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COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, August 11, 2003: The Balarajah family from London had an unusual summer holiday this year — three days in a former war zone in northern Sri Lanka. “After so many years we are going back and it’s going to be a surprise for us. I hope it’s not going to be a shock,” says 53-year-old Athithapillai Balarajah, a Tesco supermarket store manager born and raised in Jaffna. He is among the one million Tamils who fled Sri Lanka’s civil war two decades ago — some of whom are now returning home for the first time to rediscover their past. With all their relatives having fled Sri Lanka, the Balarajahs do not know what to expect in Jaffna. Mr. Balarajah is lucky — his house is still standing, though covered in bullet marks. He is greeted by total strangers living there who are victims of the civil war with nowhere else to go. They welcome the visitors from London and soon there are tears as a neighbor recognizes Mr. Balarajah and his sister. Mr. Balarajah’s wife, Vijayakumari, is not so lucky. The house where she grew up is a wreck — the garden she remembered looking after as a child now unrecognizable. As their parents struggle with their emotions, 15-year-old Sharmili and her 12-year-old brother Shankar — both born in Britain — struggle to relate to Jaffna. Sharmili says now she appreciates the luxuries of her lifestyle in England and Shankar is just looking forward to the part of the holiday when they leave Sri Lanka and go to Thailand. Civil war has driven the generations apart, and young British Tamils find it hard to see the attraction of a place like Jaffna, says this article.

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