbors in times of crisis and also in his sons' education and career. Also, this has played an important role in influencing his decision to return to his homeland. After getting knowledge ofobtaining information of the present status quo in Sri Lanka, from his relatives, he feels that there is no difference to bebetween living in Jaffna or in Tamil Nadu as things have changed in his homeland. He has no special feelings left for Jaffna, as the war has made significant changes to the environment which has developed a kind of detachment to Mr. Suryanarayan. However, his heart is filled with the past memories of his motherland which is evident from his next statement: “Jaffna used to be a place with natural water and soil and no artificial things. I loved the environment around me which I miss the most. The culture was really adorable which brought together every member of a family to spend a happy and blissful life unlike, here, where everybody is concerned about their own interests. But from my Sri Lankan relatives staying there, I came to know that things have changed due to the war but I hope that some places might retain some aspects of 15 Swabhasha was introduced by C.W.W. Kannangara in 1944 as he believed that the mother tongue of a child was the best medium for his or her education. He outlined that position in the Report of the Special Committee on Education in 1944. (Daily Mirror 6th Oct. 2014: Ranga Jayasuriya) 34 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj that natural feeling still now. If things were the same as it was before, it would have been far better in Jaffna than here. My relations from my hometown do visit me once or twice a year. Unfortunately, I cannot go to Sri Lanka because if I leave India then I cannot return as a refugee again. I have to stay in India as everything is here...” Therefore, for Mr. Suryanarayan, home is made up of nature, culture and family which is lost in present day Jaffna. As put by Marcus (1992: 87pp), in his article on 'Environmental Memories', “...individuals' most powerful memories revolve around places”, similarly, in the case of my interviewee, his memories also revolve around his home in Jaffna- the place where he grew up, the neighborhood where he settled with his family, spent his younger days, got married and had his children. Such old memories form rich sources of inspiration to persons who are now miles apart from their beloved homes as happened to Mr. Surayanarayan. Nonetheless, when he compares the memories of his much loved place in Jaffna to the present day, his heart gets filled up with dissatisfaction and sadness speculating about the changes that has taken place in his home. Furthermore, he loved to speak about the culture of his hometown which was pure and natural compared to that of Tamil Nadu's. Like many of my interviewees, he also portrayed Jaffna-culture to be a happy and blissful one as it was mostly identified by togetherness of the family members. Unfortunately, this culture of togetherness has changed at present. Due to the war, at least one member from each family is either killed or is missing. All are spending life in sorrow and grief. The rest have migrated abroad and are reluctant to return. The economic crisis which occurred as a result of the war has produced innumerable number of unemployments making the Jaffna culture impure. This is because, unemployment has caused people, especially the youths, to take turn to wrong and illegal ways of earning money, like theft or robbery. Women and girls are not at all safe to walk freely in the area which was unlikely in the previous years. All thisthese instances made Mr. Suryanarayan to believe that living in Jaffna or Tamil Nadu are the same now. Yet, he is confident that if the war has not caused the changes then, no doubt, Jaffna would have been a better choice to live in compared to the southern state of India. Though Mr. Suryanarayan shows reluctance to return and settle in Jaffna, however, he desires to go to his homeland as that will help him to get his pension and passport. Being a Sri Lankan refugee in India, he cannot acquire a passport, so he has to be in his country of origin to get it. He eagerly wants to have his passport, in order to visit his sons who are settled abroad. In addition, he has bought some property in Jaffna before shifting to India and it is under rent at present. With the aim of earning some money, he is planning to do something productive on it which will help 35 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj him to survive in Jaffna. He has no idea for how long he has to be there as settling down the issues of pension and passport takes time: “Before migrating to India, I bought a plot of land in Jaffna town. At present, it is under rent but am planning to do something productive on it. By next year (2014) I am planning to return to my home. Returning there will fetch me my pensions and also I have to get my passport so that I can travel abroad to visit my sons. I am not sure for how long I would be staying in Jaffna, at least I need a year to settle my pension matters and to get my passport. But my sons are neither going to return to Jaffna nor to Colombo as they have settled themselves at their present locales.” His decision to integrate in Chennai is influenced by the aspiration to the good life for his sons. His sons succeeded after hard struggle and are well settled in abroad. Going back to Jaffna means to start from the very beginning again and their aspirations to a good life will never be fulfilled due to lack of opportunities. Mr. Suryanarayan is well aware of this fact and does not want his sons to leave everything for his sake and return to Jaffna. Also, he, himself does not want to stay apart from his sons. So after having his passport and settling down the matters regarding pensions, he will travel back to India and will start visiting his sons. Furthermore, the things because of the things, which he was attached to his Ur, are all lost by now. He does not feel any difference whether being in Jaffna or in Chennai. Therefore, his attachment has become detachment with time and priorities in life. In the next part, I examine the narrative of another aged person who is presently living in Colombo. Due to the loss of material and immaterial properties during the civil war, his attachment to his Ur has become detachment. His statements, which I portray, speaks of the changing meaning of home with his priority in life. “I am originally from Velanai. For the first time, we were displaced from Velanai to Jaffna town on 17th October 1991. Then we went to Killinochhi in 1995. In 1996, we returned to our native place, but nothing was there. Our home was totally damaged, nobody was there in the neighborhood. All the relations were displaced to other districts like Vavuniya, Killinochhi, and even some went abroad. Unable to find anyone around, we again shifted to Jaffna town and I continued to work in the Postal serviceService. I was mentally very much upset to find my beloved home, my village in that terrible condition. I was also one of the wealthier families in the village, unfortunately, the war took away everything from us. I could not take it and decided to live in the 36 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj town area. Though we were staying in the town, but still I was traumatized. I even thought of migrating to Colombo, but as I was working in the Jaffna division so could not leave my job. But kept on trying to get a transfer which I succeeded to achieve in late 2007. Since then I am living in Colombo with my wife and children… !” Mr. Srikanthan16, a Hindu-Tamil in his late 50s, mirrored his bitter experiences of displacement, which he first witnessed in 1991. Because of the mass Exodus, Mr. Srikanthan along with his family went ‘through the narrow Chemmani-Kandy road to the areas of Chavakachcheri and down through the narrow bottleneck of the peninsula17’ and reached Kilinochhi (Thiranagama 2011 :65pp). He stayed in Kilinochhi for a year and returned to Velanai in 1996. He returned with a hope of regaining