Storm in a teardrop

A tattered atlas,now in some abandoned shelf corner,referred way back in high school geography classes.Flipping through the first couple of pages,there it is on the right side,snapshots of our most treasured celestial object's sequential evolution across millions of years.Why the only single huge land mass exploded itself to drift apart in small & big fractions on the ocean bed tell us firmly,it was geography that paved way to all the history on earth.That very fact led us in to coining yet another inevitable word,Continent in its plural form & eventually its consequences. Today a child below 10 years might be fascinated if employed to put back each continent's jigsaw puzzle piece adjacent to one another just to see how they simply fit each other,elucidating the fact of oneness.

Until the latest remarkable evolution of our most treasured planet there ceased to exist the teardrop island which today hangs like a vestigial land to the Asian continent.Life sometimes is wonderful if some things ceased to exist.One such thing in my cease wish list would be this tear drop island appearing orphaned on the waters of earth right under the Indian foot.History tells me every single human life out there today flourished as a consequence of desired settlement for a pie of land within the tear drop island, innumerable centuries back. On further dig with my inquisitive shovel,I only find that they were all migrants from our Indian subcontinent & from nowhere else.Which just means all their roots trace back to our rich cultural, social & political heritage.Even if they refuse to acknowledge,it still is the embedded truth lying uncluttered in their deep selves.

Though the summary of Ceylon's ancient history sounds much like a fairy tale, it is much more than a horror flick right now.First landed an Indian king from a far India with his small army, followed by some Buddha bikshus & then the men from the near India.The far Indians transformed in to what they like to call themselves.The Sinhalese.Deriving a religion, language & custom of their own by borrowing it from every possible neighboring Indian state.The near Indians remained to be what they were.The Tamils.The crux of all the existing agony there today in a way seem to derive from chronological difference in each other’s arrival time.Since the far Indians were the initial inhabitants,they still believe that they hold an upper hand & hence the exploitation of the late comers.But late comers too agonized the former by waging wars at inappropriate times in the past,all standing as a stifling factor to the already fragile world peace, today.

But if you wish to take a close look from the time a demon ruled this island till the time tigers were finally traumatized,you will notice just like me,how finely destiny devices its own disaster plan,time & again,symbolizing the remarkably visible tear shape of this land in the lives of its inhabitants too.The divide between people became so bitter that it gradually became a land of twin tales.I simply wonder how history will unfold this double version events & interpretations to the world tomorrow.

Why the sleeping tigers were provoked in the first place, answers many similar ethnic conflict stories around the world.Like the most prevalent black& white divide in the Columbus discovered continent,in the tear drop island too,the Tamil sect was suppressed from the beginning denying their social & political rights as citizens.A fight for their basic rights began long time back paving way to multiple gangs of liberation tigers.One huge tiger swallowed the rest to emerge as a super tiger which claimed it to be the LTTE.Prabhakaran's pristine cause behind his tiny freedom fight picked up too many distracting controversial factors along its way and stood as a huge threat factory to the world in course of time.Once the wild cats tasted blood & flesh, basic goals seem to have forgotten.Civilians - the very word which addressed only the suffering Tamils faced threat from their own freedom fight heads, letting evaporate the very essence of a once focused goal.How many of us know what it means to live without peace, happiness, home, food, work & above all loved ones?.Particularly does the other pampered sect there know what it means to lose one’s identity & stand orphan in one’s own country?.

While all this is just one side of the story, let’s flash some light on the other side. Just to destroy an insignificant number(after all whose basic intrinsic intention was to fight for their sect’s safety & rights),will any democratic government play with the lives of millions of innocent people?.Should we blame the British government who followed a divide & rule policy by failing to include Lanka as an Indian province when the far away string of Andaman Islands came under our shelter?.Though all this is out of hands right now, at times it simply appears as reflection of a deep rooted hatred for their counterparts by the Sinhalese to destroy the Tamil sect completely.In the name of destroying the liberation tigers, they silently seem to have dwindled the count of innocent Tamils.

Sinhalese are the ones actually in the safe zone who didn't know what is it to be on the war front shedding blood & lives.Every day the black & white prints paint only the red blood story of those dreamt of a Tamil Elam.We neither found any thoughtful strategy been devised nor any concrete solutions put forward to rescue the suffering souls. International community's voice fell only on the deaf ears of the Lankan democrats.As an island nation, it preferred to nurture friendship & good relationship with countries across continents but failed to make peace with people within its own boundary.How strange is that?.The war has kept the country from development for more than a quarter century now.

