Please be critical:
Prompt: Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.
A Genocide to End Them All
As a boy growing up in the southern tip of India, I was not unaware of the
genocide happening across the narrow Palk Strait in Sri Lanka. But as a folly of
youth (of which there are plenty), I did not take the situation very seriously. Sure,
there were signs of what was happening. Distant relatives would come up in Sun
TV, the major Tamil news channel, as among those who had been killed during
that day's fighting. Eventually, my father was given a job in America, filling my
mind with all the rich opportunities waiting for me. This put an already faded
memory deeper into my subconscious.
When I was in 8th grade, my grandfather announced he was helping to
build an orphanage for all the refugee children that no longer had parents. Like
everyone else in my family, I lauded him with praise for his philanthropy.
However, I never truly understood the impact of what that orphanage would do
to my life. That following summer we took our annual trip to India. But this
time, my father and grandfather urged me to spend a week at the orphanage.
The boys I met there, most of them about the same age as myself, never once
spoke about what had happened back in Sri Lanka. The one time I asked the
refugees about it, they just gave a scared glance and averted their eyes. I
asked my grandfather about this odd behavior, and he just shrugged and
said," The memory has been scared out of them". I almost laughed when I first
heard his reply. After all, how terrible could it be in Sri Lanka if they didn't even
remember it? Then it struck me, a nauseating feeling, and I realized that all
those scars and missing appendages weren't forgotten because they didn't
hurt. They were forgotten because the orphans had been blinded by pain and
sheer fear of death.
I returned to orphanage a couple years later, as I was done with the
10th grade and entering high school. Thanks to some lucky breaks, I already
knew that I wanted to be a computer programmer. Heck, I was more focused
on who I was going to ask for the Homecoming dance that following fall. But
once again, the orphanage put my priorities in order. The same boys were
now mature young men, working hard on their schoolwork while I just lounged
upon a recliner watching some old Bollywood cinema. One of the boys, a few
years older then me, had aspirations to become the first one in his family to go
onto college.
It was then I realized I needed be more than just an engineer. I had to
have another skill set that could help refugees deprived of even a meager life.
Therefore I have decided to become a civil or mechanical engineer with the
hope that I can one day help build back the ruins of their former homes. In
addition, I hope to pursue an international relations/studies type of major.
While it is easy to forget about what is happening to a relatively few amount of
people halfway across the world, it was the coming to face to face with a few
hard-working boys that opened my view on the world.
