Brotherless Night

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “The Half-Doctor”

Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary: “Refusal, Jaffna, 1986”

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, and physical abuse.

On the first day that Sashi heads to the field hospital, she is joined by K and her brother Seelan, as if they were walking together to study like they once did. Sashi is introduced to T—, who is ostensibly the regional leader of the Tigers. As Sashi surveys the facility, she sees more wounded than she expected. She wonders how many of them have suffered psychological injuries that are as significant, if not more so, than their physical wounds. She is matched with Thambirajah, an older student whom Sashi knows from the medical student union.

Sashi quickly adjusts to the hospital, treating both insurgents and civilians. She begins to realize how much she has learned in her short time in medical school; she is happy to be helping, though the work is often wearying. After a while, Sashi also realizes that she is being trained in the ways of the militants: She does not speak of her work at the field hospital with even her closest friends. Because of this need for discretion, Sashi grows more distant from her other friends and, as a consequence, spends more of her time at the field hospital. She is there when her brother Seelan is brought in, bleeding from a head wound.

Seelan was injured in a landmine explosion, and Sashi has no time to think or panic. She must treat him, just as she would any other patient. Seelan looks at her, confusion in his eyes, and thinks that she is his mother. However, once Seelan is stabilized, Sashi must leave; she is due to take her practical exam in anatomy that afternoon. She arrives at the exam dazed and unfocused. She does not receive passing marks, even from kind Anjali Acca—though the professor offers her another opportunity in a couple of days’ time. Sashi is grateful but still overwhelmed; she faints.

Her friends watch over her at the hostel where she is staying. The next day, when she is feeling better, she rushes to the field hospital to check on Seelan, but he is already gone. Sashi is angry. She must suppress her emotions, however, because Anjali has asked Sashi to come by her house. After inquiring about her health, Anjali probes more deeply into the cause of Sashi’s illness. Finally, Sashi confesses that she has been working long hours at the field hospital in addition to trying to keep up with her studies. While Anjali does not approve—too much sleep deprivation, not enough self-care—she does understand Sashi’s desire to help. Still, she reminds Sashi that if she does not take care of herself, she cannot help anyone else. Sashi agrees to cut back on her hours at the hospital and spend some time on her own interests. Anjali and her husband, Varathan, loan her some books.

Sashi then decides to visit the family home, and she is surprised to find all three of her brothers there. The happy surprise quickly turns sour when Seelan actively tries to recruit Aran into the movement. When Aran remains stubbornly opposed, he and Seelan almost get into a physical fight. Aran has grown stronger since his older brothers have been gone. He will no longer be silenced, and his criticisms of the movement are stinging—he claims that the movement requires unthinking obedience and pits brother against brother. Amma finally intervenes, reminding her children that she has sacrificed too much for this war and receives nothing in return.

After Dayalan and Seelan leave, Sashi approaches Aran, who tells her about an acquaintance of his who was shot by the Tigers. He acknowledges that the government has been oppressive to the Tamils, but he is disgusted by the fact that the Tigers will kill their own people. He also reveals a detail that shocks Sashi to her core: Dayalan was present at this massacre against a rival militant group—not just present but a willing participant. Sashi cannot reconcile this fact with her memories of her book-loving brother.

Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary: “Lights Out, Jaffna, 1986”

Sashi passes the anatomy exam on her second try. On her holiday break from school, she spends even more time at the field hospital. When she finally takes the time to visit home, she finds that Appa is there, waiting to speak to her. He refuses her silence, and she tells him about her work with the militants. Both become angry—Sashi because Appa has left her to fend for herself and Appa because Sashi has put herself (and her brothers) in harm’s way. Appa slaps Sashi in the course of their argument. Sashi wants him to be proud of her, but this action puts a rift between them, even as he quietly admits that he is proud.

Sashi buries herself in the books that Anjali has loaned her. Anjali suggests that Sashi and some of the other female students form a reading group; it can be a safe space where they can speak to, and comfort, one another. Their first book for discussion is Feminism and Nationalism by Kumari Jayawardena. Sashi connects with the author’s critiques of traditional gender roles and rigid class (and caste) distinctions. She is surprised to read the author’s criticisms of Mahatma Gandhi, who has always been viewed as a hero in her home.