his social status that he enjoyed in his hometown but missed in Kilinochhi. Also, his strong sense of rootedness and attachment to his home, being connected with a sense of nostalgia from his past made him to return. Unfortunately, he was very much disturbed to find his native home getting totally damaged. To add to his sorrows, he found that almost all of his relatives, friends and neighbors have migrated either to different parts of the country or have moved abroad. He started to feel like a refugee in his own place. To him, attachment to his neighborhood documents the emotional ties to his locale that has grown in strength over time, in part, because long-term residence imbues the landscape with the meanings of life experiences and in part because such residence nourishes local ties to friends and family. This is similar to what Cuba and Hummon (1993) have argued regarding constructing a sense of home where geographical mobility plays an important role in place identity (550 pp). Furthermore, as Mallett (2004) has observed that the relationship between home and family is very strong as home symbolizes ‘the birth family dwelling’ and ‘the birth family or family of origin’ (73 pp). Home is the immediate house or dwelling that one goes after birth. It also symbolizes the family relationships and life courses enacted within those spaces. It has been rightly stated in Mallett’s critical review that without the family a home is only a house (ibid: 74 pp), which is also true for 16 Mr. Srikanthan. He was interviewed on the 20th of January 2013 at his Flat in Wellawatta, Colombo. He is married and has two children, a boy and a girl. His son is in France for his higher studies, while his daughter is a doctor and is associated with a hospital in Colombo. Since 1979, Mr. Srikanthan works in the Postal Department in the Government of Sri Lanka. Being a Government employee, he did not face any financial problems as he was getting a salary from the Government, in times of war as well. Only with his salary he survived in the days of crisis. 17 As, according to Thiranagama (2011: 65pp), the LTTE asked the Jaffna population to leave the peninsula through two routes. One is through the narrow Chemmani-Kandy road to the areas of Chavakachcheri and down through the narrow bottleneck of the peninsula. While the other is was to take boats straight across Kilali lagoon to the Vanni district. 37 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Mr. Srikanthan. Most of his relatives and friends left the place and without them home is hardly considered to be a home, so he also decided to move to the town area of Jaffna. Therefore, the sense of alienation from his dear and near ones along with the vision of his destructed home manipulated his decision to go to the town area and settle for the time being. Yet, he was scared to continue his stay there because of the ongoing vulnerable situation. Many a times, he planned to move to Colombo, but due to professional reasons he failed to do so. However, he kept on trying to make his transfer to the capital city in order to get rid of the frightening situation of Jaffna. Finally, in late 2007, he succeeded to getin obtaining the transfer to Colombo and from then onwards, he has becomeis a resident of the city. His aspirations of having a better prospect of education and employment for his children and also to escape the hardships of the ongoing war led him to move to Colombo. “I have started considering Colombo to be my second home now. Life in Colombo is totally different compared to my ‘home’. We enjoy all sorts of facilities that are unavailable in Velanai. Yet, home is home after all. I like my native place, and cannot compare it to any-where, still I do not want to return. I have left my place for a pretty long time by now. Moreover, none of my relatives are there. My home is also partially damaged. I am working in Colombo and almost settled here. Emotionally also, I have got detached from my home town. If I return now, I shall not be able to enjoy all the facilities that I am enjoying here. There is no scope for higher education or good medical facilities in my village. If we fall severely ill, we have to travel a long way to Jaffna for treatment. Most importantly, we are innocent people and have nothing to do with LTTE or with the army but still if we return, military interference will start in our day to day lives as there is no freedom in Velanai. It is still under Military control. Militaries interfere in each and everything. Whereas there is no military interference in Colombo, if one does not want to interact with them, the militaries will not interfere in your lives.” Mr. Srikanthan has been living in Colombo for quite a few years now and has developed a feeling of attachment to the capital city. Though, he considers Colombo to be his second home, yet he continues to identify Velanai as his first home because “...home is home after all. I like my native place, and cannot compare it to any-whereanywhere.” He cannot compare his feeling towards Velanai to any other place. He has spent most of his life there, which has created a very strong attachment to his place of origin. Now, place attachment, as defined by Hidalgo & Hernández, is “an affective bond or link between people and specific places” (2001 : 274pp). Relph (1976) identifies the 38 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj importance of roots, which give people a point of outlook and spiritual and psychological attachment to a particular place as is found in this case. He states, “To be attached to places and have profound ties with them is an important human need” (ibid: 38pp). The term “roots” can refer to place attachment, and he claims that roots in a particular place give one a point of world outlook, a grasp of one’s own position, and a sense of spiritual and psychological attachment. He further defines this sense of place as “being inside and belonging to your place both as an individual and as a member of a community, and to know this without reflecting upon it” (ibid: 65pp). However, he does not want to return and settle because of his socio-economic aspirations to the good life (Appadurai 2004). His native place fails to provide with all the basic socio-economic facilities that is there in Colombo, like the use of modern technologies and a luxurious life. In addition, as Hage (1997) argues, “…that home has to be a space open for opportunities of a … better life”, in this case, Mr. Srikanthan’s native home fails to offer a future for him or for his family which makes him reluctant to return (103 pp). Due to the war, the economic situation in the north has deteriorated which has resulted in unemployment among the population, especially among the youths. Furthermore, lack of essential services such as health, electricity, transport, inadequate communication with family members abroad and other amenities have made life extremely difficult for the residents of his village. In addition, educational facilities and most importantly the current political situation is making him hesitant to return to Velanai. Due to political obstacles, he chose to stay in Colombo, where he leads a comfortable and safe life. He believes, the northern part of the island cannot have a stable peace in near future. The northern province is still overwhelmed by an occupying military force, which systematically seeks to subjugate the populace, change the demography, destabilise the economy, impose an alien culture and stultify legitimate democratic aspirations, whilst continuing with grave human rights abuses. His native place is also no exception. It is still under the control of the military, who interferes in their day- to- day lives, often harassing, especially, the females who are alone in their homes. Abductions and killings are still going on in his village even after 4 years have passed since the war has ended. Moreover, the Chief Secretary, who has been appointed in contravention of the law and functioning in collaboration with the Governor, was the former Army Commander of the Northern Province. “Apart