Life brings you quite a lot of surprises. All the time. Sometimes good, and other times bad, I mean really BADD. I’m not going to throw some worn out advices on how to cope with them, since I’m not so good at it either. I remember when I opened the luggage for the first time in my room, (it was past midnight and I was extremely exhausted after a long journey), I found out that the two pickle jars (Sinhalese vegetable acharu and Lunu Miris) I brought were broken and spilled all over my clothes. Those were the only SriLankan food I brought to Sweden, in case I became nostalgic. Looking at the suitcase, for a moment I wasn’t sure whether to worry about the ruined clothes or the ever lost pickles. Then I broke into tears. I still don’t know if I was crying for the clothes or the pickles, or for leaving my better-half behind, or for the lonely 10 months that lie ahead. Nevertheless, I cried, and cried and cried. But you know, I’m a very practical girl, I just don’t sit and cry or lie down and cry, I clean and cry, I wash the clothes and cry, I arrange my room and cry. After everything’s done, and eyes are out of tears, sleep will eventually take over. Then you can happily flash into a dreamy world. Now, that’s how you survive this not-so-pleasant-always life. Whatever happens, life must go on; and on; and on. There’s nothing wrong with crying or losing your mind. When you gotta freak out, you freak out. And then, do whatever you have to do and move on.
Then comes the good times, which toss you up in the air, and make you feel great about everything. The girl who lived in the same room before me, was an angel, or so I’d like to believe. Maybe she was psychic and knew a broke girl would move in after her, so left tons of useful things behind, including a quilt, pillow, laundry detergent, sleeping bag, weighing machine, extra towels, and some really nice TEA, actually the list goes on. For the first few days, it was like a treasure hunt in the room, closet and kitchen cupboards.. Not many other students were lucky as me, they had to buy everything on their own. This room was not that bad after all!
There are some other times when you are not exactly sure how to feel or react, and could not make up your mind if it’s a blessing or a curse. Since the moment I decided to travel to Scandinavia, I had this strange feeling that grows in the stomach, travels upward and get stuck in the throat, which obviously I could not avoid. It was a very different feeling, not similar to the one I had when leaving Sri Lanka for the first time. From Colombo, I directly went to Toronto - a very colourful city, where you can find people from almost all the different ethnic groups that exist in the world. Maybe I am exaggerating a little. But only a little. With the large Tamil population living in Scarborough, it’s almost impossible to feel nostalgic, even if you tried. The first few weeks, I had to remind myself that I am in Canada, and did not move back to Jaffna.
Unlike Jaffna, Colombo, the city where I grew up, and where my first childhood memories bloomed, has a quite heterogeneous population though not comparable to Toronto. I was born a Hindu but went to a Catholic school, my parents are from Jaffna but most of my friends were Indian/Colombo Tamils, Sinhalese or Muslims. I was very fluent in both Sinhala and Tamil so was able to travel around the city even when times were tough. As far as I remember, I wasn’t very attached to our hometown, Jaffna, since it was too far away, and by this, I do not refer to physical distance but the cultural one. Maybe because it was detached from rest of the country for a long time due to the armed conflict, or maybe it’s just the way it is. So, by moving to Toronto, where a large proportion of Tamil diaspora resides, who are mostly from Jaffna, or the surrounding parts, and whose concept of culture/home was frozen at a time when they left the country – which I believe usually happens with all the diaspora communities, I was able to witness the construction of ‘a home outside the home’. I saw Scarborough as a replica of Jaffna – a landscape recreated; ‘the home’ was everywhere, in the names of the stores, the temples, the food. Well, the problem was, that wasn’t ‘my home’. There were traditional Tamil foods and things that you couldn’t even find in Colombo, which I never saw in Colombo.
Identities – a baggage you have to always carry with yourself, whether you like it or not. I imagine myself as a girl carrying a heavy bag of masks. Different, but colourful masks. Depending on the time, place and circumstances you put the mask that best suits you. It was a lot difficult in Colombo, because the mask you want to wear may not always be compatible with what the society imposes on you. Or what the documents say about you. I am a Tamil from Colombo, but for them, I am a Tamil from Jaffna. I say ‘this is where I belong to’, but they say ‘no, you’re not’. In general, one might tend to think what difference would it make, if you’re a Tamil, you’re a Tamil. But no, it makes all the difference in Sri Lanka. It is what defines if you’re terrorist or not, it is what defines if you’re with us or them. But sadly I was never able to find a place in Sri Lanka, where I was considered into the group of ‘us’. When I travelled to Jaffna, people always identified me as someone from Colombo, but in Colombo I was always from Jaffna. So this is where the masks come in handy. You change your dialect, put on the mask, and there you are, one of ‘us!’ There are times when the mask doesn’t work, for instance, when you cross a checkpoint where they don’t care about your masks, only your id, and you get caught off-guard.
When I moved to Toronto, I had to rearrange the masks, for the Tamil diaspora and the mainstream society. Think I had a hard time with the Tamil community and not the rest of the society because, for others you’re just a Sri Lankan Tamil. It’s clearly defined. Period. But things get complicated within the group you belong to, or wanted to belong to. After much struggle, at some point, I lost the tendency to be included into the group of ‘us’. I was too tired. I wanted to be let alone. I wanted to show that I was different, and the Sri Lanka I know was different from theirs. Even yet, I could not live up to the expectations of how a recently migrated girl from Sri Lanka should look, act, and behave. I couldn’t cook a proper meal, didn’t know how to wear a saree, didn’t observe any religious practices, and didn’t care about the culture/tradition. The masks I carried in my baggage clashed with one another, crushed, and became worn out. I tried to make new masks to suit the new me, the responsibilities and duties come along with the new me. But I think I failed miserably. It’s not something that could be explained in plain words. Maybe I’ll try it again some other time but I know it’s not gonna work. Never.
And then I decided to travel to Scandinavia, a region quite homogenous compared to Canada, which does not have prolonged experience of migration from different parts of the world. I started to have this strange feeling since I know my masks have given up on me. This time it’s different. There’s no way I could get into the group of ‘us’. After all I’m a coloured girl, among a predominantly white population. I’ve heard people say that it’s good to be different, so you’ll get more attention. I am not the type of a girl who wants to draw attention all to her. I am more of an invisible personality, who enjoys staying in the background and observing silently. But not anymore. All these days, I am constantly reminded of Foucault’s (is that Foucault, uh my poor memory) idea of ‘gaze’. ‘visibility.’ In the classrooms, dinners, parties, dance floors, it follows everywhere. It doesn’t mean that people here are rude and stare at you all the time. No, it’s nothing like that. As Foucault (uh, is that Foucault?) explains, it’s the internal fear of being visible. Of course, you get a lot of attention, and arouse curiosity.
But would you call it a blessing or a curse?
The baggage, full of identities, different colourful identities, each of them defines a part of you, without one you cannot be the whole, and strangely enough, you cannot wear them all. New ones pop out of the bag when you travel to new places and surprise you, even when you’re not aware that you had it within you all along. Then some get lost along the way, and you throw out some away. But it’s the beautiful bag that you can never leave behind.
Huh, it almost sounded like a poem, written by a girl of her candy bag. Wow, I’m getting good at itJ
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