If the time, attention & money the Lankan government spent in destroying lives of innocent people & in trying to destroy LTTE without a trace, be spent in giving equal rights to the Tamil sect & treat everyone like its own children, I don't see any reason for gangs like LTTE to have uprooted in the first place. Since they failed to do so, it paved way for a powerful gang to bud into an inevitable evil in their own soil.Prabhakaran’s is only a chapter in the red blood book of Sri Lankan history until now.In fact I believe the entire International community was distracted tactfully which kept us guessing how & when Prabhakaran’s life will end.Prabhakaran’s death was not the exact need of the hour to anyone.That might not even matter much to the million suffering souls.Restoring social & political rights to the Tamil sect & ensuring their safety & respect was the bottom line expectation from the Lankan government for over many decades now.

Better late than never.Even now this can be done, to prevent yet another big cat species evolve out of hatred for the Sinhalese.Few thoughtful & sensible government policies could easily spread harmony among people,painting back those lost colors in the lives of the existing ones.Will the Lankan govt give rights to the Tamil sect at least now?.Will Prabhakaran's dream of a Tamil Elam come true at least after his claimed & confirmed death?.If yes, what he couldn't achieve in his life time might stand materialized after a couple of bullets on his head.

Above all isn't it time the Lankans moved on in time and thought as a Sri Lankan nation rather than either a Sinhalese or Tamilian.If we Indians can think Indians first & then our Individual race, why is it not possible for them ?.Shall we simply ask an Indian child to gift our planet earth's jigsaw puzzle pack to the Sinhalese, to sit back and assemble them once to bring in a realization that all their bloodshed history could simply be traced back to a simple geographical phenomenon on earth.

Spratt

spratt..spratt..spratt.After a few more times of spratting up & down, all the split end locks were down there heading straight in to the dust bin. What remained was just another chopped coriander bunch but in black. Liking falling leaves, this seem to be the season of falling hairs. Quiz anyone whom you know & they have no hesitation in pouring out their cup of woes on it. The price for built up stress gets paid in terms of falling hairs, I thought.

One of my ex manager wore a wig, only as a full stop to all this I believe.Though it looked just like natural hair, am sure he must have coughed up a heavy sum on it.Since he commutes in my shuttle everyday, I find him most of the times stroking his artificial hair may be just to make sure it’s still in place amidst the speedy winds against which the bus plys.On days when he falls asleep in the shuttle, like a dry smudged paint brush, I find some hair streaks pointing horizontal from his head.Not many who travel in our shuttle are aware of this,though they might have had deep elements of doubt at times.Oh! then it needs some cautious attention all the time.Mm… sporting a wig wasn't that easy,I learnt.

A boy cut was also there in my options list.Though some day I would love to experiment on it at least once,it didn't seem to fit the bill for the time being.The option of a fully shaven head was the simplest of all but considering mommy as my high priority,I had to give up on that option too. So instead of sporting something that looked similar to a rat’s tail (though it wasn't exactly like that in my case) which sufficiently lacked volume, the best way to hide it seemed to go for short coriander bunch like, you know.

Believe it or not, I had plaited locks brushing much below my hips until my school days. In fact those days I was a big time cry babe watching my hair creeping down causing me nothing but trouble. Because it meant more time devoted to comb,plait ,wash & dry when there were too many other essential things to accomplish early in the morning. And needless to say, more oil & more shampoo for it’s nourishment. Still for mommy’s sake I let it creep. There hadn't been a single day without the crib & cry while brushing my long locks. A day came, when mom angrily agreed to chop it off till my shoulder length after a provoked arguement. And my dream of sporting a short cute hair came true.

After my haircut, all that people did to me was a taken aback look followed by hollowed eye expressions, which I hated to the core. So I made sure when I became a college kid, I sport a short hair from day 1,probably with just a handful of plaits reaching just below my shoulders. So during every semester break, I promptly take a scissors myself and chop off my black creeper preventing it creep down further. And those times I used to hear from my friends that they shelled a pretty money to get their hair cut done.'Lady, you go walk in to a haircut salon donating both your hair and a huge sum?', I would check. But never did I knew in those days, that a day would come, when I will head straight in to a hair salon to give my hair the blissful experience of having it caressed by some hair experts. Until I met one, I honestly did not have any high regard for this designation on earth.'What a ridiculous idea to have coined such titles - Hair experts.Are people so jobless to master the art of handling & experimenting on hair leaving all other things on earth'.That was my initial reaction to the term 'hair expert'.

