6th Sri Lankan Light Infantry Camp at Mihintale Part One

At the end of January I decided to accompany Dan and Thilak on a short trip into the field. Our base of operations was a small Army base near the cities of Mihintale and Anuradhapura. Mihintale was a small city near the spot where the Buddha alighted after his flight to Sri Lanka. Anuradhapura was the ancient capital of Sri Lanka from 250 BCE to 1017 AD. The camp, which housed a detachment of the 6^th Sri Lankan Light Infantry, was .7 miles around according to my wrist GPS and housed 80 non-commissioned soldiers, one Captain, countless stray dogs, twenty rabbits in a pen, five deer in a pen, two guinea pigs, two roosters, and several chickens. This 6^th SLLI camp was positioned at a crucial fork in the road, one road continuing on all the way to Jaffna at the tip of Sri Lanka and the other road splitting off to the right, traveling to Trincomalee in the east. The camp was originally intended as a staging area for the wars in the north and east, but the LTTE has blocked the road to Jaffna, forcing the military to re-supply the north via airlift. This camp became instead a rest and recovery base for soldiers injured in battle. Everyone quartered on the base from the Captain down to the Privates had a leg or an arm nearly blown off. While at this camp, the soldiers were engaged in various activities ranging from the Captain’s pet eggplant-growing project, to building and repair work on the local Buddhist temple, to tending the animals. The animal collection had begun with a single tame deer captured from an LTTE camp and brought to Mihintale. She had arrived pregnant and had started a small herd.

Near this 6^th SLLI camp, at a temple in Anuradhapura town grows a Bodhi tree, described in the 6th century CE Mahvamsa, or "Great Chronicle" of Sri Lankan history, to be a sapling of the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. The Mahvamsa, the same source for the battle between Duttugemnu and Elara, explains that the sapling was brought to Sri Lanka by the Charavatri king Ashoka’s daughter, the nun Sanghamitta, in 288 BCE. The original Bodhi tree was subsequently destroyed in the 2^nd century BCE by King Puspyamitra during his persecution of Buddhism. The Anuradhapura Bodhi tree is the oldest continuously tended tree in the world with records dating back to it’s planting date. Once a year the Army holds a flag-blessing ceremony at the Bodhi tree in which flags from each of the regiments are blessed by the monks. As a part of Dan’s project he and Thilak have attended several flag blessing ceremonies. At one of their first Flag Blessing Ceremonies a friendly Colonel recommend the 6^th SLLI Mihintale base as a good area for research and introduced them to the Commanding Officer Captain, Cpt. Keerthiratna. Dan quickly realized that the camp near Mihintale was the ideal base for his research. All of the soldiers had combat experience, so Dan could ask them what it felt like to shoot at the enemy and if they considered this act a sin. The environment of the camp was relaxed and most of soldiers had plenty of time to talk, encouraged by the example set by their loquacious and forthright Captain Keerthi, who has always insisted that Dan use his real name in all of Dan’s research and documentation. Best of all, the 6^th SLLI at Mihintale had a resthouse on base for soldier’s families to come and visit where Dan and Thilak could stay.

At 8:30 on a Wednesday morning we set out in the red Lancer, Thilak behind the wheel, me shotgun, and Dan in the back with the computers and cameras for the camp. In the cool morning air the car didn’t smell as horrible as I had remembered. I even brought along a spare sheet to sit on. “We’re going to do a few bus halts on the way,” Dan explained before we left. When a soldier dies his family receives his full salary for as long as his contract would have lasted, 10 or 20 years. Many of the families are uncomfortable spending what they consider blood money. Some families use the money to fund local temple restoration, purchase a new bell for the temple with the soldier’s name on it, or construct concrete bus halts on the side of major highways with a picture of their son embedded into the wall. Most bus halts also feature the phrase “Shelter for you, Nirvana for our sons,” painted in Sinhala near the photograph. By sheltering travelers from the equatorial sun and monsoon rains, the families hope that merit will be transferred to their son and grant him favorable re-births.

After clearing the Kandy morning rush we started down the hills to the arid plains of the north country. When we arrived at the first bus halt, a concrete camouflage-painted run-in shed in the bend of the road, Thilak pulled the car over. He and Dan jumped out of the car to ask the owner of the roadside hut shop where the family lived. I exited to car more slowly and looked at the waist-up photo of the boy. He was only seventeen years old when he died. Dan and Thilak seemed to be engaged in some sort of extended conversation with the shop owner, so I took the opportunity to photograph the bus halt from several different angles before returning to the car. When Dan and Thilak returned, Dan told me that the family lived just down a small dirt road to our left.

