As if not hearing his son’s words, victor Henagam lit up a cigarette. Rainwater fell off of the eaves and muddied the yard. Ajith kept looking at the bubbles rising in the muddy water.

“There comes the woman who just finished talking.” When Suneetha said this, Ajith looked up and ahead.

Anula who spoke last on stage and her daughter Visaka came running towards the house. Anula holding on to the raised and gathered hem of her pale yellow sari one hand. The chintz dress that Visaka wore was also soaked by the rain.

“Oh, don’t stay outside like that. Come into the house,” Anula said as she stepped on to the porch. :You, ladies and gentlemen, please do sit down. This is our home.”

Ajith’s eyes were drawn to Visaka. He thought that she looked just like her mother. The only difference was that Anula was a little order.

“Reverend Subuthi had also come and listened to my story,” Anula said. “He said he will come here. There he is.”

Ajith looked ahead. The priest with his head covered by an umbrella was not alone. Ajith recognized the young man who was sharing the priest’s umbrella.

“While you were telling your story, we stood in the back and listened,” the priest said as he neared the porch. “We were delayed on the road.”

“Please do come in, reverend,” saying this Anula turned to the interior of the house. “Let me bring a white cloth to cover the chair.”

When she went in, Visaka followed her.

The young man who came with the priest kept staring at the Henegamas as if in disbelief. Ajith spoke to him.

“Vasantharaja, this is my mother and my father. This is my sister, Suneetha.”

“I know.” Vasantharaja leaned against a pillar on the porch. “I know.” Victor and Mallika were dumbfounded. It was as if a restlessness was born within them on seeing Vasantharaja’s eyes.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” Vasantharaja said in very clear Sinhalese. “I know who this is…. Do you remember Lionel?”

Saying “My son!” Mallika started to cry all at once.

“Lionel- that is I. We are born and then we die, mother. This priest here explained it all to me.”

“We did and we are born again. There is no end to this eternity… All the attachments are temporary,” reverend Subuthi who was still standing on the porch side. This was when Anula came back out with a white cloth. While placing this over a chair, she at the young man who had come with the priest.

Vasantharaja was also looking directly at Anula and Visaka. After placing the cloth over the chair hastily, Anula allowed the priest to sit down and then worshipped him. All the others followed her actions.

“This is a very strange meeting, isn’t it?” the priest said.

“Anula…” Vasantharaja murmured. “Can you remember me?”

“Ian;t this man, reverend? He killed my husband, Siripala.” Wailing out loud, Anula ran out of the porch to the pouring rain. It was as if the soaking in the rain was a relief to her.

While everyone on in amazement, Vasantharaja also ran out to the yard.

“Anula….Anula….. Please forgive me, Anula… please forgive me for all the mistakes I made in my life, Anula.”

Yelling “Mother!” Visaka also ran out to the rainy yard. Hugging Visaka, Anula cried. Ajith could not hear everything that Vasantharaja was saying while kneeling down in front of the two women.

“Anula…I am Lionel…. I walked away from your love, Anula. Because of a revolution I gave up my whole life, Anula. Then I was born again, and again I joined a different revolution and killed innocent people, Anula… please forgive me, please forgive me, Anula….” His words were mingling in the downpour. the burning end of the cigarette that Victor threw out was doused by the rain.

Everyone who was staring in amazement on the porch heard the wods spoken by reverend Subuthi.

“Good people, look at all the attachments that we create while we go around in this cycle of Samsara. Good people, look at the tangled web we weave because of the desires and cravings that we bring upon us in the meantime. When we can’t even hold on to our own selves, why do we create attachments saying these are my parents, these are my children, this is my wealth and this is my race, good people? Let us do what we can for the others. Let us give for the sake of others… It is by giving only that this craving and desires can be lessened. It si by giving that we are liberated. Then by virtue and meditation we can purify our thoughts and bring the mind to one pointedness. That is where Nirvana is, good people. That is where true enlightenment is….”

Hearing reverend Subuthi’s words, Ajith walked out to the yard. He felt that the falling rain was washing his heart as well as the surroundings and purifying his whole being.

April 2, 1995

Sunday

English Translation completed December 24 1999

Internet Preparation Vicumpriya Perera.

Ajith’s sister, Suneetha also listened to him with doubt. But today they had come to Bisowewa to take a look at Vasantharaja who was coming here after being released from prison. But so far, there was no sing of Vasantharaja or reverend Subuthi.

Ajith was restless though he was trying to listen to the speakers. After the brigadier’s speech, a young man who had come to serve the South and Buddhist spoke. After this were heard the sorrowful tales of the families misplaced during the war. One of the woman had hid in the forest when the Tigers attacked her village during a heavy downpour. Since she could not carry her little baby in the rain she had him somewhere near the hut. The Tigers who had come to attack had rotis that she had been preparing and then had put the baby in the frying pan to burn. Another boy had found out that all his family had been massacred while he was in school. He had returned home to find his whole family dead and soaked in blood.

