Set in Sri Lanka, The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers (Tara Books) is ‘a darkly satiric account of childhood in times of war’. The book, illustrated by Matthew Frame, is being launched in Colombo tomorrow. Edited excerpts from an email interview with author Mike Masilamani follow:
Please tell us how The Boy Who Speaks in Numbers came about. The Boy started life as a short story for a children’s magazine, but I had grown too fond of him to let it go at that, so I turned it into a longer yarn, mainly to read to my children, Kethaki and Mandeep. The story kept evolving and somewhere along the way, stopped being strictly a children’s story, and more a bildungsroman, as the boy dealt with various challenges to his innocence and faith in human nature. In a time and era when war was being glorified, I was attracted to his innocence and naiveté in the face of increasing militarisation and strident war mongering. As he says, “The numbers never add up in a war. It doesn’t matter which side is counting.”
Tell us about your childhood and your college days in Chennai and Colombo. I attended St. Thomas Prep School in Colombo and Loyola College, Chennai. At the latter, I passed through, not passed out. Till then, I had been a reasonably obedient boy, but college had too many other attractions to offer. One extra-curricular activity I can mention in polite company is the Loyola Amateur Dramatics Society (LADS). I remember getting laughed off stage at CMC Vellore, when we decided to extend our oeuvre to playing music, instead of sticking to acting.
I was thrown out of the hostel in my first year but the highlight of my time at Loyola was failing all my subjects in my fifth semester. Good times.
Is the boy in your book based on a real person? No, but I do know someone who digs his nose when he is thinking. He is highly respected in Colombo society, so there’s hope for The Boy .
How did the civil strife in Sri Lanka influence you and the way you wrote?
I grew up in Colombo, and count Sinhalese and Muslims among my close friends.
In 1978, I had to find a new set of tutors for my O Levels, as a result of the riots in Colombo after my existing tutors fled to Jaffna. Then, my home got burnt in the ’83 riots. However, I was in Mumbai, training at an ad agency at the time. I think it fair to say, I was essentially apolitical.
My I.D, which says I was born in Colombo, provided immunity along with my ability to speak decent Sinhalese.
As a result, I was welcomed as a ‘brother’ by the army at checkpoints when I went to Jaffna during the height of the war — despite my Tamil name. At odds with this was my wife’s experience — whose I.D says she is born Jaffna — of being harassed at the same checkpoint in Colombo.
Strangely, it is now that the war is over, that I find it difficult to remain apolitical. There is an urgent need to provide closure for all who lost loved ones and suffered in the war. Land seized by the military has to be returned and missing persons have to be accounted for; the Presidential Missing Persons Commission has over 19,000 complaints. Another key aspect of the process of reconciliation is repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Those detained under this need to be charged or released. The process of reconciliation extends to Indian shores. The Tamil Nadu government estimates there are 1, 02,055 Sri Lankan refuges in Tamil Nadu currently. Some of them are still classified as terrorist and are in special camps. For those interested in the welfare of Sri Lankan Tamils — this is a good place to start.
