There is no language in this country — none like my Ammamma’s native tongue; Tamil, the language of prancing peacocks and aromatic chai, where even curses sing. Each syllable pulses, a heartbeat from a distant home I now love more than I ever could remember. There is no literature in this country — none as foreign yet homely as my Ammamma’s stories.
Every night she drew us close, the moon's pallid glow casting shadows across her wrinkled face. Gum trees swayed in the warm air; their eucalyptus scent rushing through the open window. Her breath carried whispered stories that unravelled in fragments, warm against our cheeks, stirring, shifting, coming to life.
Word after word
we watched
as the
sickly sweet
jalebi syrup
trickled
from her
tongue like
honey.
Each story echoed a foreign world, a reminder that our language was not just communication, but our home. The first time I realised this was something to be ashamed of was in the third grade. ‘What are you reading?’ a boy asked me.
I replied tremulously with the first author I could think of. ‘Enid Blyton.’
He could tell I was lying.
The delicate sheets of paper were snatched from my hands. The intimate secrecy of Ammamma’s stories was laid bare to the harsh ridicule of the boy and his friends. My chest tightened, each breath catching in my throat as they mocked her shaky handwriting. Their laughter cut like a freshly honed aruval blade. To them, the language’s graceful curves were invisible, nothing more than scribbles of an unintelligible mess. I observed helplessly as Sam's taunting laughter set the paper alight in a fiery blaze. The characters writhed, screaming in agony, contorting under the seething heat.
The book now lay desecrated beneath the weight of their mockery –
An echo of Ammamma.
Her stories,
my world
split open beneath me.
***
My favourite season was winter, when the winds howl like restless spirits. I was momentarily freed from the teeming burden my brown skin carried.
Yellow fingerprints of turmeric stubbornly stained my arms, so I pulled on a dark sweater, the fabric swallowing the colour. The henna still managed to sprout like a filigree forest, twining up my elbows and blooming on my hands. My frizzy curls moaned in protest, now limp and lifeless from a straightener.
‘It’s easier to manage,’ I would tell Ammamma as her brows furrowed at my new look.
‘Come sit down kunju - I want to tell you a story,’ she implored, but I was already leaving. Her stories were now a doorway I refused to enter.
***
Ammamma grew sick.
Every night, her cries for Appa pierced the Currawongs’ mournful call. I sat next to her bed - her breath laboured and wheezing.
‘One last time beti,’ she whispered.
She began to weave her final story, piecing together the fragments of what was left of her world.
July tenth, nineteen - ninety. The walls were slick with viscous blood and grime. Each oily streak, a signature of the war etched on the unsanitary surfaces of Jaffna Hospital. They lay scattered on the floor like marigolds; hundreds of fallen soldiers, like rotting, forgotten artefacts. The soldiers suffocated beneath a toxic film of ash that stifled their suffering.
As she spoke, I could see them come to life. Sometimes the soldiers would shift ever so slightly, and a groan would arise, like the mournful wail of the rabana drum echoing through Point Pedro at dusk.
***
She grew worse. Her speech unintelligible. She had tried to teach me to write in Tamil, but her ageing hands had fumbled over the pen, erratic and unpredictable. She endlessly wrote the same thing, a monotonous loop.
அவர்கள்வருகிறார்கள்அவர்கள்வருகிறார்கள்அவர்கள்வருகிறார்
***
Mr. Kumar was the only dark-skinned teacher at my high school.
‘To-day... cla-ss... vee learn kwa-dra-tic... EE-kway-shun,’ his broken English echoed through the classroom like fragments of ancient pottery. The cool, salt-tinged breeze wafted through the door, carrying the sharp scent of eucalyptus with it.
‘Umm... I think ya meant equations,’ I snickered, and a stifled chuckle rippled through the class. The laughter left a bitter aftertaste, as I watched a burning crimson rush to Mr Kumar’s cheeks. A nagging unease sizzled within me, coiling tight around my stomach.
They liked me. I had finally earned a place in their world.
Yet, I hated myself.
I hated my voice. Gone was the warmth of my mother tongue, now replaced by a twangy Australian accent that felt distant and cold.
I hated myself, devoid of Ammamma's stories. Her tales had once painted my world in vibrant saffron. Without them, I felt like a wallaby stranded without the bush: lost, exposed, and out of place.
***
Ammamma comes to me in my sleep. She brings stories of our home. Echoes of a world long gone. Each tale glows with the warmth of saffron, entwined with enchanting shimmers of gold-like ancient tapestries.
As the fiery Colombo sun sets slowly along the horizon, dragging the final remnants of my essence down with it, I finally understand the importance of Ammamma’s world. Maybe, somewhere in the memories of Ammamma’s stories, I might find my way back home.
ENDNOTE
Ammama: ‘Grandmother’ in Tamil
Aruval blade: An agricultural sickle traditional to Sri Lanka
Rabana drum: One-sided traditional Sri Lankan drum
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