Ajith had heard several stories like this before. But every time he heard more, they always created a painful curiosity within him. These incidences would always bring back memories of the painful experiences in his previous life. He sat in his chair and listened on. He there were a woman and a girl on stage. The woman who was nearing middle age stood close to the girl and stared her story.

“I came to live in Bodhiipura with my husband and my daughter. We came like that because my husband was a man who was unafraid and was willing to work hard and make a living as a farmer. Our village was destroyed by the terrorists. When we heard that the terrorists were coming we went and hid in the jungle. My daughter and I were in one spot, while my husband was in a nearby place with our son.” Although her eyes were filling with tears she spoke on with courage. “Then the Tigers came and started to burn down our houses. And they were killing anyone they happened to see. We were still hiding, Shivering with fear. I saw one of them coming towards us. I prayed to the gods hugged my daughter. That man came and shot my husband point blank. Then he took my son and…and….” She could not continue with her tragedy anymore.

The daughter started to speak at this time.

“For some strange reason or because of our luck, that man did not shoot us even though he saw us clearly. He just kept staring at us. That was he got shot by the army.”

The crowd was heard sighing. All at once a drizzle started to fall. It was as if the clouds that were gathering in the sky showing their sorrow this way.

“Dear friends, that was Anula of Bodhipura who just spoke to us. For a while she had been an undergraduate at the University in Kandy. She left all that and came to be a farmer…. This is her daughter Visaka” while the brigadier was introducing them, the rain started to fall steadily.

Everyone began to disperse and they all started to run to wherever there was a shade. Though some opened up their umbrella, and some others went under the trees, as the downpour got heavier, they also gave up the meeting and ran of find cover under the roofs of the houses. Ajith along with his parents and his sister and brother-in-law ran for cover like everyone else. Where they ended up was the porch of a new house.

“It is raining to wash off everything to give it all a fresh start,” Mallika Henagam said.

“A new beginning,” Suneetha said for Ajith to hear. “Would you like to live in a place like this, brother?”

1993

There was a celebration in the village named Bisoweva in the Yan Oya valley where thirty new houses had been built and several dislocated families and orphans were settled in as residents. The entire environment appeared refreshed and new washed clean by the previous night’s rain. Still there were dew drops on the grass and upon the trees. While the sun was gradually rising and while so many were participating in the activities of the celebration whole heartedly, Ajith who was among them felt very restless.

In an open space beyond housing scheme, the chairs and mast placed in rows were all occupied to capacity by people that had arrived from near and far. Beyond this area under the shade of the trees were more people listening and watching. They were all facing a wooden stage where there were several speakers. Some of them had come all the way from Colombo and other far off areas. Some had worked very hard to bring this project to fruition.

Ajith who was seated in a chair amidst the crowd looked at his parents and his older sister and her husband. He still felt an emptiness. They were not here yet.

An army brigadier named Weerarathna started to talk. “Today is the day that the flowers are blossoming in the dreams born out of this project. Now we are getting aid not only from our own people but from many other countries to rebuild the villages that were destroyed just like this one was. Like I mentioned before, we are not doing any of this hoping to gain profit, publicity of fame. Our only aim is to do some service to our people. today I feel like we have won. We did not win today by fighting with weapons such as bombs and guns. Our victory is what we can do to help these orphans and the displaced to stand on their own. Our victory is being able to tell the world what these people have suffered through. Winning hearts is the victory. Winning hearts is not something we can do by fighting with weapons…”

After this, Ajith did not hear most of what the speaker said. Ajith got involved in the rebuilding of the villages project because of reverend Subuthi. His service done with relentless courage and dedication was not for a particular race or a religion. This was a service to the entire mankind.

Ajith came to realize how very little the people in Colombo and the South knew about what was really going on in the Northern war only after he had started working with reverend Subuthi. The last few years he had spent with those who had come from far away places, helping the displaced and the orphans from the war by providing them with housing, clothing and money and rebuilding the road of the North Central, North East, and the east, were the most productive years of his entire life.

I there was any good he could do in this lifetime, which was only one stopping in his journey through eternity, he was ready and willing to do that. He also learned to meditate under the guidance of reverend Subuthi. Through relaxation and self hypnosis he brought his mind to one pointedness and learned about several of his previous lives. Just as he was the Tamil man named Sundaram in his last ;ife, he found out that in many other lifetime, he had been born into many different races, believing in many different religions and practices. He lost his pride of being born to a particular race in this lifetime. He realized that he belonged to the human race but not to a particular branch of it which man had created out of his ego. He also realized that men were fighting and killing each other, they were putting down each other and hurting and torturing each other because of an ignorance of not understanding the temporary nature of these thought attachments. Thanks to reverend Subuthi Ajith was no more attached to one lifetime.

