I Am Jaffna

The Taxi Driver

J. Jegatheeswaran

Esan has driven passengers around Jaffna in his Morris Oxford for nearly twenty years. During the years of embargo and fuel scarcity, when many vehicles stood idle, his car remained on the road.

After the mass displacement in 1995, he left Jaffna and returned in 2006. On his return, he found that few vehicles could run on the available fuel. The Morris could be adapted. With kerosene in place of petrol and improvised substitutes for engine oil, he continued to drive.

At night he transported the sick and women in labour to hospital. Security restrictions were severe. Checkpoints required explanation, inspection and delay. He recalls being stopped while carrying a woman in labour, her cries ignored as soldiers searched the vehicle. “If I give a lift to anyone in my car,” he said, “I am responsible until they complete their journey.”

He speaks quietly about these years. “So mine was the only car running,” he says, without emphasis.

Field Note:

Whenever I return to Jaffna, I hire Esan. His Morris Oxford has become part of the landscape of the town, its engine note distinct from the newer vans and motorbikes that now crowd the roads.

He speaks little while driving. Conversation comes in fragments, often prompted by checkpoints we pass or places that carry memory. On one late-night journey we passed a checkpoint where young men were being held at gunpoint. We were waved on. Esan kept his eyes on the rear-view mirror.

Over time I learned how extensively drivers adapted their vehicles during the embargo years. Kerosene replaced petrol. Household oils substituted for engine oil. Parts were fabricated from scrap metal. The ability to keep a car running was not simply mechanical skill but a form of survival.

Esan resists grand descriptions of those years. He attributes endurance to the car itself, calling it “lucky.” Yet his work placed him at the centre of daily life: carrying the sick, negotiating with soldiers, returning families home after curfew.

In Jaffna, movement was never neutral. To drive was to pass through authority.

Jaffna
February 28, 2011

Interview language: தமிழ்

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Subjects discussed

So mine was the only car running

If I give a lift to anyone in my car, then I’m responsible until they complete their journey. I have to bring them back home safely.

During the army…checking time, they would check the boot and and under the bonnet. They would use this wire and rip open the doors. Throw the backseat out.

We left in ’95 and then returned in ‘o6. When we came back, there was my Morris Oxford and two or three other Japanese cars. But they couldn’t run on kerosene. So mine was the only car running in the area. In the nights I had to drive the sick and take the women in labour to the hospital. It was difficult those days. Even the army was scared.

We weren’t allowed to drive with the lights on. So we had to use the kerosene lamps. If we have to take someone to the hospital, we have to go to a certain point and explain to them that there was a woman in labour. I knew a bit of Sinhala. Things like someone’s having a baby. Then I’d go to the hospital. There they’d tell us to come back the following morning!

There were so many security restrictions. Once at a checkpoint, there was a woman in labour on board. She was screaming in pain, so I shouted at him. I tried to explain, “She’s going to have a baby, sir”. But he got angry, grabbed me by the shirt and then checked for explosives in the tyres. The woman was still screaming. At that time a senior officer came. I told him the situation. He didn’t take any action, but at least he did let us pass.

Sometimes before a hire, my mother would ask me, “If anything happens to you on the way what are you going to do?” So I’d tell her, “Never mind, even if I die at least I save two lives. I’m happy about that”.

About this portrait

Photographer: Kannan Arunasalam

Interviewer: Kannan Arunasalam

Translation: Ketharasarma Ledchumanasarma

Editor: Kannan Arunasalam

Recorded: November 26, 2010

Republished: August 4, 2023

Last edited: February 24, 2026

Comments

(@iam_project) (@iam_project)

April 18, 2012 at 05:14 am

Doha bound for the Aljazeera documentary festival where the short film 'Kerosene' is going to be screened, featuring Esan http://iam.lk/the-taxi-driver from series one
Kannan Arunasalam

August 3, 2017 at 01:40 pm

I have witnessed violence directly only once. In December 2010, I flew to Jaffna with my wife on one of the military flights that had opened up to civilians. The passengers were mostly government soldiers. Watching them sit in awe of a well known actress on board unsettled me. I had been thinking about civilian casualties and couldn’t shake the grim idea that these may have been the men responsible. Soldiers drove us into town past bunkers and bombed houses, many overtaken by trees. The houses still standing were occupied by the army. I saw a soldier tending a vegetable patch beside a bunker. Another chased a street dog. It complicated my sense of who they were. Whenever I visit Jaffna I hire Jagatheeswaran, known as Esan, to drive me in his Morris Oxford. That evening, after meeting friends for dinner, I got into his car just before midnight. The side roads were empty. When we turned onto the main road we saw three young men seated by a temple wall, guarded at gunpoint by soldiers and several men in civilian clothes. One soldier handed his rifle to one of the civilians, who pressed it against the head of one of the seated youths and forced him to the ground. I will not forget the terror on his face. We were waved on. As we drove away I listened for a gunshot. There was none. The car was silent. Esan kept looking into the rear view mirror. I could not sleep that night. It seemed to me an act of intimidation, a demonstration of power. The message was clear enough. We can do this. Keep moving. I said nothing. To speak would have been to endanger Esan. The soldiers would have noted his car. He had survived years of war by not drawing attention to himself. What right did I have to risk his life? The next day I drove past the temple again. I looked for blood. There was none. I still do not know what I witnessed. Only that life in Jaffna felt fragile, and that a thin membrane separated the daylight world visitors saw from the one locals lived with after dark. Extract from ”An Inconvenient Truth”, Kannan Arunasalam, Sugar Mule Literary Magazine, ed. M. L. Weber.