One day we’ll all look in the mirror and ask ourselves – was it worth it? Was the work you put in all your life to get to where you are worth the struggle? Was the feature presentation worth the inflated price of admission? Can the sacrifices you made truly be justified?
Life is a long road full of twists and turns. And for many of you – myself included – this road has only just begun. So let’s start with a single year and pose a single question: are two weeks of vacation a year worth what you go through for the remaining 50 weeks?
Produce, produce, produce. All my life I’ve been told I need to produce. I needed to produce good grades in high school so I could get into a good university. I needed to produce a good GPA in university so I could get a good job. Then I needed to continue producing good work at my job so I could get an even better job.
When does it end? It’s instilled in our minds that we need to live life on the fast lane and to move forward through life producing at a rapid rate, much like a well-oiled machine. Depressing isn’t it? Oh but don’t worry, you’ll still get your two weeks of vacation each year.
This year I went to Sri Lanka. It’s safe to say that it impacted my life in a monumental way. I was born in Sri Lanka but my family immigrated to Canada when I was the ripe young age of three. Exactly 20 years later, we went back and I soaked up every little thing my motherland had to offer in those two weeks.
It’s incredibly unfortunate that a country so beautiful was torn apart due to war. It absolutely breaks my heart, especially after witnessing the gorgeous mountains and crystal clear blue beaches. One word to describe it? Paradise. As a naive kid who grew up in a First World country for most of my life, I was in awe of what Sri Lanka had to offer.
What captivated me most was the lifestyle in the villages. I suppose we consider ourselves lucky to grow up witnessing the modern age of technology. I suppose we consider ourselves lucky to live in nice houses and drive nice cars.
Yet after experiencing life in the villages, I don’t feel lucky at all. In fact, I feel deprived. I feel deprived that I didn’t get the opportunity to grow up in my own country and experience my birthright. I feel deprived that I didn’t get the opportunity to live in a close-knit community where neighbors treated each other like family. We got robbed of that blissful life and we put tremendous pressure on ourselves to succeed here.
We rationalize it by telling ourselves that we’re better off living this lifestyle. But really we’re not. We spend all our lives trying to fast-track through life just so we can go and vacation on a beach somewhere across the world for two weeks a year. We go to Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and to various beaches across the world to escape from reality for a brief period of time.
Yet we could have spent every week of the year relaxing on a beach whenever we wanted to if we were in Sri Lanka. Sure, we might not all have smartphones and high speed internet. But at least we would have had genuine human interaction. We might not have had a lot of things we have right now. But rest assured that those things would have been replaced with something better.
The fact of the matter is we spend the majority of our lives killing ourselves both mentally and physically chasing success. We assume that happiness and success are directly related, as if one cannot exist without the other. My dad spent the last 20 years of his life working hard day in and day out chasing success. Yet I had never seen him happier than when we went “back home”. It’s as though he had spent 20 years here just to go back to where he belonged. Quite the poetic tragedy isn’t it? Yet this is the reality for many who have emigrated overseas.
My point is that being successful doesn’t necessarily entail happiness. Unless your personal successes correlate directly to your happiness – then perhaps it does. But then you have to ask yourself whether your idea of success is in fact your idea. Are the destinations you’re trying to reach of your own choosing? Or is it a manufactured afterthought that has been instilled in your mind?
Look in the mirror today and ask yourself what happiness means to you. And if you’re willing to produce all your life… for two weeks of it each year.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, it very inspiring.
@Opinion_Puli if you want to find tamil people who cannot utter a tamil word nor could not identify with tamil culture except by name, you do not need to step out of colombo. i can give you a popular example. none other than lakshman kadirgamar. i dont know what it has to do with this eezham.
@lolo000000001 @Opinion_Puli Kadirgamar dint shout out eelam and send funds to arm child soldiers. He wanted a single nation and your roar roar groups killed him. If you stand by an identity, you gotta live by it, not clown around. I was referring to the comments below. All these kids who roar about eelam need to value their identity and know something about history, not just anti-lanka stance. Won't last long.
here is a guy (a second generation diasporic tamil) who is trying to find his identity between two worlds - one where he is chasing the american dream (nice house, car, and success aka capital) and a 'paradise' with a simpler lifestyle by the beach where he can actually feel belonged with his people. it is more like a soul searching writing - for this 'paradise' sans the gadget lifestyle chasing success (the capital) - while trying to find his identity (belonging). there is little else to it.
All of you clowns making a big fuss of the genocide. One question.How many of you can speak Tamil, follow tamil values or even marry tamils? Your dumb idea of just be "proud to be tamil" is ridiculous. Why should someone be proud of something they never did?( You dint fight the war, some poor brainwashed 17 year old kid did) Seriously leave your "English" Eelam dream.
Funny that srilankan muslims who can speak tamil, value their ancestry and have way many things similar to being Tamil than you white-washed dimwits. I don't see them asking for Tamil eelam. This website is the perfect example to show the irrelevance of Eelam. Interracial marriage, shit loads of single people, tamil kids who cant utter tamil and try desperately to fit in with tamil society.. Give it one generation for all to be gone. A lost cause and a stupid argument wasting internet space.
surely any place where you can be away from all your worries could be a paradise. for a person having to eke out a living in sri lanka, it may not be a paradise. ever had a chance to interact with ordinary people there, especially those living under tin shelters?
I share your feelings and thoughts about Sri Lanka, Anoojan. Having left Sri Lanka as a 19 year-old in 1974, I had stopped going back after 1979. My first trip back after 1979 was in 2000, a gap of just over 20 years. Like your dad, I was overwhelmed with emotion and nostalgia.
