JUSTICE

7 year old Anishka sits alone in the dark late at night, cat on her lap dog by her side, the television is on. She cannot sleep but that is about the only problem. As she focuses her attention on the television, all she sees are people brutally being murdered, women crying and effortlessly struggling to leave behind the remains of their dying children whose body parts were scattered by bombs and lives been lost with a blink of an eye. A tear slowly begins to trickle down her smooth delicate face as she murmur these words to herself without fail to stop, “When is my turn to die, when will I become like them.” Then and there she realises that she is a lucky sod.

Anishka is a Sinhalese. Her parents were raised and born in Sri Lanka. They later died due to health problems and poor Anishka was taken in by an Indian Tamil family at the age of one. She never got the chance to know who her real parents were The Indian Tamils were shipped to Sri Lanka by the British in 1940s. The British gave good benefits to the Tamils over the local Sri Lankans. This angered many Sinhalese and when the British left in 1948 and granted Sri Lanka its independence, the Sinhalese decided to take their revenge slowly by changing some policies. Little had they known that the changes would results in millions of lives being lost with a blink of an eye.


Little Anishka did not know what it felt like to be like a normal child in an environment where people do not walk around with guns killing men, women and even little children like her. She lived in fear all her life; even in a place she called her home, Anishka was the centre of her step parent’s anger. She was the punching bag, be it school or home, her life was centred around violence.

“Ah ma, please don’t make me go to school today, I…I p-p-promise to be a good girl if you let me g-g-go with you to work,” stuttered Anishka in agitation.

Slowly lifting her arm, her mum smacked her across the face and accused her of being disrespectful, “don’t you ever question my decisions.” she said, out of breathe as though she had just run a race.

Trying to be strong, Anishka lifted her frail, weak body as she struggled to put a sentence a together, “s-s-sorry, ah ma, I w-w-wont d-d-do it again.”

She picked up what looked like a torn plastic bag which was on the verge of breaking, opened the door and headed for school. Trying to fight back tears with fail as they slowly streamed down her pale rough cheeks which looked like they have not been washed in months. As she entered the school gates, she felt the cold stares of her Tamil classmates come upon her. Though Anishka was a Sinhalese, she was raised Tamil and that was the only language she was exposed to. She therefore went to a tamil school. The tamil students in her class shunned her as well. They were afraid to talk as they themselves were taught to hate anyone that didn’t look like them.

“My brother didn’t get spot into a university after he worked very hard for it, my mum says it’s because of people like you,” cursed the boy angrily at Anishka.

With tears in her eyes she tried to fight back, “it’s not my fault, I-I-I didn’t ask them to do it,” she cried in total anguish.

Realising what was going on a teacher rushed to her side as she reprimanded the boy, Anishka is one of us, stop treating her a an outcast.”

Anishka was relived as she heard the school bell go off, she was happy to go home, but sad that she was headed for another nightmare at home. On the way home she tripped over dead bodies of helpless people, crying in pain. Her anger towards the Sinhalese grew as she realised how much trouble they caused “people of her on kind.” Instead of heading home, Anishka headed to an army camp where she heard that they trained young children to be brave and fight for their people. Anishka went to join a group known as the ltte.

Anishka was brought up to believe violence was the only answer to solve problems. She was raised and taught to fight people of her kind.