It was true that Janaki was his daughter in one lifetime. But in so many different lives, how many different attachments he must have made? he wondered. He realized what was important in this journey through eternity was not the attachments but the separation from those attachments. Now his whole life was spent in helping others.

He helped in the rehabilitation of the Tamil prisoners of war. Some of them were learning meditation from reverend Subuthi. They also learned to took into their past lives. They realized that the race they were born to in this lifetime was not theirs to hold onto forever.

During this time, Ajith got very close to Vasantharaja who was in the Vauniya prison camp. After the hypnotic regression session, Vasantharaja also realized that in his previous life he had been Ajith’s older brother named Lionel.

“Yes, to meet with one of the prisoners.”

“A Tamil?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Look like you are also doing some good work in some other way then?”

“I am trying to know people without separating them in to different races as Singhalese and Tamil.”

“It is very hard to explain such a thing to some people, sir.”

“Especially to the ones who are trying to separate the North from the country,” another soldier added.

“Not everyone up North thinks the same way.” Doctor Saminadan joined in on the conversation. “One day every one will understand that we do not belong to one race all the time. Like the priest said, what a temporary hold this is?” Ajith as well as the soldiers looked on in amazement at the Tamil doctor who spoke such fluent Singhalese with such an understanding.

It took about half an hour for the priest to return. He brought back with him the papers to let in Ajith and Saminadan into the camp, very happily as if he were carrying a white banner of victory.

“Let us, gentlemen. I talked to Vasantharaja as well. He is willing to help with the work.”

“What work, reverend?”

“To undergo hypnosis.”

“Whatever way, if it helps the boy, that is all that matters,” Saminadan said. “When I spoke with Janaki earlier she told me about all the trouble she had with the boy. After his father had died, he had become so stubborn and rotten. Then one of his uncles had taken him away to join him with the Tigers.”

“He is not a very happy person. Very restless,” the priest said. “He told me about a dream he had. He knows quite a bit of Singhalese.”

“He had lived in wellawatte,” Ajith revealed what little he knew. Then he realized that this boy was his grandson from his previous life.

They walked down a dusty road and entered the surgical unit of the camp. It was a small building. On its columned front porch, Janaki was already waiting for them.

“I told them to bring Vasantharaja to a bed in here,” the priest explained.

“It is very quiet around here.”

“Pinna arai kami,” Janaki said and pointed to the interior.

A soldier who came to the porch, led them to an inner room with pale blue walls. Inside on a bed sat Vasantharaja dressed in a white sarong and a light weight long sleeved undershirt. He glanced at Ajith, then looked down and started to pinch his own arm.

In one corner of the room were several chairs. The priest pulled out one the chairs close to the bed and sat on it.

Janaki sat by her son and whispered something to him. Vasantharaja nodded his head.

“he is ready, sadhu,” She said for the priest to her.

“If you’d like to, you can stay in the room.”

The priest sat upright in his chair. “Vasantharaja, please lie down on the bed. Let us see what your dream is all about.”

To Ajith, none of this was any more. Listening to the commands given by the preist, Vasantharaja closed his eyes and relaxed and floated into another world while Ajith watched.

“Vasantharja, see where you are?”

“Kandy… Peradeni…”

“Give us your name?”

“Enadu peyar Lionel. My name is Lionel,” Vasantharaja started to talk in a very distressed masser. After muttering a few words in Tamil, he started to talk in Sinhalese. “I am Lionel. I went from Kandy. To Galle. Galle. Che Guvera.”

“Tell us, what happened, Lionel?”

“I got shot. Shot in the chest. My chest.” Vasantharaja’s right hand rested on his chest. a pain registered on his face. His eyes were tightly shut.

“Lionel, now you will not feel any pain. Let us go a little further, into your childhood in that lifetime….. Take a look at the house where you live.”

“We are in Colombo…”

“Who else is there?”

“Mother, father, younger sister and younger brother – Suneetha and Ajith.”

Ajith was startled. “Ajith?”

“Yes, Ajith. My younger brother, Ajith. Yes here is my younger brother, Ajith. I am angry. Everybody treats him nice. I am angry…. angry…. I want to take revenge from everybody.”

Ajith blurted out “Aiya” (Older brother). The young Tamil man lying on the bed in front of him, could this be his own brother, Lionel? It was also only a memory.

“I….I went to the campus,” Vasantharaja went on talking.” That is where I met Anula and got friendly with her. That Anula…” He stated to pant heavily. “I left my Anula and went to join the revolution.”

