Today, I am caught between the thrill of having published something in The Paris Review and an overwhelming sense of grief, that “Today Is Loss That Isn’t Loss” even needed to be written.

I wrote it like a woman possessed, in the wake of the Easter bombings in Colombo and Batticaloa in Sri Lanka, like an attempt at processing the violence for myself. I wrote it after a student made fun of me in class for spending a little time explaining what had happened to explain why I might be off my game for a week or two. The same student wrote on my course evaluations that all I did was talk about genocide in a country no one cares about. I feel like very few people, students and colleagues alike, care about my country and collective trauma even if they care about me, or sometimes don’t care about other countries at all, except academically.

I wrote it to externalize how much I care, despite never having lived there, never surviving the war, never visiting often or staying long, never doing more than facing a raised rifle.

Yalini Dream was kind enough to invite me to read the piece at a candlelight vigil she organized in Union Square for the Sri Lanka Easter bombings.

PIX11 recorded me delivering the reading in the clip below (live-tweeted then but since deleted from Twitter):

Read “Easter in Sri Lanka: Today Is Loss That Isn’t Loss” at The Paris Review or download as PDF.