Nine hours after the tsunami struck the coast of Sri Lanka on December 26 last year, rescue workers found a 10-week-old boy caked in mud and took him to Kalmunai Base hospital. There he was registered as ”Baby 81”, the 81st person admitted on that chaotic day.
The tsunami that left at least 216 000 people dead or missing in 12 countries took more than 31 000 Sri Lankans, 40% of them children. It was hardly surprising that nine couples whose infants had been torn from their arms turned up to claim Baby 81.
Eight of them soon dropped their claims, but it wasn’t until February 16 that a court-ordered DNA test delivered Murugupillai and Jenita Jeyarajah’s son back to them.
His name is Abilass Jeyarajah.
ABC News whisked him and his parents to New York. There, they stayed in a hotel that costs more for one night than Murugupillai earns in months. They appeared on Good Morning America.
Abilass received some gifts — a few toys, including a teddy bear — but his parents say they were not paid for their story.
In their village of Kalmunai, few believe them. The family returned home to open resentment from those who lost everything and received so little.
Even the free public hospital where Abilass spent seven weeks after the tsunami has turned the Jeyarajahs away, saying they can afford private care.
”Life has become very difficult for us,” Murugupillai said in a recent interview.
One night, he said, he was confronted by a group of men who accused him of becoming wealthy from donations.
”I told them no one has given me money. They got angry and started beating me up,” he said.
He reported the attack, but claims the police did nothing.
When Murugupillai (31) and Jenita (26) ventured out, people pointed at ”Baby 81’s father” and taunted ”the rich tsunami family”, he said. Soon, his wife stopped going out at all.
In August, the family moved to a hamlet 25km away. There Murugupillai, a barber, opened a salon with his brother. They earn about 400 rupees ($4) a day.
But the perception of wealth followed them.
”People here initially welcomed us,” Murugupillai Jeyarajah said, ”but slowly they are changing.”
Little Abilass is changing too. He’s walking now, barely. He loves munching biscuits and deboned fish. At a recent temple visit with his father, he laughed as he played with other children.
But at night, his sleep is fitful. Even footsteps are enough to wake him.
”He often sobs and moans in his sleep,” his father says. ”He was not like this before.”
Disturbed sleep signals painful emotions below the surface, ”a manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder”, says Dr Sanchita Bhattacharya, of the Apollo hospital in Colombo. Since the tsunami, she says, ”babies have nightmares, bad dreams and hallucinations”.
Back in their rented house, Murugupillai brings out newspaper clippings of their visit to the United States. Then he displays the family’s application for the US immigration lottery.
In the US, he says, the family could begin anew. There, his son would be known only by his name, derived from a Sanskrit word meaning ”aspiration” or ”desire”.
”The name of my boy is Abilass,” he says. ”Not Baby 81.” — Sapa-AP