“Where is Anula?”

“I don’t know. Yan Oya. In Anuradhapura. No, no! It was that Anula I saw in Bodhipura. With Anula was our daughter….. I know now. Before I left her, we…we…” Vasantharaja’s voice faded and tears were streaming down his face. His eyes were still closed.

“Lionel, now we will come to the moment of death in that lifetime. You will not feel any pain. You can very easily float up and away from that body. You will not feel the pain of that body now. See what you can see now.”

“I got caught by the police. I am very angry. I must kill all of them. They tortured me. They shot me right her in my chest.” Janaki noticed that Vasantharaja was pointing th the birth mark on his chest.

“Now there is no more pain, Vasantharaja. When I count to three, you will wake up. One – your body is very relaxed. There is no pain. Two – you are very close to walking up. There is no pain at all. You will feel very comfortable and relaxed. Three – now let us wake up.”

Wiping his tears, Vasantharaja sat up in bed. the first thing he saw Ajith’s eyes wide open in amazement. Janaki who stood up from her chair, went to the bed and hugged her son. Ajith could not hold back his feelings. He also got up and went to them. He had a great desire to hug both of them. As Ajith sat on the other side of Vasantharaja, he hugged him. Ajith extended his arms to hug both Janaki and her son. While all three were crying, reverend Subuthi got up from his chair and talked in a hushed voice to Saminadan. “Let us go outside, doctor. These tree have a lot to talk.”

The trio on the bed did not even realize that the priest and the doctor had left the room.

“This is my daughter, Janaki,” Ajith rattled on. “This is my grandson – also my older brother from this life. Vasantharaja and Lionel – they are both the same.”

“Appa – Aiya” (Father, brother) Janaki mumbled. “My son. My fathre’s older brother…. you are brothers…”

“I want to meet with that Anula,” while sobbing, Vasantharaja said. “I can’t wait to see her one more time.”

“I understand, I understand,” Ajith agreed.

While the three of them sat on the bed and cried, the night crept in.

“We will do the best we can to help,” the monk said.

“You do look my father, sir,” Janaki said while staring straight into Ajith’s eyes. “Your eyes are just like his.”

Ajith smiled.

“Sir, then my father was born again as a Sinhalese. How do you know that you were my father in your previous life, sir?”

Doctor Saminadan explained to Janaki about reverend Subuthi and how he would hypnotize people to find information about their previous lives. While he was explaining all this Janaki also jabbered away something hurriedly.

“Janaki says that her son Vasantharaja also talks about a dream like that,” Saminadan translated for the others. “When he went to massacre people in Bodhipura, he had come face to face with two woman who looked very familiar to him. So he had not killed the two of them. That was when he got shot.”

“When I saw Vasantharaja for the first time, I also felt like I’ve known him, reverend,” Ajith said. “When I first saw him, he was a little boy. I remember he had a big birth mark on his chest.”

Janaki forced smile. “He is very stubborn boy, sir. He grew up the wrong way.”

In reverend Subuthi’s look, a different thought was evident. “I thought, gentlemen, if we hypnotize that Vasantharaja, we may be able to find out why he behaved in such a way. If only he is willing.”

Saminadan explained this to Janaki.

“Whatever you do, Sadhu, if it will help me son, I don’t mind it. That dream is a real bother to my son, sir. Let me ask him about this.”

After tea they walked towards the camp. This time Janaki walked close to Ajith. Ajith did not hear anything the priest and the doctor said to each other as they walked ahead of him. In walking close to Janaki there was a certain happiness. It was a feeling as if a link from the past had completed this cycle of life.

Just like the twilight that was spreading all around, his heart was by some serenity. Janaki who had been born from his own blood in a previous life was now an adult woman walking next to him. What an amazing thing that was! Everything was thoughts…. thoughts ……

“I know a brigadier here,” the priest said. “I will talk to him and arrange everything. Until then, you can stay in this shade. The prison camp is on the other side of the army camp. I will also talk Vasantharaja before I come back.”

“Sadhu, I am also going to talk to my son. I have very little time to see him.” Janaki said.

While Janaki went ane way, the priest entered from the main getway of the army camp. Along with Saminadan, Ajith walked to the barricade and showed his own army identity card to the soldiers there and struck up a conversation with them. He told them about how he got injured in Jaffna in the bomb blast in 1983 as if he were relating some adventure story. He felt happy talking this. The guarding soldiers inquired him as to what was happening in Colombo. When would this war ever be over, were would heard during the conversation every so often.

“What that reverend Subuthi is doing with another group is very commendable,” one of the soldiers said.

“What is doing?” Ajith asked.

“The work of his foundation. Helping the villagers that were misplaced by the terrorists’ attacks. Not just from Colombo, now people are coming from all over the would to help rebuild the villages.”