Years after I started working,on some repeated suggestions from few interesting friends around that a layer cut would give me that renewed smart & sporty look, I went ahead and fixed an appointment with some expert in a nearby International branded hair salon. Being not so sure of all the clear do’s & don’ts before a haircut from a hi-fi salon like the one I was heading to, I neatly shampooed my hair the same morning & dried it one last time, knowing that all would have gone by evening. I headed straight in to the salon, observing all the showcased hair styling products. When I stepped in,I realised that both the existing hair experts were men. When I waited for my turn, one expert curiously quizzed me to finalize my chosen style of layer cut. When I was almost ready for the spratt session, he revealed to me that they cut hair only after washing it themselves. 'How strange ?' I felt. He then guided me towards a dim lit wash area. Comforted me on a sliding chair. Wrapped my shoulders with a warm towel. Took my hair by his side. And began to fondle it. That was the first time a guy was shampooing my hair.Let me tell you,next to mom, he was the one privileged to do so.When he gently stroked the scalp for the first time, my stomach churned a little, with the realisation of a strange guy washing my hair.He used three different shampoos from three colourful bottles.Soon aroma filled my nostrils inducing some pleasant feelings.Slowly I realised, that should have been the best hair wash my scalp must have ever witnessed.Not even a single strand got uprooted.I never saw him pull, squeeze or twist my hair any time during the wash.Every thing he did was too gentle on the hair.My hair must have thanked him that day for all the agony it underwent in my hands. Such a wonderful hair wash experience except for a mild pain on my neck for having rested it on an elevated surface during the wash.

Post hair wash session, he wrapped my damp hair in yet another soft towel.Reminiscing such a pleasant hair wash under a dim light from some angelic hands which failed to pull out even a single strand,I moved towards the dressing table.When I faced my image crowned in a huge white turban,the wide mirror facilitated me in watching his toolkit right behind.By then, his companion helped him sterilize all the accessories one by one. Meanwhile based on some input from my hair wash expert, he came near me to peel away my white turban and feel the texture of my hair.His avid love for my bunch of dead cells were undeniably visible. He was so passionate in feeling my hair.In fact he never looked at my face, which I felt was much pretty than what he was fiddling with.

Finally all was set to begin my haircut.Looked like expert #2 wished to cut my hair.They had exchanged some words when the combs were sterilized.He began with a simple spratt at the end.Then parted my hair in to at least 6-7 sections to give his best part by part.His keen concentration never spilled away from my hair.He was looking through every cut of his.And each spratt was so professional that I could feel the difference from the spratts in other local salons.It was full of spratts from side to side,up to down and sometimes here and there.In one way I was patiently battling against boredom while the expert was at work.All this time expert #1 was watching him & his strokes.Both were equally qualified to my eyes & equally passionate of their profession.I took my words back on hair experts in one of those silent minute.

There is definitely some meaning in calling themselves as hair experts.It means so much in a way since I cannot claim to have combed my hair without at least 1 strand in my hand.Soon expert #1 took over from the other to style it after my much awaited layer cut.That took another 20 minutes.At the end of which I couldn't believe if am I the one with such beautiful hair with some cute curls at the end.I never knew they could be styled that way.Each strand stood replenished with a bright shiny look.All I simply had to do at the end was to tie them back which looked awesome even without tying.

At the end out of some self admiration from the relfecting mirror, cheerfully I swiped my card for half a grand plus taxes for my most memorable hair cut.He inferred the output of his work from my expressions.I looked so different after my haircut.They definitely made a difference to people who walked in to their salon. Apart from singing their praises,I even recommend people to experiment their hair in the hands of some expert at least once in their life time. Believe me it’s worth it & more so you will love it. When I visited home after a week from then with my short cute cut, needless to say like any typical middle class Indian mom, my mommy also had the shock of her life.Infact her smile froze on seeing my coriander bunch cross her eyes. To add fuel to the fire she was very curious to know how much I shelled out for the left over fistful bunch. As a responsible daughter I just told her a plain white lie just to calm her nerves, u know ?