The Sinhalese Visit Jaffna
Vesak display in Jaffna, by the Army
I’m wading up to my neck off Casuarina beach. Mainly trying to get away. Indirectly from Colombo, but directly from the 700 Sinhalums on this here beach. Last time I was the only one here. Now there are so many people that they emit a loud murmur, punctuated by hoots and screams. In the evening this Jaffna beach actually kinda sucks, the water is grey and we hobble in and out, stabbing our feet on rocks on coral. The driver is laughing at us, I think. We’re laughing at ourselves. How silly to be invaded by the Sinhalese.
That’s a joke. We laughed because it’s a joke. It’s no invasion of course, but Jaffna is still occupied by hordes of Sinhalums mobbing the beaches and doing their strange light displays around town. Like Mahinda says, it’s good for people to go up and down, but in all fairness, we are hilarious.
Despite being island people, I know a lot of Sinhalese who can’t swim. Or don’t swim. Hence they go to Casuarina, which has no rips at all, basically wind waves. There’s a family wearing life jackets in 12 inches of water. We can’t even swim.
The people, especially during Vesak, are ruining Jaffna a little bit. There’s traffic in certain places, which is baffling. The beach was full and noisy. The night buses are full, you can’t stretch out and I didn’t sleep at all. All the cafes and stuff seem full of Sinhalese families and chatter.
The locals, however, are cool as ever. No one has so far asked us for any money or even tried to negotiate. The trishaw drivers say ‘give what you will’, as did the guesthouse guy.
We got lost wandering around Nallur till someone finally picked us up and took us to a kottu kade. I’ve never been so happy to see a Muslim in my life. Our driver was studying for his M.A. at Jaffna University. More qualified than us actually. I asked him how much and he just said welcome to the Jaffna Penninsula and grinned. I slipped him a Mahinda and he gave me change. Maybe that’s a metaphor.
Today on the 
Janith has updated 
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Sri Lankan domestics never say anything, they just stop coming. My maid just stopped coming and when I finally pressed her she said I needed to get a washing machine. I was hoping to ride this one out, but I’ve run out of underwear and I have no choice. I finally caved and bought a washing machine, from 
Well the south has been ‘invaded’ by Tamils for ages so it’s about time the north got a bit of the same ‘medicine’ :)
1. It depends on your definition of Invaded.
2. The native population more than 2500 years ago were likely Tamils, or more appropriately Dravidian.
3. Vijaya and his friends did the mixing thing, out of which the sinhalese ethnicity was born
4. Hence, that would mean Vijaya and his clansman were the first invaders
The modern Tamils in this country are leftovers from south Indian invaders. They were never this country’s original inhabitants. The original inhabitants were the veddas, who weren’t Dravidian in any sense. I doubt there is any substantial genetic difference between the Tamil and Sinhalese people, but there is little to no signs of a significant dravidian cultural influence in this country for example you cannot find dravidian script in archaeological sights in this country until around the time south indian invasions started. What ever culture that lived here and settled here eventually merged into what is now the sinhala race, the modern tamils came here along time after that.
But all of this amounts to nothing, absolutely nothing. There are several cultures living in country all of them should be free to live where ever they wanted without the others historical jingoist bullshit down each others throats. Because we don’t live in the past we live in present and at present all of us have equal claim to this country.
Dodo: I believe they’ve found fragments of pottery in Jaffna from about the late 2nd century BC which have inscriptions in the Tamil Brahmi script, and some coins in the South from about the same period. That doesn’t necessarily indicate the presence of permanent settlements, obviously, but I’m really just making the point that the script has been found (and it’d be surprising if it hadn’t given that there clearly would have been trade).
More fundamentally, for all the hoo-hah that’s been made about Aryan and Dravidian, it’s not at all clear what one means by a ‘Dravidian’ culture anyway. All of peninsular India and Sri Lanka have more or less the same material culture from the megalithic period onwards up unto early historic times. Even in India, there’s very little to archaeologically distinguish a ‘Tamil’ or ‘Dravidian’ site within this cultural region from a non-Dravidian site until the early historical period. People then simply don’t seem to have defined themselves by the language they happened to speak. Which just goes to support your very sensible point that all this whole “We were here first!” debate is absolutely pointless.