“I did not know about that.”

1988

Seeing the Buddhist monk and the man walking towards her, Janki waited by the barricade. Involuntarily, her fingers got caught in the fence. She removed the sari which was covering her head and adjusted the ruffled hairs. Though Doctor Saminadan who stood near by uttered something, she did not hear any of that clearly.

From the campsite came the commanding orders of an army captain who was training his troops. The dry parched land of Vavuniya was burning in the afternoon sun. Somewhere a whole battalion of crows were cawing.

Looking at the monk’s face for a moment, Janki bent forward and put her hands together to worship him. The words “May you be well,” came out of the monk’s lips. In the next instance, Janki’s eyes stopped at the face the young man who accompanied the monk.

They stared a each other dumbfounded by a whole series of inexplicable emotions rising within them. Doctor Saminadan said something to Reverend Subuthis and then turned towards Janki.

“Jnaki, avarkal yar enru solla mudiyuma?”

“Mh….” Janaki muttered while still looking at Ajith.

“This must be Janaki?” To the monk’s question the reply came in an affirmative from Ajith.

“Let us go to that boutique.” Saminadan pointed to a restaurant across the steet.

Ajith could not find words to say anything. He and Janaki were both speechless. Either one did know where to begin the conversation.

As the foursome walked into the restaurant, several customers turned to look at this unlikely combination. A Buddhist monk, a Tamil couple and a Sinhalese man. The four of them went to a table in the back. “Let us have a cup of tea,” Saminadan spoke again in very clear Sinhalese.

“Not for me. I will just have a glass of water,” reverend Subuthi said. He and Ajith sat on one side of the table while the other two sat facing them. Janaki’s face was in front of Ajith’s.

“Janaki knows Sinhalese,” Saminadan broke the silence.

“I have met this gentleman in Neveli,” all at once Janaki became talkative. ” A long time ago.”

“Can you tell me who I am?” Ajith asked with his eyes wide open.

“You, sir told me that you would find my husband. After that you went away, and I never saw you agin.”

“This gentlemen was injured in a bomb explosion,” The monk said.

When Saminadan said something to Janaki in Tamil, Ajith guessed that he was explaining what the monk said to the woman.

Janaki forced a smile on her lips as if to say I forgive you.

“You look very familiar to me, sir. I remember you very well.” Janaki, do you know anything about reincarnation? ” the monk inqurired.” We are born and then we die. Then we are born again to die again.”

“Yes, sadhu…… That is what eternity is all about.”

“What year did your father die, Janaki?

“My father? Ambath onpadu…”

“In fifty nine,” Saminadan translated.

“This gentleman, Ajith was born in nineteen sixty.”

“Janaki, your father’s name was Sundaram?” Ajith said quizzically.

“Sundaram, yes.”

“I am Sundaram.”

“Appa? My father?”

Janaki’s eyes were filling with tears. Seeing this, Ajith could not hold back his tears as well. Everything around went quiet. Say “Appa” Janaki sobbed. She wiped away her tears with a handkerchief she held folded in her hand.

“Birth and death are both painful,” Reverend Subuthi uttered.

“Janaki, I am Sundaram. They poured poured all over me and burned me to death. Oh, Janaki, my magal, my magal….”

“Appa!” What Janaki went on saying afterwards no one really understoor. Doctor Saminadan stroked her arm as if to console her.

“Mella shollu, Janaki. Speak slowly, speak slowly.”

Janaki wiped away her tears and started to talk slower.

“Appa died. We did not know. I was so small. I was waiting for Appa to come to pick me up. I waited and waited but he did not show up. So I went runnig and running. Mother was crying, younger brother was crying. I remember very vaguely, we came to the shed. everything had been burned down to ashes… Mother took the money from where she hid it and with the two of us came to the road. We stayed somewhere to spend the night. Then we took the train to Jaffna.”

“Where’s mother? Ajith could not hold back that question.

“Mother died only two months ago, sir.” Janaki’s tears renewed. “Mother went kind of crazy. Why? Because my younger brother ran away. Then my son, Vasantharaja was taken into custody. My younger brother got shot and he died from his wounds. Uncle mahes also got shot and he died. Everything is gone, sir. Mother went crazy.”

Ajith tried to bear the pain pulsing in his heart. Isn’t this his own daughter?

“I lived with my mother. Now I am all alone, sir.”

“Janaki, I came to see your son as well. Your Vasantharaja,” Ajith said.

“From your very young days, if ever you went in a bus, you threw up. You never could stand the of petrol.”

“Now that I know the reason behind all this, I can face the situation much better. Do you know why I am so good at math? That Sundaram was very good with accounting. He was saving money for his daughter’s dowry.”