However, on the day that the book group is scheduled to meet, K shows up at the field hospital, again with terrible news: Dayalan is dead. K wanted Sashi to hear the news from a familiar source and to decide how her mother finds out. Sashi thinks of one of the final conversations she had with Dayalan; they spoke about reading and how he misses it. She believes that she caught one final glimpse of him on her way home from the field hospital, but the figure just faded into the shadows.

Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary: “Liberation, Jaffna, 1986-1987”

Sashi’s father comes home upon hearing the news, but Sashi will not forgive him for his absences. She stumbles her way through the last month of her term, still working at the field hospital too often. After many attempts to reschedule their meeting, the women’s reading group finally finds an agreeable time. However, Josie—the student with the Tiger boyfriend—has somehow found out about the group and attends. The others know that they cannot speak freely in front of her, yet Anjali does. The others are nervous for her. Sashi realizes that nobody is safe and nowhere is secure. She is staying at home now, rather than at the hostel. Shots ring out in the night, and the next morning, she walks by a corpse. To move it or to acknowledge it would be to risk becoming the next target.

Sashi begins to write about her experiences, even though she discards much of it. The war encroaches ever closer on the family home. The government forces start to bomb the city by air, and the roads have been mined by the Tigers. Sashi’s family hires a man to build a bunker for them. Sashi despises the cold and dark of the bunker and fears that snakes might have gotten in it. However, Amma makes her hide there since she has lost two children already.

T— shows up at Sashi’s home. He looks around, assessing its space and amenities, and announces that the family will be honored by offering the house to the Tigers. He says that the family will be relocated to smaller quarters now that they have only four members. Sashi dislikes the new house because it does not contain the memories of her fallen brothers. However, she is abruptly pulled out of her despair when a student from the university goes missing.

The students hold demonstrations and demand that he be returned, but to no avail. A mysterious Report begins circulation on campus and throughout town: The anonymous writer (or writers) uncovers the known details of the student’s disappearance along with some broad outlines of his biography; they also (courageously, according to Sashi) place responsibility for his disappearance on the Tigers.

At the same time, the situation in Jaffna becomes dire. The roads are blocked, and no supplies are coming into the city—only soldiers. Civilians are caught in the crossfire, and parts of the city burn. Rumors that the general hospital, which anchors the university, will shut down precipitate an even greater crisis. The closure orders finally arrive, and the student union ponders its response.

On the day of the protest, K comes to visit Sashi. He openly wonders, for the first time, what kind of life they might have built together had war not come. Sashi questions his loyalties, not for the first time. K says that he did not have a choice but to join the movement; she disagrees. He slips away as she enters the building. The students do not have to wait long. The hospital will remain open, and Sashi wonders if the movement had planned this outcome all along. The students appear as if they are demonstrating in the militants’ favor.

Still, the war continues, and Operation Liberation commences in May of 1987. The army will invade Jaffna, and they warn the Tamils to take shelter in temples. Sashi and her remaining family decide to flee their home for the crowded shelters; they survive, though everyone grows hungrier. Finally, India drops relief packages in the area. Sashi and the others are moved to a more accommodating refugee camp, and they believe that India has finally come to help.

Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary: “Saviours, Jaffna, Mid-1987”

Another Report is released, and the authors detail the events of the preceding months. India’s involvement leads to the Indo-Lanka Accord, which states that the Sri Lankan government will give more power to local entities, that the government soldiers will cease from active engagement in military attacks, and that the Tamil Tigers will “relinquish their arms” (234). Nobody believes that this will actually occur, though India has sent in the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to ensure the enactment of the Accord. The Indian troops turn out to be, in many cases, just as violent or ineffective as the other occupying forces.

In August, K again visits Sashi. He tells her that he has volunteered to go on a hunger strike, protesting the presence of the IPKF. He asks her to stay at his side during this strike so that she can assist him with medical care and moral support. She is appalled, but she cannot refuse him.

Aran and Amma are understandably upset. Sashi’s presence at the hunger strike will almost certainly cement her association with the militants. Sashi approaches Anjali with her dilemma, and Anjali cautions her against it—she knows that Sashi will become, however unwillingly, an agent of the movement. Nevertheless, Sashi cannot allow K to suffer, or die, without someone from home beside him. She has made her decision.