from the legality of the structure, from a practical perspective how can one expect to carry out governance democratically, effectively or efficiently, when you have a 39 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj parallel structure in place, backed by an ominous and omnipresent military?”, uttered Mr. Srikanthan angrily. To make matters still worse, “we have the bogey of the Tiger being resurrected to justify further militarisation. However, this was not unexpected. We knew the inadequacy of the 13th Amendment and did expect some interference, though the scale of interference from the military despite being in the spotlight of the world is worrisome for what it portends, not only for the North-East but for the rest of the country.” Mr. Srikanthan's decision to move to Colombo is basically influenced from the fact that in Sri Lanka, the capital city is the best place to settle down as since ages it has been a “home to multiple minorities,” as has been documented by Thiranagama while conducting her research on the Tamils in Colombo (2011: 20pp). Also, the city has areas like Wellawatte and Pettah where Tamils are the majority. To add, unlike the Northern Provinces, there is no military interference in day to day lives and people can enjoy complete freedom in the capital city. Apart from this, Colombo is the only city in the island where all kinds of facilities and opportunities are available in order to lead a better life. It provides a highly developed educational infrastructure and employment opportunities both in the private and government sector. “Colombo, being a majority Sinhala area, Tamils are also adapting themselves with the environment, by speaking Sinhala, changing their lifestyles and habits. We have also become like Sinhalese. I can speak Sinhala, without which it will be really difficult to survive as majority of my friends and colleagues are Sinhalese. The mode of communication is also in Sinhala. In the postal department in Colombo where I work, only 2-3 are Tamils, while rest are Sinhalese, so I have to speak the language...” Belonging to a predominately Tamil area in Velanai, it was quite a hard task for Mr. Srikanthan and his family to adapt to the majority-Sinhala society in Colombo, where most of them spoke Sinhala and followed the Sinhala culture and tradition. Colombo is also a multi-ethnic society where not only the Sinhalese but also other minorities like Tamil-speaking Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Malays, Burghers, Chetties, Bharatha etc. live. Colombo is also a city where Tamil remittances flow, Muslim and Hindu prayers are broadcasted on Tamil national channels along with existence of numerous Indian Tamil restaurants and shops. However, for Mr. Srikanthan, Sinhala became rather most important as his professional life was totally dependent on Sinhala language because most of his colleagues are Sinhalese leaving 2-3 who are Tamils. As argued by Siddharthan in his study on the Jaffna Tamil Migrants to Colombo, the process of adapting 40 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj themselves into the new environment while maintaining and preserving their 'Tamilness' was indeed a difficult task (2003: 305pp). This is also reflected in the case of Mr. Srikanthan when he migrated to Colombo for the first time in 2007. During the initial days, they faced difficulty in adapting to the new environment of Colombo, as everything was totally different from what they used to have. Here, I show that ethnic boundary making determines survival in order to survive in the capital city as there are cultural differences, social separation and language barriers which he experienced from the very first day in Colombo. It should be kept in mind that each ethnic group develops its own cultural and social forms which separate it from others and Mr. Srikanthan is also no exception to this. For eg. Language, food habits, dressing styles is all different from a Jaffna Tamil than a Sinhalese. Furthermore, the Tamil tradition of wearing ‘pottu’ on the forehead, which is unlikely in the case of other ethnic groups in Colombo, acts as an important boundary marker between the Tamils and others. This process of adapting to Colombo’s culture while trying to maintain their original sense of cultural identity is a difficult and stressful process. Nonetheless, his family succeeded to pursue this new pattern of culture and lifestyle which is offered to them in Colombo. The following narrative is of a middle-aged Lecturer, Eshwari Parthasarathy18, who unlike her mother Mrs. Shantha, felt complete detachment towards her Ūr. Although she has spent her entire teenage life in Jaffna and has been staying in Colombo only since her 20s, yet she has lost all kind of attachment to her birthplace. She said, “Home to me is Colombo as we have been living here for 22 years now.” Here also the fact that the longer the residence, the stronger the attachment becomes prominent. She even commented that, ‘I do not wear the pottu, which is a marker of our Tamilness. This is because, I am afraid that by labeling myself as a Tamil I might unnecessarily antagonize the other group of people...!” In many cultures, a woman's appearance and dress mark as a symbol of the community or nation she belongs to. Hindu girls and women, as observed by Schrijvers (1999: 312pp), are expected to wear the ‘pottu’ symbolizing auspiciousness, a custom which has also been adopted by many Christian Tamil women. According to Hindu culture and traditions, married women wear a red 18 Eshwari Parthasarathy, a Hindu Tamil woman (in her mid 40s) is a lecturer in Colombo University. I interviewed her on 18th January 2013 at the university of Colombo. 41 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj pottu, signifying active sexuality but it should be ritually removed if they are widowed (Thiruchandran 1998: 18pp). However, in Sri Lanka, Sinhalese and Muslim women do not have the tradition of wearing pottu. Therefore, pottu acts as a primary means to identify a Tamil woman which also has become the ‘ethnic marker’ in Tamil culture (Schrijvers 1999: 312pp). At present, Sri Lankan Tamil women, especially in Colombo for security reasons, are always in a dilemma whether or not to reveal their Tamilness by applying the pottu. For some Tamil women, like Eshwari, this is a fundamental and emotional issue; for others it is one of those questions that can be solved in a pragmatic manner. In contrast to the city life, she presented her childhood memories of Jaffna as she spoke, “I really loved to be in Jaffna during those days. I fell in love with the quietness that prevailed there. Together with my elder sister, I used to ride bi-cycles and roam around without any fear. Our home was the best thing we had. We felt like staying so close to nature there. But things started changing as the military and LTTE started interfering in our daily lives. I started to hate Jaffna slowly as it became quite hard to stay there” Having freedom and living close to the nature are important aspects to have in one's childhood but she does not emphasize on it much. Along with the silence of the nature she has also witnessed the violent part of the town; the loss of their freedom and Jaffna turning to into a violent place all of a sudden with the onset of the fight between Sri Lankan military and LTTE. After coming to Colombo, with the passage of time, she succeeded to overcome that feeling of attachment to Jaffna. Like her mother, she has the desire to renovate her home in Jaffna as it was her father's last symbol. “I will not mind going to Jaffna and staying there for a day or two.”, said Eshwari in a relaxed tone. She is likely to visit her 'home' in Jaffna during holidays to relax and feel at ease, but at no point of in time will she is going to return and settle in Jaffna. “If the Government at any point ofin time asks us to leave and return to Jaffna, then I would fight, as being a citizen of the country I have the right to live anywhere within the island. I would definitely not give up and fight till my last breathe. I am not going