Ajith could visualize the scene from the canal site in Delkanda Junction. He had a great urge to go there and see.

“I am going for a walk, mother.”

“Come home before it is too dark,” Mallika advised.

Ajith’s home was near the seventh mile post. To walk to Delkanda Junction from here it took him about half an hour. It was very slow walk. Gradually, the darkness fell all around. As he neared the canal shore, a faint twilight was spreading over the surroundings. Moving away from the crowds at the junction, he turned to the right. To the left of the main road, beyond the elephant eared Habarala plants on the shore of the canal, could be heard the laughter of the kids playing outside the shanties. Ajith stopped abruptly. He felt that the stop was right here.

There was a palm trunk laid across the canal like a bridge to the other side. He walked over it like a real pro and reached the area of the shanties. His heart was beating fast. He felt as if he were choking.

This appeared like very familiar surroundings. This is where his hut used to be. But did it belong to him now? Was he Sundaram? Or it is just a thought in his memory? Physically therewas no likeness or a connection between him and Sundaram. But in his thought was the pain of Sundaram. Ajith’s eyes were filling up with tears. Why? Why? Why did they kill me? Why did they kill an innocent man that why? As his heart began to beat faster and faster he sat down in front of the hut.

A young boy came running to him asked, “Are you all right, sir?”

“Yes, yes, I am alright. My leg started hurting.”

“Saman, give the gentleman a chair to sit down,” a woman who stood by the door of the hut said.

“No, don’t brother.”

“Why are you here to meet someone?” the woman asked.

“No, I just came for a walk this way….” Saying this, Ajith stood up. Didn’t Sunsaram bury his pot of money around here somewhere? After he died, his wife must have taken out the money and gone up to Jaffna. Does Janaki know any of this? Janki’s mother, that is, Sundarm’s wife, could she still be alive?

“Are you in a pain, sir?”

“No, no, I am O.K. now. My let got twisted.” Ajith rubbed his shin. “How many years these houses have been here?”

“Oh, they have been here for a long time, sir. If you cannot go across that palm trunk, there is a bridge you can go across further up.”

“No, I can manage.”

While the woman and the boy kept looking, Ajith crossed the muddy canal and reached the road. Everything was engulfed in darkness very quickly. Just like the day had become night, one life had become another. Yet, the day was connected to the night. But, night was not day, Ajiththought.

Was he chasing a mirage? By the time he got home, father was home as well. Seeing his father’s face, Ajith realized that mother must have said something about his earlier conversation with her.

“I have heard about that reverend Subuthi as well,” father struck up a conversation.

“I don’t like to talk about that now, father.” Ajith said before going into his room. Mother and father looked at each other’s faces. Ajith decided to sit down and talk with his father at a later time. Every day he was waiting for a letter from reverend Subuthi. Although he wrote one more time to the monk, he did not get a quick reply.

By the time Ajith received a reply, two months had elapsed. On seeing the monk’s handwriting, Ajith’s hands started to shake.

“Mr. Ajith,” the monk had started the letter.

“I delayed writing back until Dr. Saminadan in Neveli provided me with some information. The woman named Janaki Sundaram is not living there anymore. After her husband had disappeared, Janaki had gone to live with her mother in Puttur. Her address in Puttur I am enclosing herewith. But going there at this time would be very dangerous and risky.

But I have arranged a way for you to see her. She comes to see her son Vasantharaja. He was in the Tiger movement. He had been taken into custody after the attack on the Nodhipura village. Now Vasantharaja is in Vavuniya at a prison camp. If you would like to, you can meet him as well.

I have found out a day that Janaki comes to Vavuniya. Next month, on the third. If you like to, come to the temple the day before, then we can go to the Vauniya camp the next day. Send me a reply.

May the triple gem bless you!

Subuthi of Thissarawewa……

Mallika watched as Ajith read the letter. She could see a pleasant smile drawing across her son’s face.

“What is the priest saying, son?”

Without uttering a single word, Ajith handed the letter to his mother. After reading the contents, Mallike asked “So are you going to see what it’s about?”

“Why not……”

“Shall we come too?”

“M….. no, mother. That I don’t like.”

“I talked with father as well.”

“This is something I have to go alone and face by myself. Maybe, on a later date……”

“Your sister is very curious too.”

“I told you ….some other time…….”

“O.k ,o.k., as you wish.” Mallika agreed. Her only happinss was seeing her son coming out of the shell that he had crawled into.

Quietly, she thanked and gave to reverend Subuthi.

When he returned that night to one at his lodging asked any curious questions. Though he had dinner with the family and talked about various matters, the subject of reincarnation was well kept within him. Mostly they talked the problem with the Tigers and about their friends who had died because of the war.

