Out Of Hell
[Journey to Goodness]
In the shadowed jungles of Mullaitivu, where the winds whispered secrets of war and sorrow, lived a girl named Maheshwari. A little girl from the north, playing in the yard, like the rest and having hopes to grow into a beautiful woman with a future, someday. An only child, her young parents were looking forward to a great future for their daughter, believing she will receive a decent education, a husband, family, and a new home, as they had been through in their lives. All their hard work and savings were being put away for the dowry they would have to pay to the grrom who comes to take Maheswari away.
She was only fifteen when the recruiters came, men with stern eyes and loaded rifles, their words heavy with ideology and fear. They didn’t ask; they took. Her mother had screamed, clutching her daughter's arm until it bled, but the rifles had the final say. That night, Maheshwari became a child soldier in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The camp was hidden deep within the forests of Mullaitivu, a world apart from the paddy fields and temples she had known. Here, the sun rose on drills and dogma. Boys and girls were stripped of their names and clothed in uniforms too large for their growing frames. Maheshwari, now known as “Aish” was taught to dismantle and reassemble an AK-47, to crawl through mud under barbed wire, to hurl grenades with precision. Her instructors did not spare her, she had to earn her stripes, like every fighter in the cause.
They spoke to her of Tamil Eelam, a promised homeland where no Sinhalese soldier would ever tread. At night, they played old speeches of fallen leaders, voices dripping with resolve and bitterness. Around her neck hung a small black capsule, the cyanide tablet. "If you're caught," they warned, "bite. Better to die than be humiliated."
For months, Maheshwari fought. She had seen the whites of the enemy's eyes, and once, in a raid gone awry, she had killed. The first time, she vomited until her ribs ached. The second time, her hands only shook. By the third, there was silence within her. Not peace, just silence. Her mind was never at ease. She knew that what she was doing was wrong. That’s what her parents had instilled in her since she was an infant. They were decent human beings. The community into which they were born was not the criteria for their human nature.
But war is exhausting. Not just to the body, but to the soul. Aish, the militant, began to dream, not of guns or flags, but of the taste of her mother's rasam, the soft chants at the kovil, the giggles she once shared with her cousin Meena under the banana trees.
One night, after a skirmish that left many of her unit dead and her spirit more wounded than her scraped knees, she slipped away slowly. She discarded the LTTE uniform and T56 in a ditch, covering it with leaves and guilt, and put on a faded blouse and skirt she had stolen from a washing line in a nearby village. Her cyanide capsule, she buried under a tree with shaking fingers. Her only thought was to flee. Anywhere but here.
She walked for days, living on stolen fruit and river water. Her mind replayed every lesson drilled into her: the map of the land, the hiding places, the signs of danger. But now, her goal was not to destroy, it was to survive. And to escape. She knew that if the LTTE caught her she would be finished. A tremendous risk very few had the courage to take.
On the main road outside Vavuniya, she flagged down a rust-covered lorry driven by a broad-shouldered man with a tired smile. His name was Bandula, a Sinhalese trader delivering dried goods to Kandy. Her heart pounded in her ears as she stepped into the cabin. What if he recognized her? What if he turned her in?
Bandula looked at her mud-streaked face and sunken eyes and said nothing. For miles, they drove in silence, the jungle giving way to hills and mist. At one point, he handed her a water bottle and a mango. “Eat,” he said. She nodded, too grateful to speak.
When they reached Bahirawakande, the old hill above Kandy that gazed down like a wise elder, Maheshwari asked to be dropped off near a mosque she’d seen from the road. There, her trembling feet led her to the gate of a modest Moor household. It was nearly dusk. The family matriarch, Fathima Naleema, opened the door, taken aback by the girl's hollow eyes.
"I need help," Maheshwari whispered in broken Sinhala.
Fathima saw the desperation and opened the door wider. The Moor family, generous in spirit and faith, took her in without question. She slept that night in a room once used for guests, curled like a cat, tears soaking the pillow. For the first time in many weeks she had the chance to shower and wear clean clothes. Over the next week, they fed her, cared for her, and taught her to smile again, just a little. They made her wear a shalwar and kameez, like most teen Moor girls do in order to avoid detection as a Tamil. Fathima’s grandson, Riyaz, taught her how to navigate Kandy’s markets without drawing attention. He joked gently with her, easing the fear from her face.
But danger loomed. The war raged on. Word traveled. The family knew they couldn't keep her safe forever. So, one moonless night, Fathima bought her a train ticket to Colombo and pressed a small bundle of money into her hand.
“Go to the CID,” she said, “Tell them everything. They will protect you.” “My brother, Ahmed, in Colombo will meet you at the station and take you there safely.”
Colombo was loud and fast and full of strangers. Maheshwari, overwhelmed and frightened, navigated through Pettah, her face like a ghost. Ahmed took her carefully to the CID office near in The Fort and walked in, her limbs shaking, ready to bite a cyanide capsule that no longer existed.
“I want to surrender,” she told the startled officer at the desk. “I was with the Tigers. I ran away. I don't want to die.”
The CID had seen many like her, but few with such clarity in their eyes. They placed her in a safe house, a compound guarded by soldiers but with gardens and books, healthcare personnel and counselors who spoke kindly and treated her well. She began to heal. Slowly. Surely.
The war ended in May 2009. Streets erupted with firecrackers and flags. But Maheshwari didn’t celebrate. For her, peace wasn’t a parade, it was the silence that finally felt like freedom. She was seventeen when she was released. The government offered her vocational training, therapy, and a new identity if she wanted it. But Maheshwari only wanted to go home.
She returned to Mullaitivu, to a village shattered by shells but still breathing. Her mother was older, thinner, but alive. They wept in each other’s arms for hours. No one spoke of what Maheshwari had done or seen. They planted a small garden together and slowly rebuilt their home.
In the years that followed, Maheshwari told her story to others, not for sympathy, but for truth. She spoke at reconciliation forums, at schools, and women’s groups. She refused to be called a victim. She was a survivor. A girl who had tasted darkness, spat it out, and chosen light, at great risk, and with no promise of reward.
She would say to the young girls who listened, “You always have a choice. Even in war. Especially in war.”
And in Bahirawakande, a middle-class Moor family still remembers the girl who came knocking one twilight, and left behind a lesson in courage. They were simple and honorable people. Islam had taught them never to turn away a stranger who comes to your door.