to return to Jaffna as things have changed there. If we return, it would be difficult for us to adjust now. As for the last couple of decades we are used to live a different life in Colombo than Jaffna. Also in Jaffna, all the facilities, that I enjoy now, are absent. I am well settled in Colombo and it would be difficult to leave all this and return.” Her decision to stay back in Colombo is mostly influenced from the uncertainties that Jaffna offers 42 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj now. She is well-settled in Colombo with her family and if she returns she again has to start from the very beginning which she is not at all ready to do. As Appadurai (2004) states, ‘aspirations about the good life, about health and happiness, exist in all societies’, so it implies for Eshwari as well (67 pp). It is true that people belonging to different classes and society aspire to a good life in their own different ways., howeverHowever, ‘aspirations to the good life are part of some sort of system of ideas which locates places them in a larger map of local ideas and beliefs about: life and death, the nature of worldly possessions, the significance of material assets over social relations, the relative illusion of social permanence for a society, and the value of peace or warfare’ (ibid.: 67-68pp). She is a lecturer in Colombo University, and if she returns to Jaffna she has to leave her job and look for another one there. She is really afraid to do so as she doubts if at all there would be any job for her due to increase in unemployment in Jaffna. She has struggled hard to reach to this position so does not want to go through the same old situation all over again in order to return. Moreover, there isshe has no one in Jaffna. All of her friends and relatives have migrated abroad or are in Colombo. This is true in a sense to what Mesch and Manor have stated that ‘the higher number of close friends living in the area and the higher the number of neighbours close enough to be invited to family events, the more likely is the individual to feel attached to the community’. (1998: 515-516 pp). Again, their styles of living have also changed. Since the last twenty-two years, she has been living a city life which is totally different from Jaffna lifestyle. It would be really difficult to go back to the rural life again after so long. In this regard, Eshwari's situation is similar to the assumption made by Wiborg, that in today's world, with the development of globalisation and mobility, homes in the remote areas are gradually losing its importance “as a framework for people’s lives and as a basis for the formation of identity” (2004: 01pp). In Colombo she could get all the facilities a city can offer unlike Jaffna. Any attachment she felt to her Ūr is historic; the place where her parents live, not as a positive element in formation of identity. “In the 90s, I really wanted to return to Jaffna but as days passed my feelings also changed. In 2011, I went to see my old home after 21 years and got really upset to see our home, once constructed by my parents, has now turned into a broken dream. It is now occupied by the Police who hardly look after it. ” Eshwari's attachment to her home has gradually decreased with time in value and importance. Urban life-style has greatly influenced her self-image and identity and has distanced her from her rural life style. Therefore, Eshwari presents a very negative image of her hometown and she does 43 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj not feel like associating herself with neither Jaffna nor with its people who live there. To what she was attached to, in the 1990s, has become detachment after more than two decades. It is considered to be a challenging situation, especially to the youngsters and middle aged, as shown in this and the next narratives, as they are getting more and more detached from their traditional homes due to professional as well as personal reasons. It is because, as claimed by many scholars, that globalisation and mobility lead to an increased focus on the local and the value of local attachment (Boissevain 1992; Friedman 1997). Therefore, the meaning of attachment to places has changed making it more fragile and more explicit, transforming it from doxa to opinion (Bourdieu 1977), and to an object of negotiation and reflexivity. The next narrator is a middle-aged person who is experiencing detachment at present but was completely attached to his hometown in the past. Being a Priest by profession, unlike others, he was fortunate enough to get to stay in Jaffna throughout his life and got the scope to experience the entire war through his own eyes. Nevertheless, with the end of the war, he started having the feeling of alienation from the current Jaffna culture. He cannot relate himself to the present environment and have has conflicting mutual expectations from his counterparts, especially from the young generations. Pfaff Czarnecka and Toffin (2011), in their writings on Himalayan societies, believe group life is a pre-requisite in the Himalayan societies as it carries forward the conceptualization of belonging (xx pp). The ideal of a group life is that everybody is known to each other and engages in face-to-face interactions. Also, group members expect commitment from each other which entails mutual compulsion. Thus in the Jaffna context, the locals believe to form a group among themselves in order to work for the well-being of their society where each and every member will have some kind of contributions. Unfortunately, with the changed Jaffna culture, this idea of group formation, as the narrators portray, seems quite vague as different people place have different kinds of expectations from each other. “We are victims of Westernization. Previously, there was nothing like alcohols or drugs or prostitutions...We did not even hear of theft...but now, every other day you will hear...”, said one of the Priests in Jaffna, whom I interviewed during my field-visit in 2013. He added, local everyday life in Jaffna has been disrupted due to the so-called Westernization which has begun with the opening of the A9 highway, connecting other parts of the country, in April 2002 with the signature of the Ceasefire Agreement. This ‘opening to the world’ as termed by Gerharz (2008: 44 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj 173pp), while talking about the newly opened Jaffna to the rest of the world, was accompanied by a massive movement of people and goods from the southern parts of the country who wanted to visit the devastated peninsula as tourists. Till then, Jaffna remained “isolated in terms of infrastructure” and “inaccessible” to the world (ibid.: 173pp). With the reopening, Jaffna became integrated into global and national economic exchange networks, while trying to catch up with the rest of the world. Supermarkets emerged which started selling luxurious and branded goods, which were previously unavailable in Jaffna. The town regained connection to global mediascapes as is reflected in Appadurai’s writings (1996: 33pp). Mobile phones, satellite TV and internet Internet cafes became a very common practice all over the town. This has helped the Jaffna Tamils to keep maintain easy contact with their relatives abroad. Also, they are now able to keep themselves updated with the recent happenings around the world. Unfortunately, gaining access to the globalized knowledge has brought about serious issues as pointed out by the Priest. He stated that, due to this opening to the world, youngsters are getting addicted to drugs, alcohols and pornographiespornography. People are no longer attracted to reading books and leading a simple life. Instead, they are more interested in watching movies and daily soaps. This is in a way is also affecting their daily livelihoods. Their demands are increasing, but most of them can not afford to fulfill all those demands, resulting in theft or robbery to fulfill ones desire. Also, Indian and Western DVDs boomed in the local market. Newspapers issued in Colombo were available in the local