I've been eating Sri Lankan food lately
As often as I can
Little treats and snacks
If that's all i can afford with my budget
A part of home,
A reminder of family,
So far away
In both time and distance,
From both
Little treats and snacks
As often as I can
So I can tell myself that all is well
There's a Sri Lankan restaurant near my gym
I speak the colonisers tongue to the lady at the counter
Are you from Sri Lanka?
She asks me
Yes, I replied
In the colonisers tongue
It's easier for me to speak the colonisers tongue
I'm more fluent in it nowadays
And even if I were to speak in my first language
I still will be speaking in a colonisers tongue
For in Sri Lanka,
My people are the colonisers
My government committed genocide..
I stuff my mouth with an egg roti
A perfect blend of Sri Lankan condiments with South Indian influences
Shame we hate where we come from
Shame we hate our roots
Shame that hatred is only capable of coming from a place of self hatred
Shame that Shame breeds Shame
And Shame that hate breeds the same..
Sinhalese people
Descendants of lions
Evicted from India
For violent crimes, inbreeding, kidnapping, and robberies
Continues the same behaviour
To this day
In typical fashion
My proud nation,
My people, wiped out the natives of Sri Lanka
Little baby lions running around with blood on their teeth
Genocide and ethnic cleansing
Way before the white man reinvented it
Gentrified it and rebranded it
A lush new country under their calloused paws
In stark difference to the Tamils, the tigers
Who only co existed with the natives
Who are still, the descendants of the land themselves
I dull my heartbreak with a little treat
A little treat and a snack
As often as I can
As often as I can
The lions are proud of our history
I was taught all this in school, with pride
I grew up in fear of losing my life, or worse, my family to the Civil War
Seeing us as the victims
Never been educated on the true history of our wrong doings
I dull my confusion with a little treat as often as I can , as often as I can
The tigers only thought it was fair that they get their share
As often as I can
as often as I can
They begged the lions for what's rightfully theirs
As often as I can
As often as I can
To be called terrorists, and violent criminals
And to be perpetrated to more than 45 years of genocide
As often as I can
As often as I can
I dull my pain with a little treat
The lions have been killing the tigers in the concrete jungles in the north of Sri Lanka for the last 45 years and no one knows about it
Not even I knew the full truth till not too long ago
The narratives of victimhood never reached the mainstream TV channels in the south
Drowning in my ignorance, that also which was my privilege, my whole childhood was a lie
And I wonder what it's like..
Not just to suffer,
But also to suffer loud and proud,
And still,
To not have anyone to hear your cries..
And I wonder what's worse
Being ignored,
Or to have your pain and suffering go completely unknown and ignored
And that's a grief that I'll never understand
That I'll never know
So I tell myself all is well
I tell myself all is well
I wonder how I would act if I was subjected to such atrocities
What I would do, if I had no choice but to fight back?
I tell myself all is well
I tell myself all is well
The tigers they are begging the lions for what's rightfully theirs
So I tell myself all is well
I tell myself all is well
And the lions are ruining that beautiful piece of land
That they claim to be theirs,
In typical coloniser fashion,
The perpetrators are now suffering themselves,
In their own hands,
With no one else to blaim,
But themselves,
I tell myself all is well
I tell myself all is well
Little baby tigers
Running around with callouses on their paws
Not a droplet of blood in sight
Not a single, droplet of blood, in sight
So I tell myself that all is well
I tell myself that all is well
BS
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