"The communal tension in Sri Lanka between the Sinhalese and Tamils was an inherent part of my family even before I was born, for my mother was Sinhalese and my father Tamil. When my father's parents found out he was courting my mother, they were furious. My father was already a bit of a rebel, by then. He had rejected the three "respectable" professions of doctor, lawyer or engineer that every Tamil man from a "good" family should pursue and had decided, instead (having played Davis Cup for Sri Lanka) to become a tennis coach. In addition, he ran wildlife safaris in the jungles of Sri Lanka. My paternal grandmother sent my mother a letter, saying that she should put away any thoughts of marrying her son. To my mother, my father was one of several admirers. She was finishing up medical college and marriage was the furthest thing from her mind. She has often said that, if not for that letter, she might have never married my father.
"Their decision to marry was greeted with cries of outrage, more from his side than hers. My grandmother was a staunch Tamil nationalist and a prominent member of the Tamil Federal Party. Party members now descended on my father to convince him of the mistake he was making. Finally, he gave in under all the pressure and agreed to tell my mother that it was over. But, as my grandmother used to say whenever she told the story, when he was leaving the house to do it, her instincts told her she was wrong and so she called him back and gave her consent.
"For us four children, growing up in a mixed marriage was interesting. From the start, our parents instilled in us the belief that the mixing of races only leads to stronger, more beautiful, more intelligent children. We firmly believed this and, further, pitied our other cousins because they were the products of 'arranged' marriages whereas we were the product of a 'love' marriage. The story of our parents' meeting and their struggle to get married was the stuff of fairy stories and we never tired of getting my father to relate how he had fought with our grandmother for the hand of my mother and won.
"From my earliest days, then, at some level of consciousness I was aware of the interaction between the personal and the political. How the intimate workings of a family could represent or reflect a larger political context. This awareness of the ways in which the personal and political are intertwined intrigues me; that the capacities for racism, homophobia, sexism, and other injustices and hatreds are present at all levels within a society.
"The effect of the political on our personal lives reached its climax in the 1983 communal riots. Following the riots, my parents decided that there was no future for us in Sri Lanka and so we emigrated to Canada. It was hard for us to leave Sri Lanka, hard to leave the place that has always been, in our hearts, home.
"Being in Canada has been good, however, in that it has given me a creative perspective I might not have had otherwise. Like a lot of immigrant writers I find that a homeward pull inhabits my creative mind, that it is the capturing of the world I left behind that haunts my imagination. Yet, without the isolation from that world, without the act of migration, I wonder if FUNNY BOY would have ever been written."