The night Ajith felt that life is a sorrowful cascade that brought up happy bubbles once in a while. The stars that were shining in the sky were all part of this illusion.

He had a good night’s sleep. Thought he expected to see them in his dreams he did see Janaki or Sundaram. Early next morning, he woke up refreshed. He had the urge to go and find Janaki in Niveli. But these days even the thought of going towards Jaffna was a mere fantasy. In the north was one fiery chaos. Confident that reverend suitable would keep his promise, Ajith came back to his home in Nugegoda.

The last few years of Ajith’s life were spent in a depression and a frustration. After the unfortunate incident in Jaffna he was thoroughly disappointed with the whole of life and the world. Since he could not carry a weapon and go to the front any longer he ended up working in an army office in Colombo, but he could not concentrate well at the job. That man burning in the middle of fire haunted his mind all the time. He had no courage to tell about this to anybody. In reality he had no close friend who was willing to sit and listen to him. After his best friend Buddhi had died in the fiery explosion, he felt very much alone in the world. Gradually he became a snail that had crawled into its shell. The only thing that shed some light to his life was article that reverend Subuthi had written about rebirth to a newspaper. This article explained how dreams could carry memories from life experiences. It also told about western scientists and doctors who were using hypnosis as a means to pull out previous life memories. As soon as Ajith read this article he decided to go and meet reverend Subuthi. He wrote to the monk and when an invitation came with a reply, Ajith traveled to north of Anuradhapura to meet the monk.

After the hypnosis session with reverend Subuthi, Ajith felt as if a circle was getting completed. The only missing link was Janaki. He felt if only he could see her one more time and talk to her, he could go back to his old way of living. But who could he tell all this to? Who would believe all this?

When he home, his mother Mallike Henegame saw her son’s long drawn face and asked him what was the matter. She only knew that he to see some friends in Anuradhapura.

“What are you thinking about, son? How are things in Anuradhapura?”

“People are just living, mother. Some have a lot of fear about the coming to attack.”

“You are worried about something?”

Ajith forced a smile.

“Tell me what happened?” Mallika sat near Ajith in the veranda.

“I met a monk, named Subuthi of Thisarawewa. He hypnotized me to find out about my previous life.”

“So what did you see?”

When Ajith explained what he saw under hypnosis, Mallika listened without much belief. “So, you think that you are that Tamil man?”

“I don’t just think. I can feel certain things. Don’t you remember you say that when I was very young I had blisters all over me and that I had a all around my mouth? All that is memory from my burning in a fire.”

“When you were very young you did mutter some words which I could not understand.”

“I understand now. In Niveli I saw the daughter from my previous life.”

Mallika remember something. The trip that she had taken to Kataragama with Ajith…….

“You may not remember, son, we went to Kataragama to release a vow when you were very young. At that time we saw a Tamil family by the bridge. You went running to them. If I remember right, the man who was there called his daughter by the name Janaki.”

“I don’t remember any of that, mother.”

“I remember, I remember quite well. Sister said later that you ran towards the van that were in.”

Ajith let out a deep sigh.

“When you were little, you got scared by a truck carrying petrol, then had high fever. Brother told about it later.” Remembering her eldest son, Lionel who had faced an untimely death, Mallika felt a burning pang in her heart. She also let out a deep sigh.

“Do you think that broughtis a good place, mother?”

“How can we know, son? your brother was always stubborn. Why else would he join a revolution like that?”

“He may have done what he thought was right at the time.”

Knowing of the dislike mother had about talking about older brother, Ajith changed the subject.

“What I would like to do, mother is to meet with that girl one more time and talk to her. The reverend told me that he know a doctor who lives in Niveli. He will find out and let know.”

“Oh, I don’t know……”

“I also remember, that when I was small I got sick quite often. Mother says when I was little, I had a rash all over my body with blisters and around my mouth I had a rash.”

“Those could be memories from the previous time of death.”

“I can’t stand the smell of petrol. I would throw up every time I got order I did get over it. But I thing after I saw that Janaki in Niveli, I started getting sick again from the smell of petrol. Even now I can’t stand that smell. I would get a terrible headache from it.”

“That also is a memory. An unpleasant memory.”

“Now I am beginning to understand a lot, thanks to you, reverend. Now all I want is to see that Janaki at least one more time.”

“I understand. You want to take care of some unfinished business from that time. Did you say that the address is in Niveli?”

“Yes, reverend.”

“I know a very good doctor in Niveli. I will try to find out with his help.”

“I fell at ease and so much at peace. Actually now I don’t feel that kind of attachment like before.”

“You have realized something. You have come to an understanding about the illusionary dreamy nature of this eternal journey.”

“We die and reborn, then again die and reborn, don’t we reverend?”

“In the meantime we gather karma and suffer.”

