TAMILS ARE MOST STUDIOUS THAN OTHERS...!!!

Why they are so studious?
During my entire teaching career, which spans many decades, one thing that struck me most was that the less affluent were more studious than the rich, the girls were more studious than the boys and above all the Tamils were more studious than the Sinhalese, Muslims and Burghers.

The feeling I got was that the Tamils were born to learn, like the Jews who had nothing to cultivate except their brains!

Look at our Tamils children in the Northern Province. While our Sinhalese boys and girls take to the streets for the deficiencies in their universities, the Tamil boys and girls take to their bunkers in Jaffna with only their books and candles!

One such girl who is now a qualified doctor told me that she had only a ‘Vaday’ and water for lunch and dinner during those days. When I asked her whether she had thought of marriage, she laughed and said, "Everybody can marry, but it is not everybody who can learn." Now she is using her salary to support the family and with what she manages to save she spends on higher studies.

If all goes well, this country will be blessed with one more surgeon in due course. When I asked her if she took part in politics during her university days, she laughed again and said, "That is one luxury we Tamils cannot afford."

While the Sinhalese want everything from the cradle to the grave from the State, the Tamils have the ability to survive come what may. During Sirimavo’s time, when many estate Tamils were deported to India under the Sirima-Sasthri Pact, one such Tamil managed to return to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as a ‘Kalla Thoni’ or illicit immigrant, but was arrested after a few months in Colombo. When he was produced before a magistrate, he pleaded guilty and was deported.

But the Sinhalese magistrate was keen to know if any friends or relatives helped him to stay so many months in Colombo. The poor man said that he had nobody known to him in Colombo but living in Colombo was not a big problem to him. Every morning he went from one Indian vegetarian eating house to another collecting the discarded banana leaves which were used by the customers as disposable plates. He took them to a public tap, washed them carefully and sold them to other Indian vegetarian eating houses.

The Sinhalese magistrate remarked "I am sorry I have to send you back to India because that is the law, but I wish I could keep you as an example of the will to survive!" This news items appeared in our local press the next day.

Many years ago, I met a Jaffna Tamil who was the chief accountant in a foreign bank in Colombo. One day I was surprised to find him, bare-bodied, in a simple ‘verti’ like Gandhi, seated behind a counter in a Wellawatta shop selling Jaffna cigars. Seeing my surprised look and recognising me, he asked;"Why are you so surprised that I am selling cigars in the evening after finishing my bank duties?"

When this wretched ethnic conflict is over, the Sinhalese and the Tamils should forget their nationalism (which is only glorified tribalism) and both should get together sans war-mongers, rabble rousers, ambitious politicians who are only bent on making a fast buck from commissions on every purchase with state funds, and rebuild this country the way Japan did after World War II. Are our university students ready for that? Then show it.


Jayatissa Perera,
Bambalapitiya.