"If my family had stayed here, if I had grown up on this island, I would never have met a man like Kevin. I would have had an arranged marriage, like my parents before me, and theirs before them, and so on and so on, back as far as anyone can remember. The Tamils have been on this island for two thousand years, and as far as we know, in all that time, everyone in my family has had an arranged marriage. If I had stayed in the north, I and my husband and my children would have been drawn into the war. He, and my sons, would have been drafted by the Tigers, might well be dead by now. I would be left a widow, and alone, like so many in the north, desperately trying to provide for myself and my daughters. Selling whatever I had worth bargaining with."