Major Chandran (Valluvan) – Heroic historical memories

Major Chandran (Valluvan) – Heroic historical memories

Major Chandran (Valluvan)
Kathamuthu Sivajayam –
Amirthakali, Mattacalappu
Birth:19.02.1945 – Death:10.09.1988

Event: Died by consuming cyanide during the siege of the Indian Army in Thalanguda, Mattacalappu District.

The village that supported him was Arayampathy.
During the sieges – Jayam was there many times in the middle of the enemy’s eagle hunt.

This time the village of Arayampathy was surrounded by many Sinhala Sri Lankan forces. There may have been two thousand people.

Jayam decided to break the siege and rush out of the village. Playing with death was not new to him. But this time death was very close to him.
He jumped over the fences of the houses and reached the salt water bank behind Araiyampathy. Two fishermen who knew him well were waiting with a canoe.

One said: “Come on, brother, get in the canoe.” The canoe landed in the salt water.

The sound of guns roaring in the village – the howling of dogs – and the sounds of human voices.
They rowed the canoe quickly and carefully. The canoe did not go far when the call was made. The guns of the Sinhalese army on the shore began to roar furiously towards the canoe. They recognized Jaya and the canoe. Amidst the continuous gunfire – the canoe flew through the salt water

Just a few seconds later, a helicopter of the Sri Lankan army began chasing the canoe.
Bullets flew towards the canoe with a ‘swish’ sound from the sky.

As the two canoeists curled up like corpses in front of him, Jayam was beating his heart.
Tears welled up in Jaya’s eyes. He didn’t care about himself at all. But the LTTE had pushed the boat to save one of them.

They were dead bodies……
When a bullet pierced the boat, and the boat sank in the water – Jayam jumped into the water and started swimming. He swam, hiding his body in the ‘Salvinia’ floating plants that covered the salt water.

The helicopter was still raining bullets around the half-overturned boat. “Everyone is finished,” the helicopter concluded, and turned back from the spot.

Jayam swam for four hours and reached an island in the middle of the salt water. With his intestines parched and his tongue parched – he drank raw cuckoo eggs that had nested in the Kanna plant.

“The story of Jayam is over,” they said in Araiyampathi. The village was drowned in tears. But
after swimming for several hours from the island, he returned to Araiyampathi the next day. This happened during the period 1986-1987.

In the life of that Liberation Tiger, such events often made the body shiver.

On 16-2-1945, Jayam was born in a small village called Amirthakali in Mattacalappu. His father’s name was Kathamuthu. His mother’s name was Alagamma. The house was on the banks of the beautiful Upatra. Jayam would board a canoe in the moonlight and sail around Upatra.

At that time – the Upatra would mesmerize with the music of Jayam’s flute.

He saw the lifeblood of freedom in the waves of the Upatra, the fish The river is flowing – the boats are swimming like black swans in the moonlight – the coconut grove is smiling on the shore.

Jayam´s father was a staunch Tamil nationalist. The mother was often harassed by the militants who would break into the house and snatch the children.
Jayam´s older brother – Kashi Anandan.

There are no people who do not know the history of this revolutionary poet. He who fertilized freedom with his songs. He who proclaimed that freedom is the way to the life of a Tamil. He who inspired the hearts of the youth who were attached to the land. He who fueled the struggle of the Tamil youth, and for that reason he spent 5 years of his life in Sinhala prisons.

Brother Sudarsan was imprisoned for two years and sister Sivamala for one year. In this house – in this family – Jayam was also a fire.

That candle later, under the leadership of Prabhakaran, shed full light.

At the age of thirteen, the desire and anguish of how to abolish the slavery of Tamileelam, a wave hit his heart. – The time of the moral protests.

– In 1958, Jayam’s brother Kashi Anandan was arrested by the Sinhala Sri Lankan government in Amritsar and was placed under house arrest. The police were stationed at the gate.
In those days, Jeyam would defy the police and take his brother’s letters outside without their knowledge.

Jayam, who had been cycling to remote villages far from the city since he was a child, planted the seeds of freedom. During his days studying at Madtunagar Government College (Hindu College), he instilled the spirit of freedom in the urban students.

– After completing his studies and working as a malaria prevention field officer, Jayam spread the spirit of Tamileelam in all the border villages of Tamileelam such as Pullumalai, Katumurippu, Pulipayinda Kal and Vadamunai.
The belief that Tamileelam could be liberated only through an armed struggle was deeply rooted in Jayam’s heart.

In 1975, the Sri Lankan police arrested him. He was accused of trying to assassinate Rajan Chelvanayake, a Sri Lanka Freedom Party member of parliament in Mattacalappu. Jayam was taken to the fourth floor of the Sri Lankan government’s intelligence headquarters in Colombo.