Thilak pointed the Lancer down the rugged dirt road, gingerly maneuvering it through ruts and craters in the road. The road was only navigable because of the recent dry weather. We parked next to a house where the road became a path straight up a hill. Dan and Thilak asked the old woman who came out of the house about the bus halt family. Another woman appeared and told them that it was just a short way up the hill. After a steep, treacherous, 400 meter ascent we arrived at a concrete house with a tin roof. “It must be a bitch to haul your groceries up this,” I grumbled to Dan as the path leveled out. He chuckled, but on further reflection I realized they probably didn’t have too many groceries. Thilak introduced us and explained the nature of Dan’s research to the women who came out of the house. They asked us in and the three of us sat on a couch with a wooden frame and upholstered cushions covered in thick plastic. Four women in their twenties crowded into the small room, but only one seemed to answer Thilak and Dan’s questions. I was just beginning to wonder how the couch had been ferried up the hill when Dan and Thilak suddenly rose to leave. “They are getting ready to go and visit at Kandy hospital,” he explained. “We’ll stop in again on the way home.” As we made our decent I wondered how a sick person could possibly be transported up or down the hill.

“So, most of the families live close to the bus halts?” I asked once we were back in the car. “I guess that makes sense,” I added.

“Yes, they usually live on a side road close by. We just ask a shop owner where the family is and they point us in the right direction,” Dan explained as we set out down the main road. An hour later we pulled off next to another sandy-colored bus halt. The interior space was covered in graffiti. The picture of the soldier showed a young man with a gun wearing a grey T-shirt that read in English “Death by Bullet.” Dan and Thilak quickly got directions from the nearby hut shop owner. We then started down a dirt road that was a bit bumpy, but a virtual interstate compared to the previous side road. We had to ask at several houses before arriving at a house with a three-wheeler parked in a carefully swept dirt driveway. Two old women sat on a concrete slab running the length of the side of the house. Two young women came out to greet us. Thilak explained Dan and his research on the bus halts. When one of the old women heard that Dan was researching the bus halts she pointed to her chest and told me proudly the soldier was her son.

We assembled in the first room in the house in a series of wooden chairs. I saw next to the old woman along the short wall of the house, Dan and Thilak sat in chairs along the long side of the house. The two younger women remained standing. Watching Dan conduct his interview reminded me of the time my father took me to see Wagner’s the Flying Dutchman at the Metropolitan opera. My viewing of this performance came before Met Titles were installed on the backs of all of the seats, and also coincided with an era during which very sparse sets were in vogue. As I watched the action unfold in the Spartan little room I knew the basic libretto, but I couldn’t follow any of the words.

Dan and Thilak got only basic information from the family. After they left the house they filled out their question sheet on the roof of the Lancer while I went to look at the adjacent terraced rice paddies. When I stood still I could hear the green rice shafts rub together in the wind making a soothing “shhh…” noise. I wandered around taking some pictures of the paddy until Dan waved me back to the car. “They were pretty closed,” he told me once we were underway again. “These families have money and people know that. There’re lots of people who run memorial scams to get money out of these grieving families. So the families get paranoid. That’s why it helps to be white, it puts most of them at ease and they can see that we represent something different,” he explained.

After lunch we stopped at another camo-themed bus halt, but the locals told Dan and Thilak that the family lived far away. We then passed a few bus halts that Thilak had already researched before arriving at a well-maintained cream-orange bus halt with burgundy accents. The photo inside showed a full-length image of a young man in a military dress uniform holding his hat. Dan and Thilak asked the hut shop owner for the location of the family while I photographed the bus halt. We then proceeded down a well-maintained dirt road to a house at the end. Nobody emerged from the house to greet us and all the doors and windows were shut. Undaunted, Thilak started off into the adjacent rice paddy with Dan clutching the questionnaire in tow. I could see the white paper of the questionnaire through the heavy brush, flapping in the bright sun as they walked out of sight. “That’s true fieldwork,” I thought to myself as I got out of the car to stretch. I did a few standing half sun-salutations in the driveway followed by a few backbends. I was working my way into gentle twists when Dan and Thilak returned. “I got the guy out spraying his crops,” Dan reported. “He is the brother, but he said to come back on Saturday when his mother and sister would be home, that’ll be good, sisters usually give the best information,” he told me as we headed back to the main road.