market the same day. Free movement into the region produced a huge number of ‘tourists’ along with international staffs employed by various development organizations. Moreover, Gerharz (2010) argued that the occurrence of HIV/AIDS became quite prominent after the reopening of Jaffna to the world (158 pp). According to the NGOs, the reason being the introduction of testing methods by different organizations while the locals argue, as has been stated by Gerharz, it became public with the reopening as different kinds of people started visiting the peninsula (ibid.: 158pp). This new globalised image of Jaffna is looked upon as beneficial on the one hand as it gave enough room for development. Lack of employment opportunities and poverty forced many of the young generation Tamils to take up the easiest path of earning money resulting in increasing number of thefts all over the town. Also, increase in their demands by watching television and internets pushed them to commit these crimes. Many of my interviewees also believed, that the young generation has become too lazy to work hard, unlike them, and are easily getting involved in this illegal way of earning money. The atmosphere I experienced in Jaffna in 2013 was characterized by both enthusiasm and 45 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj ambivalence about the new images and impressions. “Jaffna which used to be a peaceful countryside, now, has become a chaotic place to live in”, I heard this statement from almost each and every resident of Jaffna when I visited them in Feb- March 2013. “Pure Jaffna culture is hard to find nowadays as almost 90% of the Jaffna Tamils have left their homeland and settled abroad. Many among them visit Jaffna once a year and share their new cultures from abroad thus making Jaffna culture a mixed one. Most of the well-known persons have left due to lack of opportunities, so Jaffna is left with a very few knowledgeable men who really wish to contribute for the well-being of the society. Moreover, many Sinhalese families are coming and have started living here…Our old culture, traditions all are gone. We have completely lost from all respects”, added the Priest. Previously, Jaffna was inhabitated inhabited by mostly Sri Lankan Tamils, making it a ‘capital of Sri Lankan Tamil culture and heritage’ as described by Gerharz (2008: 177pp). It was also ‘the centre of advanced education’ which helped them to prosper in their lives over the ages (ibid.: 177pp). Also, the town differs from the other parts because of its ‘insular character’ (Gerharz 2014: 40pp). Pfaffenberger (1981) rightly argues that Jaffna Tamils take pride in themselves for preserving the ancient patterns of Tamil civilization (1148 pp). They depict themselves as the carriers of Jaffna Tamil culture. But with the end of the war, Jaffna has become ‘a place of tremendous human suffering, a closed economy and a war zone’ as observed by Gerharz during her study on the reconstruction and development of Jaffna (2014: 38pp). It has also opened itself to the world society, as already discussed in the previous paragraph. Due to the war, most of the Jaffna Tamils have migrated and settled abroad or in other parts of the country, especially in the capital city of Colombo. An increasing number of well-off educated Jaffna Tamils migrated to countries like UK, Europe, Canada, Australia, USA and New Zealand due to lack of opportunities in their homeland. This created a vacuum in the Jaffna society which is increasing day by day. Because of this, the well-being of the Jaffna society is lagging ,as most are not interested to doin doing anything for their society. A few who are really interested do not have the support, both socially and economically, to do so. According to the Priest whom I met, only 10% of the Jaffna Tamils are residing in Jaffna at present. Among the 10%, most of them have become aged and needs care and protection which is currently unavailable due to lack of enough family members. The Diaspora Tamils visit their places of origin once a year and share their new styles of living and culture from abroad, which is quite opposite to the traditional Jaffna culture and heritage. The 46 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Diasporas are mainly dressed in Western clothes and behave like foreigners. Most of them speak foreign languages instead of Tamil and some even go on complaining about the minor problems that are visible in a small town like Jaffna. Highly influenced by this culture, the Priest said that, many of the young generations are trying to adopt those cultures, thus making Jaffna a mixed cultural place. Also, with the end of the war, many Sinhalese have settled in various parts of the peninsula, which has led to the decrease in Tamil dominance in Jaffna. Detachment/ Non-attachment In contrast to the narrators who are already introduced, there are some, who have either moved to the capital city of Colombo or have migrated to India during the 1990s. Mostly, educated Tamils from Jaffna migrated to Colombo to find better prospects of education and employment, to go abroad or to escape the hardships of the ongoing war. Initially, they had to adapt to the multiethnic society of Colombo, which comprised of Sinhalese, Tamils, Tamil-speaking Muslims, Burghers and foreigners (Gerharz 2014), which was indeed a hard task. Eventually, they managed to survive nicely in their new locales and also established themselves. Their children, who were very young at the time of displacement, have grown up amidst the city life and are reluctant to return to the town life, all over again. They have, too, established themselves and are doing quite well in Colombo and have managed to set up their own identity among the different ethnic groups. In this part, I am going to narrate stories of such grown up children who were displaced, at a very young age, from Jaffna and have been settled in Colombo. Furthermore, unlike Jaffna, Colombo provides a highly developed educational infrastructure and employment in the Government, as well as in the private sectors. It is often considered to be a challenging situation, especially to the youngsters and middle aged, as they are getting more and more detached from their traditional homes due to professional as well as personal reasons. Rajesh19, a 37-years old Tamil-Hindu presently settled in Colombo, stated that “if I return, I have to lead a village life once again which is really difficult for me now. I have got accustomed to this city life, such as having AC in my rooms, as well other technologies, without which I cannot survive now. Also, I shall would not be earning as much as I am earning now in Colombo.” “Home to me is Colombo as we have been living here for 22 years now…Jaffna no longer offers a future…”. His decision to integrate into Colombo are is mostly influenced from by the uncertainties that Jaffna offers now. He is economically 19 Rajesh was interviewed in his apartment in Colombo on 19th January 2013. He is working as a Head of Finance in one of the INGOs. Since 1996, he is staying in Colombo. 