Look at Dehiwala and Wallawatte and Bambalapitiya…they have been ‘invaded’ by Tamils, along with their saivar kades, hindui kovils towering into the sky, hindu religious processions and hanging from hooks, rolling on the ground, the smell of gingelly oil, signboards in chicken scribble Tamil script, tamil schools, cultural centres and so on and so forth… Tamils have been doing all this in freedom for the past 20+ years during the war…. so they better get used to having Sinhalese in Jaffna :)
A citizen of a country should be able to travel, anywhere he / she wishes, that is called freedom of movement I guess. Anyway if you are worried about the traffic jams in Jaffna, give a bit of time till the Wanni gets productive! Colombo roads will be filled with trucks full of produce and you will not be able to get to the job, you do not have yet! I am glad people from Jaffna taking in the stride! Glad you went there and wrote about it.
@myil selvan… And you source is? … The Vijaya story is a myth. As far as I know, there’s no hard archaelogical evidence back it up (what’s written in Mahavamsa is not evidence)… I’m not an expert on this but I know most recent archaelogical discoveries indicate that Sinhalese people lived here for over 3000 years (reffering to Shiran Deraniyagala’s researches).
The Sinhalese people are native to Sri Lanka. They never came from India as a people. They came into existence as a people in the island.
Oh for f…k’s sake, shut up all of you. All you read out of this was that?
Get over it and grow up. For 30 years you were served a discourse to keep you busy and hungry. You bought it then. It’s irrelevant now.
Some of the nicest people I have met, were the one’s I’ve met in the east and north. That’s because they would rather be happy than right. Unlike you.
Happy Vesak!
In my limited travel to the east this year, I have to agree with this poster. Those people I met there were very nice. The place was buzzing with touristy type businesses, which was a very good sign of prosper. I wish the best for the economies of the east and north, and as a coherent whole, the entire nation as well.
I hope we get to the point where we’d be stronger as a country and more united as people, to tackle corruption, just hope it won’t take 30 years for that though.
Oh it’s just so cool to run into Muslims in Jaffna, Casurina beach, India. It’s amazing how obsessed you. How “cool” the locals are. Too scared to even charge their new conquerers any money for coming there and fucking around. Wesaking here and there, raping the odd 9 year old school girl, throwing the odd fisherman down a well, murdering the odd suspected LTTE cadre …
…. OOOOOOO … Indi – my GOD … you forgot to say LTTE!
Ah – not to worry, there, I’ve said it for you.
While your at it, why not pop into my house and help yourself too. Make yourself at home.
After all, all those Tamils in Welawatte must surely be pleased with the way you guys are celebrating the spoils of war.
There’s nothing Tamils can do… consider it the price they have to pay for supporting the LTTE.
Zion, you iguana. They have paid a price, 28 years of war. What they need is our support.
Really? I saw them providing fighters to the LTTE, hiding them, justifying their bomb attacks and ethnic cleansing and attending Pongu Tamil festivals with gusto.
Yes.
That thing about asking people to pay whatever they felt like, that’s something I never faced in the East. The charges were expensive, compared to Colombo, which we happily paid.
The people in the North should do the same, specially from the likes of Indi who’s got enough dough.
It’s the same in the north as well. Stuff is pretty expensive, and understandably so. I remember eating at a sivar kade and being charged 500 bucks.
I drank a cup of very dilute horlicks for 80 bucks (only inquired the price after I drank it :). When questioned, the guy claimed he put 2 sachets of horlicks into making it…….). Also paid 200 bucks for the car to the municipal council when entering casuarina beach….That was 2 months ago
@Zion… I’d really admire your unashamed racism if you say those kind of things in public too. Of course I’d crush your balls. But still.
Thanks lefroy, now run back under your mother’s skirt and do what you do best.
Well, for Wesak i was at the other end of the island. in Hambanthota, Kataragama, Yala, Udawalawe.
The Kirinda beach was just as mental as you say the Casurina beach was. we couldn’t get near enuf to step into the waves without jostling ppl out of the way. There were hordes of people here too, messing up the countryside. It’s not a Tamil land being invaded thing. It’s just people are travellin all over the country. Like the recent crazy events in Somawathie with entire freakng villages scaring the wildlife and stampeding.
It’s just paranoia when it comes to Jaffna tourism that you people harp about. Get a clue. It’s the same all over the country. People are travelling like never before. Couldn’t freaking get a bungalow within 10 kms of yala since middle of March. There were no animals to be spotted in Udawalawe by saturday, because the enormous numbers of vehicles in the previous days had scared them off. Stop this bloody nonsense of invasion talk.
The damn plebs and their beach going fantasies. xD
@Zion… Sorry if I hurt your feelings. But hey, you can always count on me to save you on your honeymoon.
Thanks ok Lefroy, I’ll call you when my toilet needs cleaning.
@zion… So you pee, instead of ejaculating. Didn’t see that coming.
You didn’t? now open your mouth.
@zion… So you are gay too. A gay bigot.
Not that it is bad. Just noticing.