Dear Bala Annai,

This is the text of what LTTE chief Pirapaharan wrote on Anton's death. More than anyone else, he is the right to person to mourn the death of the ideologue of Eelam, still a distant dream.

----

Head Quarters
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Tamil Eelam

A source of unwavering strength in the political and diplomatic efforts of our freedom movement, and the light of our nation is extinguished. Bala Annai, from whom I sought advice and solace, is no more with us. It is an irreplaceable loss for our entire nation and for me.

Bala Annai’s life has been much too short. His death comes at a time when we needed him most, as our freedom struggle intensifies. I cannot find words to express my grief and loss.

From the beginning of our struggle, when we first met, there was a deep mutual understanding. The fondness that rose from that understanding developed into a rare friendship. We thought and acted in unison. Our friendship grew in strength through our shared day-to-day experiences. This friendship stands apart from ordinary human relationships. It matured with time and was shaped by our shared history.

I was deeply fond of Bala Annai. In the great family that is our movement he was its eldest son and its guiding star for three decades. That is how I looked up to him. During the time we lived together as one family, I came to realize that he was no ordinary human being. He was strong and unshakable even during the illness that threatened to take his life and the severe pain that illness brought him. The strength of his soul was inspirational. I grieve for him.

Bala Annai has a permanent historic place in the growth and the spread of our movement. He was its elder member, its ideologue, its philosopher and, above all, my best friend who gave me encouragement and energy. He shared my sorrows, my anxieties and my travails. He was with me from the very beginning of our movement, sharing its challenges and hardships. He was the central figure in all our diplomatic efforts.

Saluting the immeasurable service he rendered our nation in the political and diplomatic arenas and the efforts by which he put our national freedom movement on the world stage, allowing our nation to stand with dignity, I am proud to bestow the title of ‘Voice of the Nation’ on Bala Annai.

Bala Annai has not left us. He will live permanently in our thoughts.

The yearning of the Tigers is Tamileelam!

V. Pirapaharan
Leader
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

The Future President?

The Hindu has carried the story of Obama today. On Hampshire and the next US president. The million dollar question is will the US have its first woman president in Hillary Clinton or the first black president in Barrack Obama?

It was an interesting article. The leader of the new generation. He is 45 and 14 years younger than Hillary. I went through couple of his speeches. I personally feel this guy is a future President. May be after Hillary. Already in the United States, the media is crazy about him. Apart from writing endless columns, the investigative journalists are also scrutinising his life till now to lay him bare. (Will politicians ever be stripped of their personal secret lives in India?)

Obama started as a community leader and was the first African American to be the president of Harvard Law School. Will he be the first African American president?

Some day a Black has to become the President, right. Like a Dalit becoming President here. In that Indian democracy is far superior. America gave oscars to a whole lot of blacks only after 9/11. Hope sense prevails in that nation and this fellow gets presidentship without the need for another 9/11 or worse.

To know and read more of him http://obama.senate.gov/speech/

let me

I am passing this way,
Let me do what I can,
To my fellow beings,

I shall not delay,
I shall not pass this way,
Again.

pinochet's children

Yesterday, that dictator Pinochet died of a heart attack after ruling Chile for more than a decade, suppressing his own people.

I first heard the name Pinochet in a short film festival in a college about two years ago.

When General Pinochet seized power in Chile on September 11, 1973, Alejandro Goic was sixteen, Enrique Paris, twelve, and Carolina Tohá, eight years old.

During the coup Alejandro and Carolina lost their fathers, and all three lost their innocence and their youth. And eventually all went on to become powerful student leaders in the tumultuous eighties.

With thoughtful, emotional interviews and rich archival footage, the film was a remarkable film that beautifully portrayed three people's course of life against the background of the socio-political developments in their homeland.

Directed by Paula Rodriguez, in Germany, the 83 m documentary is one of the best I have seen. For those Che-fixed youth of today, wearing the revolutionary in t-shirts or flashing his face in the mobile, Alejandro can make an interesting study. The Che look-alike left politics to be a theatre personality and even through the film he was able to evoke revolutionary emotions, rare to find in these parts.

Enrique, after being a businessman for years, returned to active politics after two decades. And a succesful one at the time the film was being filmed. Carolina might one day even become the president of chile. For the film clearly revealed her intelligence, courage and skills in real politik.

Is not a film to be screened in our institutions of higher learning. Is not among the students, the seeds of change are sown? If politics here is so dirty, how are we going to clean it up? Is it not that only students can change destiny?

The film is a mixture of rare archival footage, thoughtful dialogues, up-close and personal views on politics of once upon student revolutionaries in search of freedom, and the ones who want to change Chile for a better tomorrow.

Here is a film to watch and think.

Don't miss it.

The return of the train

I was back on the tube
Homeway bound, happily;

Four years have passed by,
Stting by that rusty window;

They ’re the same passengers,
I grew up familiarizing with;

These are the interiors,
Fertiled by flowing rivers;

Most of them are dry today,
After the deluge of monsoons;

The fields though are green,
A long stretch of dancing carpet;

As always,

That feeling of lightness came,
The mind was a floating feather;

The train was bluish white,
And the sky a bluish black;

A couple were returning home,
And a lean, dusky girl travels alone.

As always,

I remember those days,
When I used to go home;

To see a young girl,
Bonded to me in love;

This was the noon train,
That took me home by night;

To be with her,
To hug and kiss;

To be in love,
To give myself;

Those were the early days,
When eternity visited often.

As always,

The same train came to a halt,
At one of those discreet stations;

The blind-beggars rhyme,
A group of bad boys sing along,

The tube has always been musical,
The terrain outside forever mystical.

As always,

It chugs past a cement factory,
Where people eke out for a living;

Littered ‘th lights in silhouette,
It moves past the right window;

The fields of fantasy fling past,
Flying comes a little winged bee;

Resting on my thigh for a while,
Before flying itself out of the tube;

Knowing not where to go next,
I watched it disappear into dark;


`life’s like that,
a flying journey’

`fleetingly fragile,
and full of fantasy’

`a dive into darkness,
dwelling on dreams’.


As always,

The tube tricks me to think,
Like the tracks that never meet;

Of the lives of those poor,
Living in hut-filled hamlets,

So deary to live with, yet
Unnoticed and uncared for.

Always,

Will I take the noon train,
To travel toward my home town.