47 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj and socially well-settled in Colombo and if he returns he again has to start from the very beginning. His aspirations for the good life cannot be fulfilled in Jaffna. To add, his styles of living has also changed. Since the last two decades, he has been living a city life which is totally different from Jaffna lifestyle. It would be really difficult to go back to the rural life again after so long. Moreover, there ishe has no one in Jaffna. All of his friends and relatives have migrated abroad or are in Colombo. By home, one does not only identify the place but also the people through whom one feels ‘at-home’. So in this case, without relatives and friends, home to Rajesh is not at all a home but a mere place only. Similarly, a refugee in India since 1990, Rathnakumar20 said “I do not want to return to Sri Lanka.” He is not in favor of returning to Sri Lanka due to lack of opportunities and facilities there. Here again, Hage’s argument that home should be a space open for opportunities of a better life, holds so very true (1997: 103pp). He contrasts the life in India to his life in Sri Lanka as heard from his parents: “Unlike Sri Lanka, there is freedom to speech, freedom to move and freedom in almost everything in India. I do not want to return to a place of utter military control and where we could not have the freedom to live”. Home, according to existing literature, have been constructed on the basis of shelter, storage and display of valued possessions and belongings, a place for self-expression, locus of activity, privacy and control, familial linkage and emotional freedom (Watkins; Hosier 2005: 199pp). To Rathnakumar, all these are non-existent in Sri Lanka, which acts as the main reason for his reluctance to return to his motherland. He feels, India to be his motherland as it offers him all the opportunities for future, freedom in everything and most importantly, his known people. Most of his relatives and friends are in India and they spend a nice time together. So he does not want to leave all these happiness and start a new life full of uncertainties and struggles in his back home. From his Sri Lankan counterparts, he has come to know that they need to rebuild their house to make it a habitable place, as trees have grown within it and it has become a “haunted” place. Rathnakumar does not want to spend his income in rebuilding his home in Sri Lanka, he wants to save them for the marriages of his little sisters instead. Most of the Tamil refugees in India, whom I interviewed, expressed their strong hatred towards 20 Rathnakumar, a Hindu Tamil boy aged 27 years migrated to India in 1990 and is refuged in one of the camps in Karur. He is originally from Vavuniya. At present he is staying in Chennai. He was interviewed on 4th May 2013 in Chennai. 48 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj Sri Lanka, towards the government. They do not want to return to a place where they would not be havinghave freedom to of speech or to move. They do want a life of freedom which they experience in India. Also, they want a place where they can have a better future for themselves and their children which is unavailable in their hometown. Therefore, all these people experience commonality by sharing the common feeling of integrating to into their present location and not returning to their former homes in the Northern provinces of Sri Lanka. Their aspirations about a good life, too, are a common factor in their decision to return among all these aforementioned people. “I am originally from Vavuniya. Since 1990s, staying in a refugee camp in Tamil Nadu. During the riots of 1983, many moved abroad while my parents chose India to feel secured. As India is near, some of our relatives were in India and lastly have the same culture and traditions, my parents decided to migrate to India and return after 6 months when things would change in Sri Lanka. I came to India in 1990 with my parents and elder brother and elder sister leaving behind one elder sister in Sri Lanka with our grandfather though she came here in 2008”. Ramamurthy21, is working in a Chennai based-NGO in India. In his case, the distanced relationship to Vavuniya reinforced lack of social and emotional relationship to his hometown. He was born in Vavuniya, but migrated to India at the age of 4 years and have been staying there, since then. He does not identify himself with the people from his locality or with the place itself, largely because he was very small at the time of migration and also none of his relatives are there, except his elder brother who has returned closing all ties to their family. He Nneither he has the basis for creating symbolic roots to his place of origin nor a social network of relatives. In this case, time has played an important role in representing his self, both in the sense that his identity changes throughout his lifetime and in the sense that time is an intrinsic component of identity. The dimension of time orientation, in fact, describes the location of one’s identity in the future or else in the past. When Ramamurthy migrated, his home gradually became, as stated by Wiborg in her article, “marginal as a social arena” (2004: 425pp). Most of his relatives and friends migrated with them, either to India, or abroad. So, he does not consider anybody returning to his home in Vavuniya as 21 Ramamurthy, a Hindu Tamil boy aged 27 years migrated to India in 1990. He is originally from Vavuniya. At present he is staying in Chennai. He was interviewed on 4th May 2013 in Chennai. 49 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj his close relative or friend. Most of his relations are in South India and he seldom meets them on holidays. Thus Vavuniya has lost importance to him as locally based social relationships are significant factors in the development of attachment to a place. Also, as argued by Mesch and Manor (1998), attachment to a place might develop through direct experiences with the local environment (505 pp), which is totally lacking in Ramamurthy’s part. Place attachment, too, results out of a positive evaluation of locale. This means people who express a high level of satisfaction, with the physical and social attributes of the local environment, certainly express a higher degree of attachment, regardless of the extent of their involvement in locally based social relationships as has been stated by the aforementioned authors (ibid. : 506pp). In a similar way, Ramamurthy, being away from Vavuniya for more than two decades, has not got the opportunity to evaluate his birthplace and also cannot feel the satisfaction with the physical and social attributes that his locale has to offer. This has created a strange kind of hatred towards his hometown as he cannot remember anything from the past, neither can he position himself with that place. “I do not want to return to Sri Lanka. I do not think that I have any kind of special feelings for Vavuniya or for the very few relatives still staying there. India is my motherland. I was not born here but have spend most of my time in India.” Here again, Giuliani’s statement on the relation relationship between the length of residence and attachment, is the most appropriate where she says ‘the longer the residence the stronger the attachment’ (1991: 141pp). In the Sri Lankan context, an attachment to home/Ūr is very normal. The majority of the displaced persons, I interviewed, expressed their attachment towards their Ūr and also related themselves to their traditional cultures. However, there are exceptions like Ramamurthy who does not feel to that he belongs to the place of his origin. He contrasts the life in India to his life in Sri Lanka as heard from his parents: “Unlike Sri Lanka, there is freedom to speech, freedom to move and freedom in almost everything in India. I do not want to return to a place of utter military control and where we could not have the freedom to live.” By emphasising on his values and priorities, Ramamurthy demonstrated that he distinguished himself socially, culturally and politically from the Sri Lankan locality and its people. Though heHe considers himself to be a Sri Lankan by birth, but does not induce attach a positive attitude towards his birthplace. In India, he could move and talk freely, aspire to have a good life, good health and happiness and lead a descent life. He does not feel any kind of attachment to Vavuniya, his place of origin. Like Eshwari, Ramamurthy also presented a very negative image of his Ūr without 50 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj knowing anything about his home though. He does not feel like knowing his place of birth instead he opted for applying Indian citizenship sooner or later. Another story of a refugee in Tamil Nadu also explains her detachment to her Ur in Sri Lanka. “What is the point in returning?” asked a Tulsi22, a 33 years old lady at one of the camps in Tamil Nadu. “We are living a so-called decent life here, my husband is working in a Chennai- based NGO and drawing a satisfying salary and our children are going to school