The investigation was led by C. I. D. Inspector Bastiyampillai, who was later shot dead by the LTTE. After cruel torture, he spent two years in prison in Bohambarai and Welikada. It was during this period that the most tragic event in his life occurred. He was imprisoned in the same cell with his half-brother Kasi Anandan and his younger brother Sudarshan.
It was Jayam who recruited the first members of the LTTE in the Batticaloa-Ampara district in 1978.

This was a beginning in the land of the seven rays.

An event on 8-10-1984.
While he was engaged in operational work in Pullumalai, the Sri Lankan army unexpectedly arrested Jayam. But they did not know at that time that he was Jayam. They took him to the Kallady camp, hung him upside down, and brutally beat him with an iron bar.

His body was electrocuted. He remained steadfast until the end. A false identity card identifying him as a Muslim – a short beard in the form of a Muslim – a Holy Quran in his hand. The usual guerrilla tactics of a LTTE. Even the ringleaders could not identify him.

Jayam was released. But, while he was still in the Kallady camp – the Sri Lankan army came looking for him at home. Jayam’s younger sister Sivamala was arrested by the militants and subjected to terrible torture. She had to spend a year in a Sinhalese prison.

Jayam, who initially worked in the medical section of the LTTE, was later appointed by the leadership as the highly responsible financial officer of the Mattacalappu-Ampara district.

Dense forests – muddy fields – deep seas with rough waves – Jayam worked in all four directions.

Once upon a time – The jungles of Tamileelam, which he instilled in the people a sense of freedom – the border villages – later became the strongholds of the LTTE.

It was Jayam who opened the jungle route from Trincomalee district to the LTTE, and in 1987 the Indian Army-LTTE war began. Indian soldiers frequently used motorboats to travel between Mattacalappu and Uppattu.
The famous Madtunagar Uppattu has saved the LTTE many times in the history of the Tamileelam liberation struggle.

The LTTE decided to lay a mine under the water at a specific place in Uppattu. Jayam himself completed the difficult task by diving deep into the water.

There was an Indian army camp just a short distance away. It was a great effort. But the Indian army boat did not run because of the Uppattu route.
‘They have escaped,’ Jayam roared. ‘We will annihilate the Indian army in the water, in the sky, and on land,’ he shouted.

Jayam completely hated the Indian army that had come as a plunderer. The ‘Kabbalis Battalion’ of the Indian Army, which was camped at the ‘Lighthouse’ at the place where the North Sea meets the sea, announced that it would celebrate its 17th anniversary on 10th May 1988 as a grand festival and that the public should participate in the festival.

”A festival for the Indian Army over our dead bodies? – Jayam erupted like a volcano. He wrote a new poem – and distributed it among the people in the form of a pamphlet – and a storm blew.

“Sinners! Are you celebrating a festival? Good!
But… why did you invite us so shamelessly?
A festival? A feast?
The food you provide
will not satisfy our hunger for freedom!
We will consider the
festivals you put up
as a trap that will kill
us!
A self-respecting Tamilian
will not attend your festival!

The people were moved by Jayam’s ideas and emotions. Not a single Tamil attended that ceremony. Jayam was both a poet and an artist. All that energy became an instrument for the Tamileelam Liberation War.

Jayam would play the flute to encourage the fighters in the LTTE camps. They would sit under the forest trees in the early evening. The LTTE would be thrilled by the sound of Jayam’s flute rising amidst the sun’s rays streaming through the black leaves, the ‘squeak’ of sparrows flying towards their nests, and the sound of glass falling like pieces of glass.

At a young age, Jayam appeared as an actor in many stages plays and there were days when he ignited the fire of idealism among the people.

During the Tigers-Indian Army war, Jayam stormed the enemy’s camps like a storm.
Mattacalappu – A period of living in many villages.

In a letter written to his brother three months before his death, he mentions:
“There was not a day when there were no rounds and tortures. They have set up a camp here even today. There are two camps within this small town”

That LTTE lived right in the middle of the bombs.

1988, September 10.
A cruel day. The sky was covered with dark clouds. Jayam was in Thalanguda village.
7 am. Just then, Jayam came back from his bath and was wiping his head. His last bath.

The dogs were barking wildly at the back fence. Suddenly, a gunshot was heard from the side of the street. He understood that the LTTE, Siri, who was his life-saving companion, was clashing with the Indian army. But the gunshots died down in a few seconds.

Siri’s story was over.
The sound of rough iron footsteps was now heard right next to him. He was cornered so that he could not escape. The Indian army fanatics broke through the fences and rushed inside.

Jayam growled and bit the bottle hanging from his neck. The incomparable mane that had run for thirty years for freedom in the land of Tamileelam without rest came to an end!

Who can forget that day?
In Jayam´s Amritakali house – on the bed – he lies dead, everyone sits around him and cries. One of them. His girlfriend! She places a flute next to him and cries.

– There was a sweet love in Jaya´s life.

That love,
With tears … with sobs …

When Jayam was laid in the grave, they buried the flute that he had been playing with pleasure!

(Translation by Tamilpriya)