My good friend Haris de Silva, true to his former profession as Government Archivist, still remains the true investigator unlike me. After thorough research of records pertaining to the period around 1864, and the writing of Fr.P.A.J.B.Antoninus O.M.I. in 1964, he has questioned my reference (The Island, July 1st) that Saradiel, the old bandit, had wanted to see his mother before he was hanged and bit her ear when he got the opportunity. Haris has found no documented evidence to the incident quoted by me.

Yes, he is right when he says my reference may not be the result of research. My purpose was not to write on Saradiel but to make an oblique reference to an incident I had become familiar with through oral tradition about 22 years before Fr. Antoninus did his research in 1964. My main purpose was to draw attention to the fact Prabhakaran treasured a revolver given to him by his mother, avowedly for stool-pigeon shooting! Through some journalistic feat the point in my letter to Saradiel biting his mother’s ear had received greater attention. I enjoyed the fun! But now I am made answerable. Hence this long response.

On this particular point, I appreciate Haris’s approach but coming from a very rural background I have become somewhat sensitive to what the ordinary people have retained in their memory (the oral tradition; or better, ‘subaltern studies’ as some called them).

Haris says that the story must be a late accretion, a post- 1964 accretion at that. That is placing one hundred per cent trust that Fr. Antoninus who wrote a booklet on Saradiel that year must have exhausted all the then available sources, including field research done around the area where the bandit lived and operated. Certainly this is not the case. By 1964 I was quite a grown up of 32 years of age and by that time I had carried this folk tradition I learnt in my memory for at least 22 years. What I have said was derived from folklore in my village and surrounding villages which are a few miles away from where Haris hails. Whether the oral tradition is credible or not is another matter but it is pre- Antoninus as far as I am concerned by at least 22 years.

So, I guess that the ‘accretion’ must have been in circulation for close upon hundred years as far as my family’s association with it goes. It could be older. Sardiel would have been executed during the life time of my great - grandparents. Then it is not a very old memory either that I came across in the villages. It could not be a mix up or a memory lapse as I even remember playing the role of Saradiel in a village school play around 1944/45 for which the script was written by a person from the village of Paragahatota (near Ambalangoda), a village where a lively tradition of traditional craftsmanship, folk theatre,(Nadagam and Rukada [Puppetry] occult et al. thrived. One of the highlights of that play, as I still recall, was the moral lesson of Saradiel biting the ear of his mother.

I will not dispute that the oral tradition could be a late accretion but how late is the question. Well, if the contemporary records or the newspapers of the day are silent and going by what Haris has summarized, the first researcher’s? (Fr.Antonionus’) effort which in my view may show some inadequacies in access to sources, should one reject the oral tradition? I have not read Fr.Antonionus’ work but wouldn’t the value of his research been enhanced had he examined if there were other traditions around while nothing was found around the villages where Saradiel frequented. Now that I have got into the thick of the discussion, I may ask if, alternatively, a counter invention to what Rev. Duflo recorded, and quoted by Haris, had surfaced. Duflo has recorded (I quote Haris) the prisoner saying sorry for the criminal life he led; and that he was happy to have had the opportunity of expiation of his crimes after he received the Sacraments." People could not have been happy that the missionaries went to baptize people on the verge of death/execution, a practice which came down from Portuguese times.

In the popular imagination, biting the mother’s ear could have been more in the character of the man, Saradiel; but my wife who hails partly from Ambalangoda reminds me now that Saradiel was very fond of his mother and he could not have bitten the mother’s ear. Could there have been a mix up in the tradition? So, I have to give attention to a female sentiment, and have to have an open mind as much as I respect oral tradition. It is a good story any way, as the playwright of Paragahatota also thought and gave weight 65 years ago to the tradition I became familiar with!

My sensitivity to oral tradition arises from the circumstance as I said, from my close association with the village. I am still in touch with grass root level. The day I wrote the piece (July 1st) I picked up the newspaper and walked across to the tea shop where I usually have my morning tea chatting with people around. That day, as usual, I walked across to my vegetable vendor three doors next and one of the young men who communicates with me often (He has a note book where he records what I say and also tries to practice his English with me) asked me what was in the newspaper. I showed him my piece about Saradiel biting his mother’s ear. The amazing thing was that the young man knew the story though as much as around three generations (60 years) separated us! After I translated what I had written he said: "No Sir, it was the mother’s tongue which Saradiel bit." He seemed to be so sure. It raised confusion in my mind, a confusion I had when I wrote that letter, but I argued the case. I asked how he could bite the tongue and the ear was more probable. The account about the tongue also had its moral side because it is said, as my young friend reminded me, that he bit the tongue because the mother had encouraged him in lying.

The matter did not stop there. Yesterday (July 17th) when I went to the shop the young man asked me again about Saradiel’s story. When I asked him how he knew he said: "Why Sir, You showed me the newspaper." That shows the young man has been thinking about it. Saradiel’s story had, likewise, caught the imagination of our villagers of the day not only for the dare-devil life of the bandit led but also for its human and moral aspects which made Saradiel not somebody to be despised altogether. The human aspect is that he also had a softer side, namely, the Robin Hood type of association (folk memory) that he distributed what he collected from the carters taking their wares up/down hill among the villagers. That human aspect was what attracted the greater attention of the villager as I remember. For others, it had other moral significance. That is that criminal activity should not be inculcated by anyone, the least by parents. That is what my mother impressed on me.

The tradition has now passed on to the present generation as my young friend, the vegetable vendor of around 18 years of age demonstrated fom his knowledge with a slightly different moral twist. He emphasised on the mother encouraging Sardiel to lie. Like in some of Buddhist Jataka stories (e.g. Sasa Jataka), it is not the accuracy/probability of the contents like Sakra drawing the figure of the hare on the moon’s surface which is important but the moral it conveys. (After Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon a Roman Catholic friend used to tease me over drinks asking about the story of the hare on the moon –he meant no ridicule as he was one who equally laughed at Christian claims of miracles like one of my old French diplomatic friends, who was going as Ambassador to Portugal, who seeing me in the train going to Fatima in Portugal with my children, asked me to return to Paris without wasting time on that "fraud"! I do not know if he resented the commercial competition offered to Lourdes which place I myself visited with my family many times.

For the discerning, the significance of the Saradiel story may be different. I was only looking at the moral aspect of the tradition which I took as the analogy for connecting it up with Prabhakaran because I read in a book that Prabhakaran’s mother had given him a revolver (purchase price was given) which he treasured more than anything. Should I now say, agreeing with my wife that Prabhakaran could not have bitten his mother’s ear because he loved her so much and kept the revolver she gave closer to his bosom. Did he use it only to shoot stool- pigeons as I asked?