and are doing good. We also get help from the Government in terms of cash and kindother benefits. But, in our hometown in Vavuniya there is nothing. No employment, no scope chance of higher studies for my children. We have nothing left there, our relatives, who have returned, are asking us to stay here, as life would be really difficult after return… ” Tulsi, has been living quite a decent life in Tamil Nadu with his husband working in a NGO whereas her three children studying hard to establish themselves in their life. It is because they are in Tamil Nadu, her children has got the scopehave had the chance to learn English, which is very unlikely in Sri Lanka. In addition to her husband's income, they also receive monetary help from the Tamil Nadu Government23. The Government provides them monthly financial doles along with rice, kerosene and sugar at subsidized rates, free housing, free electricity, free medical aid and free education until a certain age. While visiting other refugees in the camp, I observed that many of the families even enjoy the luxury of having refrigerators and television sets with cable lines. Thus, the socioeconomic condition of the refugees in Tamil Nadu, is considered to be in a better off position in comparison to those living in the welfare centers in Jaffna. Like many others in the camp, Tulsi is also reluctant to return to her hometown in Vavuniya because of the lack of facilities. She wants her children to prosper in their lives, but if they return, then this is most likely impossible. 22 Tulsi, is a Christian-Tamil lady was interviewed on 16th May 2013 in Tamil Nadu. She came to India with her parents in 1988 and since then have been staying herethere. She migrated at a very younger young age of 8 years old, so she could hardly remember the “good old days” from her past home. The Oonly thing that she could remember are the firings, bombings and the scary environment all around her. As it became really difficult to survive amidst this situation, Tulsi's parents, with their other three children, decided to leave the country for good. They decided to migrate to Southern India as it is the nearest place and also it is the cheapest one. The culture is also the same. So it is the best for them to move to India. They even thought of returning within a few months, after things get calm down, unfortunately that few months did not arrive yet. 25 years have passed by, Tulsi got married and have had three children. 23 Assistance from the Government has been extensively discussed in Chapter 2. 51 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj to To Vavuniya, at this stage, her children will lose all scope chance of gaining pursuing higher studies. Besides, nothing is left in Vavuniya which belongs to Tulsi and her family. They have to start from the very scratch, her husband has would have to look for a new job, they have to admit their children to a new school and so on. Getting a job is not at all an easy task as there is huge amount of unemployment in the region. Additionally, few of her relatives who has have returned, ask them to stay in Tamil Nadu, as the situation is not at all conducive to return because of political and socio-economic reasons. Whereas, in Tamil Nadu, things are much better. Refugees, like Tulsi, do not face any discrimination from the locals. Her children has developed a good impression on of their Indian friends and Indian teachers, which is reflected in Tulsi's statement: “We do not face any kind of discrimination from the locals., eEverybody behaves quite well with us. My children get a lot of help from their Indian friends and teachers. My elder son is very good at studies, so his class teacher gives him free tuition as she knows that we are not that muchqualified learned to educate him at home.” In all these years, Tulsi and her family has grown a relationship with their Indian counterparts which is based on mutual love, trust and help. Unfortunately, this friendly relationship between the locals and the refugees were not the same all over throughout the years: “The relation became bitter in the 1990s with Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, but things have improved now. Only things that have changed are the food habits and the language. Though, I cook our traditional foods like kottu roti, hoppers and string hoppers, but my children like to eat Indian dishes. For them, I cook Indian dishes quite often. Though, south Indian Tamil is a bit different from our Tamil, yet we have adopted to this language as it has been already 30 years that we are staying here. Otherwise, everything has remained the same.” Relations between the Sri Lankan refugees and the local Tamil population have been dynamic. It is true that the ethnic factor has acted as a cementing force between the locals and the refugees in the initial years, but the picture changed substantially since then. In fact the response of the government and civil society has changed in every phase of exodus. In the first phase in 1983, the locals had demonstrated with placards demanding security for the persecuted Tamils across the Palk Straits. Upon arrival, they were accorded a warm welcome. The Central Government, as well as the state government, geared up the administrative machinery to accommodate the incoming 52 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj refugees. By the end of the 80’s, the situation had begun to change, the warmth had been waning and host fatigue had begun to set in. Locals were also wary of the internecine warfare among different Tamil groups in Tamil Nadu. The Central Government gave a general order that incoming refugees be allowed to enter the country and stay. There were no visa restrictions and deportation was not applied. Schools and colleges admitted students without any hesitation. The state government also reserved seats in professional courses and poly techniques for the Sri Lankan refugees. The assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber in May 1991 acted as the key factor for deteriorating the positive relationship between the locals and the refugees. Every Sri Lankan Tamil was seen as an LTTE cadre or sympathizer. There was friction and hostility from the locals and regular police checks in every Sri Lankan house. Special measures were adopted by the Tamil Nadu police to keep a regular watch on the activities of all the refugees in the camps. They also had informers within camps to keep track of any suspicious movements. Apart from the regular Naval Coast Guards, the state government had deployed its own special force for surveillance on the coastline. The focus of Indian diplomacy also shifted towards persuading Colombo to repatriate refugees. Schools and colleges took tough measures when it came to admit admitting Sri Lankan students and insisted that every student produce a “no objection certificate” from the police station along with their application forms. This proved to be a harrowing experience for genuine students. Needless to add, reservation of seats for the Sri Lankan students was also withdrawn. After concerted efforts, it has been restored. Relationship between the two has also started improving and it is again gaining strength. Attachment and its contrasting images The narratives, explored in this section, demonstrate how the displaced persons, in various ways, express their attachment towards their Ur. These range in their depiction of attachment from closeness to separation and in the descriptions of home from the idyllic to the narrow minded. The positive image is maintained by Mr. Peter and his fellow neighbours, in the welfare center, who intend to return and by Mr. Rahman, Farzina, Sangeetha, Tariqur and Samara who have already returned due to the strong sense of attachment towards their Ur. They believe that growing up in Jaffna has given them the opportunity to get in close contact with nature, which has played a pivotal role in the formation of their self-identity. For them, nature, environment, culture and people are the most important components for home-making and these are only