Michael Roberts
I came across an old article of mine entitled “Confronting Charlie Ponnadurai: Clarifying The Context Of Disparaging Ethnic Epithets In Sri Lanka Over The Last 180 Years.” Charlie happens to be a batchmate at Ramanathan Hall in Peradeniya University in 1957, but we had not encountered each other for decades before this verbal contretemps occurred in the year 2013. SEE ………………………………………………… https://thuppahis.com/2013/08/18/confronting-charlie-ponnadurai-clarifying-the-context-of-disparaging-ethnic-epithets-in-sri-lanka-over-the-last-180-years/.
This item was also presented in Colombo Telegraph –where the responses from readers there can be usefully mined. However, let me draw attention to (A) the Comment by R. S. Perinpanayagam (another Ramanathan Hall product senior to us) from the precincts of New York:
On Para Demilla, Parai Demella and Paradesi
Para means “outsider” and by implication one who does not belong. It is the antonym of Swadesi. It is also used to refer to wanderers and sometimes to wandering sadhus, mendicants
When Para is prefixed to Demella it bcomes in Sinhala version “foreigner” “outsider”, one who doesn’t beloing. So that when one of the Rajapases referred to Thondaman Jr as “Para Damilla” it could be charitably interpreted as “You Foreigner” or damn foreigner I suppose because in the eyes of a true native like Rajapakse, Thondaman, descendant of recent immigrants, was truly Para-desi, a wandering Tamil with no fixed abode, a late comer as opposed to those who came with Vijaya!
For Tamil ears however many words have a vowel ending and “Para” is heard as “Parai” which refers to the “lowest” caste in Tamil land and is taken as both an ethnic insult and castist categorization. The sting is in its ambiguity. In fact in ordinary discourse among Tamils the appellation “paraya” is used to insult someone whatever his caste may be – as parayp payal using the hierarchical idiom to demean somebody.
In my Peradeniya days I remember a quarrel between two members of Ramanathan Hall:
A:“Oh, you really are a low bugger’ (Goigama)
B:Now, don’t bring caste into this” (Karawa)
I don’t think A was alluding to caste but using a common term but B took it as an allusion to his caste.
Para, in another usage also means “strength” and “valor” and when combined with “ackrema” – aggression — becomes Parakrama Bahu of the Sinhala royalty.In Tamil it becomes Para+Rajasingham a common Tamil name; and then there was Para-Raja- Sekaran, a king of the “non existent” Jaffna Kingdom!!
In contemporary political discourse in SL the Tamils are both foreigners and outcastes – paras and pariahs!!
Still, I was surprised to read that even in the rarefied circles of St. Thomas’s College, Sarvendran Ponnuthurai, the son of one my teachers at Jaffna College and a close friend of my late father, was called a “paradamilla”!! It never happened to me at Royal College during my brief sojourn there, however.
R S Perinbanayagam
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
The giant fingers covers the ears of lady justice. (Used clipping mask)