Things had changed so much. My friends had grown older and changed personality – just as I had – but somehow, I expected them to have stayed the same. Some things just could not be re-started from where we’d left off, but overall, we were still the same people underneath.
The landscape had also changed. The traffic and architecture was chaotic. Some environmental damage was tragic – prawn farms and the encroachment of settlements into wildlife sanctuaries being some examples of these. But the mountains, jungles and beaches were timeless.
Unlike you, however, I had the privilege of spending some of my formative years in the company of Sinhala, Tamil (Jaffna Tamil as well as Indian Tamil), Moslem and Burgher friends in Sri Lanka. So I AM able to distinguish between Sri Lankan people as a whole and an evil government. The war caused suffering amongst us all and blame for atrocities cannot be laid at the feet of any single group.
@GerardThurau It's hard to say that nowadays, there's a lot of bigotry and hatred radiating out of everyday people and it may seem like there are no moderates anymore because of all the censorship of criticism and activism. Only the hatred and racism is heard and the nationalism as well. Though I'm aware that the people who are transparent in mind are only a small number in the entire country.
Well written story Anoojan. I never met you but came across this article via a FB share. When you can capture the hearts and minds of a person you never met before, that's when you know you have a gift. My advise to you is to keep writing until you become a prolific writer someday... read these books when you get a chance: Mastery, by Robert Green and Outliers by Gladwell.
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same country killed my people, you standing on Tamils blood, not on paradise
@sathapalanmost ridiculous post i have read. People like u doesnt know anything about what is going on in Sri Lanka but believe in stupid propaganda.
@leal
@sathapalan
Here is an essay by a young man who’s visited the land of his ancestors. It was a journey of discovery which clearly had a great impact on him. He judges no one but simply expresses his opinion about the people and landscape of Sri Lanka.
This blog is really not the place for engaging in debates about war crimes or threats to kill (@Sinhalaprince). There are sites that are stalked by Trolls with Neanderthal intellects. Please post such arguments there.
@GerardThurau @leal @sathapalan
Verbalizing perpetual guilt does not serve those who suffered before us nor those who live under tin roofs (brick houses showed up only in the last 2 centuries, btw, also, if it really bothers you as it does myself, watch the ted talk about wikihouses and helpout). This act of community criticism has become more a symbolic ritual that is somehow is mistaken for virtuous acts of good deeds. I'm willing to bet that people who are actually on the ground helping those in need won't be found in the sewers of the internet (comment sections) casting judgement on other angles of free expression. The notion that the free speech of this writer is sacrileges is one thing, but with the same breath, to go beyond that and to assume the notion that your free speech about the suffering and suffered is as virtuous as actually doing something about it is even more unbelievable. And it is not Neanderthal intellects, it is emotions rooted from hurt (in many cases justified) but the end result is misguided actionss. Empathy should be exercised even when it is most difficult. We can all strive for better ... even in the sewers of the internet.
@leal Propaganda? I am going to assume you mean that none of the atrocities affecting Tamils happened because according to you it was all "propaganda." I think its safe to consider that there are credible allegations of war crimes and genocide at the hands of the government and a lesser extent, the militant group leaders instead of just blatantly saying what sathapalan said was just propaganda. Are not the land grabbing, the future (rigged) elections, the demographic changes and the censorship of the north and east real? Are not the tortures, rapes, and killings real? If the whitewashing of all that by the government and its controlled media is not the real propaganda for you, then I am grieved to say you are greatly mistaken. I'm not sure if Anoojan saw the numerous army officers patrolling in great numbers in his parents' home area or the destitution of the people and the prices of the food there, which most of the locals can't even afford to buy because its not for them if you know what I mean. If you did not know as well, Muslims and Christians in Sri Lanka are being prejudiced against by many government supported nationalistic groups. To tell you, I am saying this from experience just like the author. To actually know people who have had this happen to them and have the some say "propaganda" is grievous to the Tamil people suffering over in Sri Lanka, who cannot lift themselves from what is happening to them.
@sathapalan I couldn't agree more, I know that many Tamils are immigrants from Sri Lanka and that they used to have lives there, but Tamils like them are ignoring reality or completely stupid. They continue to travel to and provide for the economy of that country. Buying clothing, food and such on a daily basis even from Canada and other countries. Do these people not realise by doing so they are supporting the rajapakse regime and their activities towards the Tamils living in destitution over there and making their suffering fourfold? Their money is used to buy the supplies to change the landscape, to destroy cultural institutions and change the demographics. They are helping the very people that killed those 40 000 people or so; people just like them. Their plane tickets were enough to pay for at least half of those activities. This article is not appropriate at all to convey this type of message and I'm so disappointed in Anoojan for supporting this trip for all its "beauty". Beauty? I see none. No mountains or beaches are going take away from the ugliness of what has happened there and still continues to. Nothing is going to make me ignorant like him and all those other Tamils to be swept away by scenery and just travel there like everything's okay. This makes me sick.
@sathapalan He is Tamil. I think he knows what happened there. But it doesn't stop being our home. It doesn't stop being paradise. That's why Tamils keep going back to visit and why so many Tamils still live there.
This is a really nice story! I'm glad you got to uncover more about the place that is very close to your heart. I agree! Having been there I also think Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with many scenic places and full of culture, along with kind people who are not afraid to greet you or be friendy!
Radha
@RadhaJey sure it is a beautiful paradise if you dont live there
This is a really nice story! I'm glad you got to uncover more about the place that is very close to your heart. I agree! Having been there I also think Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with many scenic places and full of culture, along with kind people who are not afraid to greet you or be friendy!Radha