- The author of the short book is Pulavar Nallathamby Sivanathan, a civil engineering and construction industrial professional who wrote under the pen name Pankayamanalan back in 1970s and 80s.
- He is the youngest son of Muduthamizhp Pulavar M. Nallathamby, a highly respected Tamil poet, pundit and a Tamil Scholar lived during the early part of the 20th century in Srilanka, the then Ceylon.
- His father, M. Nallathamby, is noted for several achievements, including:
- Translating the Sri Lankan national anthem into Tamil.
- Winning first place in an island-wide poetry competition with 58 participants, held to commemorate the 1948 independence of Sri Lanka.
- Writing the work titled “ManithaiNaadumMarathanoddamum” (The Nation Celebrating its geographic beauty, historical glamour, cultural harmonyand richnessand Seeking National Unity, Peace, and Social and Political Equalityand Universal Humanity and Its Inner World).
- Pulavar Nallathamby Sivanathan was lost his father when he was only eighteen months old baby and brought up by his widowed but very strong minded and highly charismatic mother, Mrs Thangaratnam Nallathamby until his youth life. He also lost his beloved mother when he was 19 years old.
- Pulavar Sivanathan’s creative writings, poetic, artistic performing skills originated since his childhood and evolved and developed in his younger life and he became a teacher in Maths, Science and Tamil in the early part of 1970s and left Srilanka to study Civil Engineering in the UK.
- In the period from 1981 to 1983, the writer took an employment package to work as an engineering manager on behalf the British company Raymond International UK Ltd in the fields of Geotechnical Engineering, Soil Investigation, Foundation Engineering, Ground Drilling and Boring Activities and Analysis, Piling Foundation Engineering, and Construction Material Testing and Technical Report Writing. It was during this time, in 1982, that he married in his homeland. In 1983, his eldest son was born there.
- During the 1983 Black July riots, the writer’s wife and his six months old baby son were displaced, traveling from Colombo on a ship to Jaffna. A few weeks later, the writer went to his homeland to rescue his family. This journey provided the writer with the direct experience of witnessing and hearing about the brutal face of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing, the burning homeland, and the plight of his own people.
- The events that began on July 23, 1983, are a significant and tragic chapter in Sri Lanka’s history. Widely known as Black July, the anti-Tamil pogrom saw widespread violence across the country, particularly in Colombo.
- During this period, organized mobs attacked and killed thousands of Tamils, and their homes, businesses, and properties were systematically looted and burned. The events are considered a major turning point, as they fueled the escalation of the Sri Lankan Civil War, leading many Tamil youths to join militant groups and prompting a large-scale exodus of refugees from the country.
- The nature of the violence and the extent of the government’s involvement are subjects of historical debate. While many scholars and organizations describe it as a pogrom or a state-sponsored riot, others, particularly within the Tamil community, refer to it as a genocide, arguing that the attacks were a deliberate attempt to destroy the Tamil people as a group.
Having also directly witnessed the Fourth World Tamil Research Conference massacre in 1974, and the shocking events that occurred to him at the Jaffna Medical College and on the street in front of the hospital, the writer, a world loving, humanity caring and very kind hearted Tamil man who was affected by these experiences, wrote a very special opinion piece for the first time from London upon his return with hisfamily, escaping the horrible blood shedding and lives burning island, supporting the idea of a separate state for the Tamil Nation and the longstanding ongoing freedom struggle to protect and preserve their own lands, thousands years of heritage, culture and life style, and above all to protect their lives and aspirations.
This piece,only contained a very few pages, ‘The Journey’ was published in Tamil Nadu through a publisher named T Govendan, in 1984, under the pen name Pangayamanalanand was published in Tamil Nadu by Mr. T. Govendan at PudhumaipPathippagam (8 Pavendar Street, Andavar Nagar, Chennai 24). This is that short book. (Currently, no copies are with the author).”
Until 1974, both during his life in his homeland and afterwards as a literary figure, he had only expressed social, religious, and political differences between the Tamils of the East and the Tamils of the world, and their demand for equality, through his poetry and other works. The writer, Pankayamanalan, the last in a line of great Tamil scholars and poets from Sri Lanka who yearned for a Tamil national anthem, expressed his view that the only way for the Sri Lankan Tamils to protect their dignity, tradition, rights, and to build a strong and secure future for themselves was to have a Tamil homeland.