Part 3 Analysis

Part 3 develops the theme of Civil War and Internecine Violence, focusing on how it destroys relationships in addition to claiming lives. When Sashi starts work at the field hospital, she experiences a tender sense of nostalgia as she, K, and Seelan walk there together, just as they walked to the library in happier times. K says, “I thought the occasion was worth a reunion of the Jaffna Public Library study group” (167), showing that he, too, shares Sashi’s thoughts. However, their present circumstances are very different, and they are not who they used to be: The library has been burned to the ground—another casualty of the war—while K and Seelan are now more loyal to the movement than to their own families.

Despite these changes, Sashi still harbors affection for her brothers and K. As she works tirelessly at the field hospital, she wishes that she “could spend this time with [her] own brothers, or with K, and [she] [i]s also glad not to see them” (171). This is both because she finds it hard to witness the changes wrought in them by the war and because she is “terrified of one of them entering the hospital not on his own two feet, but carried by his comrades” (171). The threat of death and loss hovers over everything that Sashi experiences and complicates her feelings for her brothers and for K—though she is critical of their new loyalties, she is also consumed by worry for their lives.

However, her fears that her two older brothers are lost to her—even while still alive—prove to be well founded. When Dayalan and Seelan show up unexpectedly at the family home, it becomes clear that their one agenda is to further their movement’s reach and ideologies, even at the cost of their family. Seelan attempts to recruit Aran into the movement, even though Amma is sitting nearby. When Aran resists the idea, Seelan threatens his younger brother, saying, “I wouldn’t have thought you would be so ungrateful […] You should be careful no one hears you” (184). Seelan’s veiled threat that Aran could be in danger for expressing his disapproval of the Tamil militants shows that Seelan’s allegiance lies completely with the movement. He is angry that Aran will not willingly join and sacrifice his life for the cause. Aran wonders aloud if he will, indeed, become a victim at the hands of his own brothers, highlighting how violence has ripped the family apart.

Meanwhile, Sashi is not sure whether her work at the field hospital is also tainted by violence. Her doubts develop the theme of The Human Side of Terrorism, showing that even her acts of preserving life and alleviating human suffering can be construed as an act of terror by the Sri Lankan government. Sashi feels guilty about keeping her work there secret and about her own proximity to a movement she finds increasingly corrupt. Later, she admits that she did not always want to know the difficult truths, even about herself; she says, “I did not want to hear that story. I wanted a simpler one in which we were all good” (203). However, she realizes that simpler times and truths are also casualties of the war. Indeed, one of the first things that Sashi must sacrifice in her work at the field hospital is her honesty. As she becomes more involved in her work, she observes that it “[i]s teaching [her] the habits and secrecy of the movement; [she] [i]s turning into someone who never sa[ys] anything she d[oes] not strictly have to say, and it c[omes] with a cost” (172). Though she understands that she is in a situation where secrecy becomes akin to survival, Sashi acknowledges that it weighs heavily on her conscience and disrupts her relationships.

Moreover, Sashi’s personal experiences prove that the Tamil militants—the so-called terrorists—are, in turn, treated violently and unjustly by the government, showing that all sides in this civil war perpetrate terror. First, Seelan is wounded, and Sashi is there at the hospital to treat him. Not long after, K gives Sashi the even more harrowing news that Dayalan has been killed. She realizes that all her efforts at the field hospital, and beyond, have been futile: “I had been operating as if I could shield them [her brothers], as if I could bargain for their safety by filling every crevice of my time with usefulness and study” (200). She feels misplaced guilt for her inability to protect them, and she also reveals that one of her key motivations for working at the field hospital was to preserve her family and try to keep her brothers safe. When she decides that she will stay by K’s side as he embarks on the hunger strike, she tells her mother and Aran that she “wo[]n’t be doing it for the movement […] [She] w[ill] be doing it for K” (237). She explains that “the thread of the past connecting [them is] not the history of countries but the history of home” (237). Sashi prioritizes this thread and holds onto it to keep herself from unraveling in the face of terror and violence.