available in Jaffna, which makes it home. In spite of this, they are strongly disappointed with the 53 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj experience of return due to the changed environment in their homes which they are witnessing at present. Not only the environment has changed, but their people and culture has also changed. Most of their known persons have either displaced to some other parts in the country or have migrated abroad. New, unknown persons have replaced the old ones. Their communities have also changed, which has now become a mixed culture with the Hindus, Christians and Muslims all residing at the same place. Displacement not only have has changed the social and cultural dimensions but have has also changed the economic perspectives of these people. Before displacement, most of them were residents of nicely built big houses with lots of plantations in front. During the war, most of their houses were destroyed or partially damaged which and needs to be reconstructed. But that requires a huge amount of money, which is not possible for them at this moment. Those residing at the welfare centers have no proper earning, but have to feed their whole family. So it is really difficult for them to save money in order to rebuild their home after return. In most of the cases, people are not in a situation to rebuild their homes in the same old pattern. They have started from the very scratch after return and also do not have any oneanyone who might help financially. For the time-being, they are only trying to make their homes a place to live in. A bit different case is observed in the story of Mrs. Shantha, who being in a dilemma represented a nostalgic yet an ambivalent position- whether to return or to stay back. She has linked elements at her present location in Colombo to her traditional home in Jaffna and has mostly settled down in the capital city. This nostalgic image conforms to the increased emphasis on locality and heterogeneity as a reaction against broader globalising and homogenising tendencies (Boissevain 1992; Friedman 1997). One way of looking at the ambivalence felt by Mrs. Shantha is in terms of a ‘class journey’, as termed by Trondman (1994), from a distinct traditional rural lifestyle to a totally urban kind of life style combining spatial displacement and geographical mobility. This kind of a ‘class journey’ has created a feeling which makes her attached to both the rural lifestyle of Jaffna and the city life of Colombo at the same time. It is the time span, which influences her attachment to both the places. She has left Jaffna and settled in Colombo for more than twenty years. This gap of two decades has influenced Mrs. Shantha's way of thinking towards life. She enjoys the luxuries and the facilities that Colombo offers but, at the same time, misses the quietness of Jaffna and the home that the couple built with their love and affection. This makes it difficult for her to decide which way to go. If she has been been living in Jaffna, then this type of 54 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj dilemma would not have occurred at any point of time. Negative images have been presented by quite a few interviewees who have practically no attachment to their homes and do not plan to return. The reason being, their relocation for more than two decades. They have already asserted their own individual attachments to their new locations, diminishing their attachments towards their Ūr. They are fortunate enough to have been relocated from a rustic rural country side to sophisticated urban areas, which are the influencing factors for their return. Hence, the relationship between rural and urban lifestyles forms a point of departure for investigating social distinctions. The value of having a rural background in an urban context can be analysed in context of a cultural hierarchy, where the urban displays a hegemonic position, even if the countryside retains an important position as a basis for central cultural values (Creed and Ching 1997). For Eshwari and Ramamurthy, not only is the urban life-style is the sole factor in their decision-making process, but time also plays a vital role. Eshwari's attachment to her home in Jaffna has changed with time. She has been staying away from Jaffna for 22 years now, which is a pretty long time. With this long time gap, her love and fondness for Jaffna has diminished while her fondness for Colombo has increased. As from her narratives it is evident that she really wanted to return in the early 1990s, when she just came to Colombo, because she has had everything fresh in her mind from regarding Jaffna, their home, the locality and so on. But as time went on, she visited quite a few other places and kept on forgetting more and more details about Jaffna and became more attached to the life in Colombo, because of the socio-economic and personal reasons. Like her mother, Eshwari wanted to renovate her home but would only be visiting during holidays or on special occasions, as the idea to return and settle in Jaffna does not seem to be a convincing one for her. She is well settled with her family in Colombo both socially and economically so cannot think of returning to Jaffna where she has to start from the scratch once again. Ramamurthy's case is also quite similar to the story of Eshwari as both left their homes at a very early age. Ramamurthy left his home in Vavuniya when he was 4 years old, so after all these years he could hardly remember anything from Vavuniya. He is was brought up in India; he has become well accustomed with the culture and traditions and has become so fond of India, that he considers India to be his home instead of Sri Lanka. Here also, attachment has changed with time. All these different images exhibit a diverse range of attachment to home through people and memories. Thus attachment to homes becomes a way of talking about social and cultural attachment, as illustrated by these narratives recounted here. The attachment that these people 55 | P a g e Diotima Chattoraj ascribe to their homes, come from spatially encodes social and cultural attachments as described by Wiborg (2004). However, she asserts that living in a place is not a necessary condition for attachment to it (429 pp) as is depicted in Mrs. Shantha and Peter's narrative. Though they are away from home but still have strong sense of attachment. Concluding Remarks From the narratives portrayed here, I argue that most of them feel intense attachment to their Ūr through past memories, emotions an and material and immaterial properties. For some who are displaced, their new locations appear to be the “reverse of belonging: abandoning roots and attachments is its pre-condition” as termed by Pfaff-Czarnecka (Pfaff-Czarnecka-Toffin 2011: xxiipp). Initially, Mrs. Shantha experienced different forms of exclusion in Colombo, yet succeeded to recreate her attachment at the new place while keeping attachment to her past life in Jaffna. Compared to the kind of attachment that the original place used to have upon her, it becomes more challenging to have new attachments and ties at the new location. In contrast, there are few others, like Eshwari, who have negative vibes about their Ūr, where they once lived, and emphatic that they will never return there due to the long spans of time staying that they have away and also the basic socio-economic needs. There are even some, like Ramamurthy, who have not at all felt anything for their Ūr, as they were at a very young age at the time of displacement. They have nothing to recall. For them, their present location is their home as they consider their Ūr as a strange place and cannot relate themselves with that place. For Peter, being a refuged refugee in the welfare center, the idea of return is determined by his desire to regain his lost social status and also the lost life. Whereas, people like Ramamurthy, who are refuged refugees at the camps in South India India, are most likely to get rid of their “refugee status” but not very much in favour of return returning, due to socioeconomic needs. 56 |