Ravi runs a small tailor shop by the side of the Batticaloa road in Sri Lanka. He has 3 daughters. His wife had passed away some years ago and he has to be the father and the mother to the girls. “I was a farmer but because of the War, we had to move. I could not find a job in this area, so this is something I thought to do myself. All I have is my girls and this old sewing machine. That’s all I need,” he told me.

Tailor shop Ravi Batticaloa 2008, Digital

Poem by Roel Raymond

Knock.
If you will,
you will find nothing.
Gaze into my eyes,
if you will.
You will see nothing.

Oh,
but I am not nothing;
time wrestled me to the
ground,
punched me
left me for dead.

Memory clung on to me,
weighed my every step,
etched cruel lines on my
face;
experience bent me,
stiffened every bone,

And yet,
If you will,
Knock.
You will find only love.

Gaze into my eyes,
you will see only the locked
secret;
the strength of eternity.