Summary: Rajani Thiranagama was a doctor, a teacher and a committed human rights who was shot in 1989 in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. Her daughter was 11 years old. In this program she talks along with her aunt and her father about her mother and the meaning of her mother?s loss in her life.
In this informative, moving portrait of a courageous human rights activist, doctor, teacher, and mother murdered for her beliefs, we get also a portrait of her family, as well as a fleeting yet panoramic view of politics and life in Sri Lanka.
Rajani Thiranagama?s husband, sister and daughter speak of their life before, during and after her death; their voices resonate as instruments of emotion, a small chamber orchestra of love and grief, its 4th player invisible, yet utterly present.
Sujan accents the words with ominous music, and one dramatic, but right-feeling fling of gunfire, but it?s the words, the poetry of phrase or insight, that kept me taut with attention. Hearing excerpts from Thiranagama?s letters, read by another, about how ?not moving, not making a shadow or a sound can kill the whole household,? brought my mind to other war zones; likewise her sister?s lamenting so many others killed, a ?community bereft.? Her daughter carefully assesses the mother she lost when only eleven, recounting lessons learned, among them that the most political work one could do in the war zone was to continue normal life. I highly recommend this story of one woman, one family, one war zone, or of anywhere, really, where people are fighting and dying.
I loved the way this deeply personal story was introduced. References to armed revolutionaries, love stretching beyond death and the soundbite in which the daughter talked about a story that is "...too shocking to tell the truth." All that, early in the presentation, raised my level of interest.
Soon, however, I felt like an interloper who was encroaching on the personal and tragic story of a grieving family. The very real drama wore me down in the end and I was left reflecting on the horror of the incident and not the lessons learned.
I was grateful that I was given context for this family's personal horror in respect to the unneccesary deaths of tens of thousands of Sri Lankans. That context came some 5-minutes into the show and about the time I was looking for background.
Good use of sound and music and appropriate music at that. Clean edits and incredibly authentic in voice. The gun shots might turn some off but it drove a grim point home for me.
I must admit that I had to work hard to understand the heavily accented voices, especially that of the husband, and I found myself desiring additional narration as we progressed through the story.
Would I air this program assuming I could find another half-hour segment that would be suitable and somewhat complimentary? Probably not if only because I feel I have so much other content to use that tells the story of Americans and citizens of Iraq in a war that is top of the mind and top of the hour on the radio dial in the U-S-A.
Comments for RN Documentary: Not Enough Tears
This piece belongs to the series "RN Documentaries"
Produced by Dheera Sujan
Other pieces by Radio Netherlands Worldwide
Rating Summary
3 comments
Lucia Covelli
Posted on August 10, 2009 at 07:09 PM | Permalink
Deeply moving
Thank you for this exceptional piece.
Sydney Lewis
Posted on August 24, 2006 at 01:36 PM | Permalink
Review of RN Documentary: Not Enough Tears
In this informative, moving portrait of a courageous human rights activist, doctor, teacher, and mother murdered for her beliefs, we get also a portrait of her family, as well as a fleeting yet panoramic view of politics and life in Sri Lanka.
Rajani Thiranagama?s husband, sister and daughter speak of their life before, during and after her death; their voices resonate as instruments of emotion, a small chamber orchestra of love and grief, its 4th player invisible, yet utterly present.
Sujan accents the words with ominous music, and one dramatic, but right-feeling fling of gunfire, but it?s the words, the poetry of phrase or insight, that kept me taut with attention. Hearing excerpts from Thiranagama?s letters, read by another, about how ?not moving, not making a shadow or a sound can kill the whole household,? brought my mind to other war zones; likewise her sister?s lamenting so many others killed, a ?community bereft.? Her daughter carefully assesses the mother she lost when only eleven, recounting lessons learned, among them that the most political work one could do in the war zone was to continue normal life. I highly recommend this story of one woman, one family, one war zone, or of anywhere, really, where people are fighting and dying.
Bill Anderson
Posted on May 08, 2006 at 01:56 PM | Permalink
Review of RN Documentary: Not Enough Tears
I loved the way this deeply personal story was introduced. References to armed revolutionaries, love stretching beyond death and the soundbite in which the daughter talked about a story that is "...too shocking to tell the truth." All that, early in the presentation, raised my level of interest.
Soon, however, I felt like an interloper who was encroaching on the personal and tragic story of a grieving family. The very real drama wore me down in the end and I was left reflecting on the horror of the incident and not the lessons learned.
I was grateful that I was given context for this family's personal horror in respect to the unneccesary deaths of tens of thousands of Sri Lankans. That context came some 5-minutes into the show and about the time I was looking for background.
Good use of sound and music and appropriate music at that. Clean edits and incredibly authentic in voice. The gun shots might turn some off but it drove a grim point home for me.
I must admit that I had to work hard to understand the heavily accented voices, especially that of the husband, and I found myself desiring additional narration as we progressed through the story.
Would I air this program assuming I could find another half-hour segment that would be suitable and somewhat complimentary? Probably not if only because I feel I have so much other content to use that tells the story of Americans and citizens of Iraq in a war that is top of the mind and top of the hour on the radio dial in the U-S-A.