A Californian Tamil medico wants to become President of the United States!

If so, I am God says Catapult Thangavelu from Kappang Highway

(February 12, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka Guardian) My good friend Sree and I used to kill squirrels in Karaveddy with catapults when we were students at Point Pedro's Hartley College; that was in the sixties. I got nicknamed "Catapult" for that while Sree was known as "Masala Vadai" for which Point Pedro was well known. His brother Srikantha became "Ulunthu Vadai" because of his brother's nickname. Masala Vadai, I mean Sreetharan, always wanted to be a medical doctor and he had set his sights on California where the Tiger-supporting millionaires and trillionaire Tamil medics thrive like caterpillars on the murunga tree.

These were the chaps who generously poured funds on the Tigers believing they will deliver Eelam on a platter to them, the elite Tamils who once upon a time were Colombo's exclusive bright lights and many had deserted Jaffna. Some even anglicized their names. Tarzie Vittachi called them the Brown Sahibs along with their fellow Sinhalese urbanites; their arrogance knew no bounds and to them the culture of the east was rough and uncivilized. They spoke English even to their Sinhala drivers and servants and Indian Tamil coolies who tended their gardens.

Sree could not make it to medical college and once in the US, took to software consulting. Since he failed the medical entrance his dowry potential was halved and when he failed to choose engineering it plunged heavily and eventually, something to do with computers was a saving grace that got him a bit of dough only, the money a virgin pays to become a slave of a master.

Encouraged by the rolling backwards and forwards wealth of the Sri Lankan medical fraternity, Masala Vadai started the Tamilnet.com propaganda machinery as the voice of the Tigers under cover of serving Tamil aspirations for Eelam. Sometimes he did publish the truth, he really did when it was favourable but often not the truthful stuff to feed the vulnerable Tamil Diaspora everywhere. Like a goat feeding on kuruvichchai, a mango tree parasite, many Tamils fell for it.

He massaged and mesmerized the Diaspora community that there was something terrible happening to the kith and kin in Sri Lanka whose interests never bothered the medico millionaires of California, Maryland and other US states where these chaps flourished. But showing interest in kith and kin from distant lands gave a chance to these Lilliputians to meet influential American politicos like congresspersons and senators. They were buying influence for themselves with posturing and pretensions as caring for their people in Sri Lanka.

American politicos do not respond to invitations summa; they have to be paid and these can amount to tidy sums even large enough to invest in industries in Sri Lanka. These social Upperingtons from Urumpirai, Urelu, Usan, Uduvil, Uduppiddy and several other places that enjoyed good educational opportunities, love to see the cars of famous people parked in the driveways of their palatial homes so that their neighbours can be envious of them. This is the name of the game among these people to whom Tamilnet.com is a bonanza.

Senator Teddy Kennedy visited a Tamil home in Massachusetts some years ago; of course for a fee. Even now no visitor to that home is spared of lengthy recounts of the visit and a voluminous album of photographs as an additional torture to be borne by the hapless guest. This has already become an heirloom to be passed down to generations of that family.

Even though Masala Vadai alias Sreetharan does not play the trumpet and for that matter any musical instrument, he was blowing false notes on a trumpet of sort and created a make belief fortress for Prabhakaran and his terror gang. Karaveddy and Valvettiturai are neighbouring townships on Sri Lanka's northern coast but Masala Vadai and the Son of Veluppillai are no relatives. They could not have been because they came from different castes, the navy and the air force.

This is Jaffna's polite way of describing the one who went to the sea to catch fish and the other who climbed the palm to pluck coconuts. Karaveddy has two distinct community modules, one of them the "Nalla Sanam" meaning good people in the sense, high caste. As for the other, what it is goes without saying which has been the blight of the Tamils for centuries. Masala Vadai's people had stopped plucking coconuts a few generations back and that was when the Methodist missionaries arrived in Point Pedro. If not for that his father would have been Muththan and not Muthuthamby. Son of Velupillai's people did not catch fish though they went to the sea; they were in the contraband business between Myliddy and Thangachi Madam near Rameshwaram in southern Tamilnadu. Vilunthamavadi was another smuggler centre on the southern Indian coast where the Tigers had terror training.

Registrars of Birth and Marriages ensured the "Not-Nalla Sanam" had no long names for that is only for the Nalla Sanam. So Murugesu became Murugan, Nagalingam became Nagan, Asaipillai became Asaiyan and Ponniah became Ponnan against the wishes of parents who preferred longer and respectable names for their new-born kids.

Unlike Karaveddy, in Valvettiturai only one community lived there and no one outside was tolerated. It was a smugglers enclave with neighbours linked to each other visiting through tunnels and passages, and fortress-like walls around South Indian-type houses. Well constructed underground dens held stocks of contraband goods from gold to Kancheepuram silk sarees; even opium and such other material.