“Are there heavens and hell, reverend?”

“We can be in so many different places, sir. On this earth alone there are so many places where we could be born. But the stream of consciousness need not always have a human body to wander in this eternity. According to our karmic forces, we are drawn and pulled to different places. From the light to the darkness and from the darkness to the light.”

“Because I came to see, a great burden had been lifted off of my head.”

“I will try to find out more about that Janaki.”

“Janaki Sundaram. She was married to one Shivankaram Appadurai. I will write down the address for you.”

Darkness had gathered outside by then. When Ajith came out of the room, he wrote down Janaki’s address in the monk’s notebook. It was doubtful whether Janaki was still alive in the chaos of the war. Where could her son be? Why was his face also so familiar?

“If you’d like to’ stay the night and go. Podiya can fix some dinner for you.”

Where I am staying, I told them I would be back tonight. Otherwise I would have stayed gladly.”

“You’d better go on then. I will try to locate that address. I have your Nugegoda address as well.”

When Ajith walked out of temple ground he felt a sudden great loneliness. As a few leaves of the Bo tree branches that extended outside the ground rustled in the wind, he looked up at them. As mentioned in the monk’s newspaper articles, could there be life forms and streams of consciousness all around this place? All that he was, was a stream of consciousness. How complicate were the thoughts born in that stream? What a chaos? What a web we weave from life to life? he thought. Now he was experiencing a memory from his previous life. It was not that easy to erase those painful memories. Janaki…. Sundaram…. The daughter he loved so much in that lifetime was now so far away. This time around, being born to a different race, he had carried a gun and gone in search of race of people who were related to him his previous life. Race was a condition one was born into only for one lifetime. They were temporary genetical heritages. everything was ephemeral. All was a dream. in eternity everything was ever chainging and impermanent.

“See what your name is?”

“Sun…..Sun …..Sundaram,” Ajith blurted out.

“You don’t have to answer me. Just remember everything that you experience,” the priest reminded him once more.

Now Ajith saw the Tamil woman outside the shed cooking something over open fire and a little girl who sat nearby. “Janaki…… that was his daughter …….. He was a Timil man named Sundaram in his previous life and he was a ragamuffin man collecting bottles and old newspaper. Janaki was my daughter.”

Now he could see the man walking to the canal with his two kids. Everything appeared like a movie.

After this he saw himself worshipping inside a Hindu temple and then sleeping with his wife in the shed. Then Ajith saw Sundaram with a large wicker basket on his head going down a road collecting bottles and newspapers. He saw the man coming home holding the little girl’s hand.

“Now let us come to the moment of death in that lifetime. You will not feel any pain. Float away and up, away from the body that was a burned. You will not have any more attachments to that body.” Ajith heard the priest’s voice. “See what happened to that body?”

Ajith saw a whole lot of people surrounding him on a hot afternoon. What he saw next completed his dream sequence. The men who surrounded Sundaram, poured petrol which they took from a nearby bowser, all over his body. The next instance he could smell the petrol. His throat had a burning sensation. “Anadawaney, aandawaney, ‘ he muttered without thinking. Ajith fidgeted on the bed but he could not escape this situation. The tears that filled his eyes seeped out from under the close lids and flowed down his cheeks. “Please, sir, don’t, please, don’t,” A flame came from somewhere and enveloped him. He felt an uncontrollable anger towards the men who was torturing him.

“Now, sir, come out of that situation. Look at it all from the outside. That body was only a temporary situation. Float upwards without any pain or sorrow of fear and come to the present moment. What I count to three, you will open your eyes without any pain, weariness or hurt. One – you are very close to waking up. Your body is very relaxed. Two – you are getting ready to wake up. You feel very comfortable. Three – wake up.”

Ajith opened his eyes and wiped away the tears from his eyes.

“Reverend, for a while I could not breathe.”

“What did you see?”

I was a Tamil man in that lifetime, reverend. His name was Sundaram.” He wiped away the tears that were still following from his eyes. “That was a very sad death, reverend. It was during the fight between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. This man was burned to death after petrol was proud all over him.”

“In fifty nine?”

“I think so. That Janaki is this Sundaram’s daugter.”

“See how it all work out, sir. In one lifetime we are bron Tamil. In another lifetime we could be born Sinhalese or in some European country. or else we could be born Chinese, Japanese or to some other race. So, sir, why do we become so proud saying we are this race or that race? All what we have received Physically, genetically through heredity. When we go none of us can take the skin color or the race.”

“We must be taking the memory and when we go, reverend. That Sundaram was very good at adding figures. I am also very good at math. Just like that Sundaram I like to eat Vasey. I just remembered, when my mother was pregnant with me, she said she had a great desire to eat those chili doughnuts.”