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| veera pathirar kovil in viyaaparimoolai |
Viyapari moolai is small village close to point pedro in the Jaffna Peninsula. Incidentally its also my paternal ancestral village. Anyhow I don't think that I can claim that as my village, for that matter I cannot call any place as my village, so usually when people ask me where are you from ... My answer has always been, born in Jaffna and living in Kandy :) So probably you can look at this as an outsiders view of Viyaparimoolai.
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| erincha amman kovil, viyapari moolai - let me confirm the name |
If I am not mistaken the place got its name due to the fact that alot of people from the village were businessmen and had established their businesses right through out the country.Even my grand father and alot of relatives were into business in someway or the other. I'm told that there was a time where people from viyaparimoolai laid claim to atleast 50% of the business establishments in the upper part of Colombo Street in Kandy. Believe me the people from there are very passionate about the village and its heritage. In an era where they believe that half the viyaaparimoolai is outside the country they have taken the initiative to establish the connections on the cyberspace, they do have
http://www.viyaparimoolai.org/mainpage.php . Plus a facebook group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81291907500#!/group.php?gid=81291907500&v=wall
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| The old thoola kinaru (well) in front of pillayar kovil |
Yours truly made a return to this village after 20 years. Yes 20 years! The circumstances never gave me a chance, my last visit was when I was 7 years old. Before that we used to go there every school holiday and spend time with our grand parents and relatives. All this time I could remember the place only in patches, I could remember the grand parents house in parts, the living room, the varendah, the small water tank ( as kids we referred that as the swimming pool), the mango tree, the wedding of my aunt, the wall over which Indian Army would peep to check the people at home, the house of my aunt and then of course the kannae kalai mannae song.
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| village children fishing in the sea with a polythene bag |
When I walked into the house this time, it just stuck to me that I can remember more than this, the house, which in all my memories was a place filled with joy, people and life, suddenly looked so quiet, worn out and uninhabited. The places looked as if it has shrinked in size, the walkway that took 20 steps of mine earlier now took about 5 steps. Then I realized that the time has rolled. I am no longer the child who visited the place 20 years back and cannot expect things to be as it was at that time.
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| an exit of an old house |
Later in the evening while taking stroll in the village it just clicked to me that this place should have once been a very prosperous village. Looking at the architecture of the houses I could not just stop thinking the fact that these houses were built atleast 40 years back and what sort of prosperity the place would have had at that time. Walking through it also the occurred to me the clear absence of a generation in the village. The scars the war has left on the livelihood of the people was so obvious.
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| view from the cremation place in village |
The best part is the fact that, even in the current state, the village has a sense of tranquility, being far away from the pollution, the noise and the life styles of industrialization. It gave me alot of fresh air allowed me to be in a zen state.
The attachment the people have on religion is very obviously apparent, while all the houses are in shambles they had made sure that the temples were all polished and maintained in top state.
Finally I liked the place, for that matter the whole of Jaffna, for one more reason, the bata slipper is considered decent enough even to be worn even to weddings and its perfectly natural to go around in vetti or sarong even without a shirt. :D