An outsider straying in will be spotted immediately and shadowed and no one will help with inquiries for a house and its whereabouts. This is the Kingdom of Prabhakaran where he learnt the intricacies of bunkers, dens, tunnels and secret passageways and the need to be security conscious even if that demands to be assured with finishing off the black sheep. He grew up with this brutal philosophy of dominance for survival.

Masala Vadai has good company in California's prosperous Bethesda community and among them, one is LTTE's sole bugle-dancer, one of two brothers also in the shipping business. Their ships were foundational to the growth of the LTTE especially unloading of arms in mid-ocean. One day the bugle-dancer wants to take two Rajapaksha brothers and an army chap to courts in the US because it seems they were doing what they should not do. But the lawyer he hired at $1000 per day has jumped boat for $1001 a day for the next bidder, allegedly from the Canadian LTTE fund-raiser millionaires.

There was a time Masala Vadai was suspected as a CIA agent. This was more particularly when he attended the Madurai Tamil Research Conference in 1980 and he was forever seen in the shadow of Appapillai Amirthalingam. May be he admired the Vaddukoddai orator and saw a great future ahead of him. And Masala Vadai had this weakness of wanting to be in the shadows of big people to acquire the limelight just like the Californian medicos flirting for a fee with US politicos.

Now on this Amirthalingam passion of Masala Vadai, did he know that during the time Mayor Alfred Duryappah was assassinated at the Ponnalai Varadaraja Perumal Temple - July 1975 - the alleged sole voice of the Tamils, Velupillai Prabhakaran had virtual bed and breakfast facility in the nearby Amirthalingam home at Moolai? And who killed Amirthalingam and along with him Yogeswaran and later Mrs Yogeswaran?

Now this Tamilnet.com of Sreetharan, that is Masala Vadai, is an interesting venture. Its sources are Veerakesari, Uthayam, Sudaroli and some devious Vinnoli, Vaanoli, Kannoli and Mannoli and the utterings of the avaricious dollar-oiled Tamilnadu politicians from Vaiko to Thirumavalavan with couple of others in between, the 24-hour fast unto death specialists. They've got to be devious because Tamilnet's news reports are dubiously devious or deviously dubious, choose what you like.

The latest we hear is that Tamilnet.com is very much concerned about the future of the Son of Velupillai. Since he is going, going and nearly gone, the question is as to who should succeed him. And the idea of a leader for Tamilnet.com is one who could be capable of terrorizing the Sinhalese, the mathavadi chandiya syndrome – the culvert bully!

It appears Pottar mama has gone mufti and is meeting a possible successor not as clever as the Son of Velupillai but has to his credit some rash actions of terror including the killing of a Tamil lawyer in broad daylight at Choolai Medhu in Chennai some years ago. And for which he was packed back quietly to Sri Lanka by the Tamilnadu Chief Mnister Ramachandran, the film idol MGR. On arrival in Jaffna barely with a shoulder bag he launched a sectarian political party.

This guy can build a team of cadres or call them gun slingers and based on the terror campaigns they have handled, including Allaipiddy in Kayts two years ago, Tamilnet's man may after all be one who is familiar with the sea even if that was to do with transporting karuvadu to Colombo from the islands off the Jaffna peninsula.

Reports from Colombo suggest some opportunists have already begun to show interests in canvassing his leadership that is based on terror, the quick way to amass wealth not just in Sri Lanka alone and keep the war that facilitates corruption and violence an ongoing nightmare.

LTTE fund raisers bear witness to the way they made their fortune, built mansions and ensured unbelievable comforts for themselves. Terror politics just like Valvettiturai's smuggling activities is Open Sesame to fortune. President Mahinda Rajapakse is well advised to ensure that the terror of one man that has lasted a full three decades and a half is not replaced by the terror of another who has already had a head start as a member of his cabinet.

Meanwhile, there are concerns in Vadamaradchy that inquiries into the brutal killing of Maheswari Velautham who served as a prominent member of the Eelam Peoples Democratic Party has made no progress yet; may be the inquiries have been shelved. She was shot while visiting her mother May 14, 2008, almost to the day two years after of the Allaipiddy horror in which it is largely suspected the Sri Lankan Navy and the EPDP were jointly involved.

Tamilnet.com reporting the killing of Maheswari Velautham showed its gaudy outlandish gutter colours. It said in its opening line "Tamil Holocaust Denier and GoSL (here was used a bad word that we cannot have; should not use, will never use) and Devananda's Consultant, Maheswari Velautham was successfully shot and killed at her residence at Navi'ndil near Nelliyadi in Vadamaraadchi . . . . . . . " The rest of the report was an equally indecent insult and garbage indulged in by Tamilnet just because this poor lady held a different point of view.

The man who runs Tamilnet.com from the USA has a doctorate. Self-employed Masala Vadai secured top grading in his educational career. Should the Tamil community be influenced by such people? If so, the community's tragic history for the last three decades and a half was inevitable and provides no glimmer of hope in the future. But it is learnt a Californian medico has plans to become the President of the United States, one day!

-Sri Lanka Guardian