Anil's Ghost

Part 5 belongs to Gamini, Sarath’s partially estranged brother. Gamini garners his sense of purpose not from family but from work. After his wife leaves, he abandons their home to live at the hospital, admitting that doesn’t miss much about his earlier lifestyle. Work forms the foundation of his self-worth: “He knew that what he was able to do in the hospital was his only societal value” (209). His childhood, which was spent suppressing his own personality in the service of others, felt chaotic to him. Though he claims he wants to be more like Sarath, he endeavors to be “invisible, even to himself” (223), reflecting his childhood nickname, “Mouse.” Later, he notes that he “felt happiest when he stepped from disorganized youth into the exhilaration of work” (227). His coming-of-age is not about finding his own identity—he remains hidden from himself—but about discovering his purpose in work. Gamini’s alienation from himself and his life highlights The Perversion of Politics, as his ability to self-actualize has been suppressed by the chaos of war. His status as the Mouse stops him from fully participating in the human drama that surrounds him, whether it be his privileged childhood or war: “he loved his lack of responsibility,” he notes of his childhood, he “loved never being at the centre, while perceptive of what went on there” (221). When he speaks of his work with the guerillas, he knows that he has limited opportunity there, both in what he can accomplish and how long he will remain: “Hundreds of victims had died under Gamini’s care. [. . .] Still. He was a doctor. In a week he would be back working in Colombo” (220). The alienation he establishes in childhood serves him well during wartime.

This kind of alienation links him to Anil through the Rootlessness and Return theme. When he finds squatter occupying his house, he realizes immediately that “[h]e didn’t want the house, he wanted a home-cooked meal” (216). This echoes Anil’s earlier admission that she has never owned a home, preferring instead to rent and to travel light, more fitting to her peripatetic life. Gamini also dissociates himself from his family, just as Anil does from her homeland: “The barrier that separated him from his family during childhood remained in place. He did not want it dislodged, he did not want the universes brought together” (223). Gamini compartmentalizes his experiences, keeping family history and professional demands separate. This allows him the ability to neutralize his emotional connections—with anyone. This resonates with his one complaint about his work: he does not like to identify the bodies of the dead. When the interns began to obscure the faces in photographs brought to him for identification, he was grateful: “He worked better this way, and there was no danger of his recognizing the dead” (213). In this instance, he works in contrast to Anil. She seeks to identify Sailor, while Gamini wishes to avoid the shock of recognition. He is closer to the potential dead.

Gamini’s tendency to indulge in nostalgia and romanticize his experiences as a field doctor, however, undermines the carefully cultivated detachment on which he builds his sense of self. The Presence of the Past interferes with Gamini’s perceptions of his work. For example, his nostalgia for the his dangerous work as a field doctor romanticizes and thus denies its many horrors. He also inflates his and the other doctors’ roles: “They were kings and queens” (229)—sacred statues, honored monarchs, figures akin to gods. Gamini idealizes his experiences in the field as others suffer the horrors: “It was the best place to be,” he thinks (231). This foreshadows that his state of denial about the costs of the war in which he works will come back to haunt him.