Priya gave Smrithi a warning look, but her daughter continued. ‘The suicide bomb at Colombo’s Central Bank killed almost a hundred people. Over a thousand more were injured. I know the Sri Lankan Army targets Tamil civilians. But to hit back like that—do you think that’s right?’

‘No, mahal, I don’t. But they are sending a message—if nothing is safe and sacred for the Tamils, then nothing is safe and sacred for the Sinhalese.’

‘But mami, it didn’t achieve anything. Now the international community has condemned the Tigers as terrorists.’

‘The international community always judges the actions of the Tigers but never the actions of the Sri Lankan Army. A schoolgirl was abducted by the army recently, Smrithi. Her name was Krishanthy – and when they found her body it led them to another mass grave. Where is the UN investigation into that and all the other graves in the north?’ she asked. The army controlled Jaffna once again, and people were disappearing, once again. She was angry but hadn’t meant to let her daughter see that.

‘The BBC said that a lot of children died in the bank bombing,’ Smrithi said, chastened but not defeated.

‘The dead children were only reported because they were lying next to the dead foreign tourists. Children die in our part of the world and go unnoticed all the time.’ Dhara regretted her words as soon she said them. ‘I’m sorry, mahal. I’m just tired: tired of it all,’ she said, looking at the girl’s troubled face.

‘You don’t know what it’s like, mahal, to lose your home—to have it taken away from you; to be treated as though you are nothing; to be hunted and killed as though you are nothing. After a while you either believe it or you fight it.’

‘Yes, but surely how you fight says something about who you are. If you fight like this, are you better than nothing?’ Smrithi replied. She was only giving voice to a conversation each of them was having inside themselves—Dhara far more than others.

‘Neither of us has fought for our lives or the lives of the people we love. I don’t have the courage and, God willing, you will never have the need. It’s hard to judge; I wouldn’t presume to judge.’

‘But we do judge, mami. We judge all the time,’ Smrithi countered. ‘We judge the army, we judge the Palestinians, the Hutus, and the Serbians. We judge them all, and it’s only right that we do. Judgement is part of what makes us a civilised species.’

‘Perhaps that’s the problem, mahal. We’re not really a civilised species, are we?’ Dhara replied, heavily.

‘You know, mami,’ Smrithi said, looking at the magazine cover again, ‘Ravana was a good man as well as an evil king. He was a great devotee of Lord Shiva wasn’t he?’