– I had a small, red bag with some socks and some panties. That was it, says Ramesh Nagarajah. He talks about when he was 16 and standing in the summer heat in Oslo. Ramesh had never been outside the area around the city of Jaffna in Sri Lanka. He didn’t know anyone in Norway. He didn’t know the language, and now he was going to live here. – But I remember we walked along the road there and picked apples from the trees which we ate. It was quite special. Apples. We didn’t have that in Sri Lanka. But they had a civil war in his homeland. The story of Ramesh Nagarajah took a complete turn when the civil war in Sri Lanka broke out in 1983. Photo: LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI / AFP Tractor and guerilla war When Ramesh talks about his childhood, he starts by telling about small children running after bicycle wheels with sticks and playing that they drove a car. About a house, a “proper cement house”, and electricity. About mum who cooked dinner on the wood stove that burned all day, and four siblings, and a dad who was both a teacher and a kind of entrepreneur. Little Ramesh as a baby in Sri Lanka In this house, Ramesh grew up, together with mum, dad and four siblings. Kaia in Jaffna in Sri Lanka where Ramesh grew up. Dad used to drive four hours one way to get goods to sell at the market. Mostly coconuts. – People in Sri Lanka use coconut and coconut milk in a lot of the food they make, so I reckon he made some money from it, says Ramesh. Dad was rarely alone on his trips. – It is a superstition that it is good luck to be with your eldest son, so I joined, says Ramesh. The drive to dad’s didn’t go quickly. The tractor was traveling at 12 kilometers per hour. – We sat there, then. Then we stopped in between to drink tea and eat some sweets. I still remember these places when I am in Sri Lanka. But then civil war broke out, and when he talks about the war, Ramesh also talks about a life in motion. The civil war in Sri Lanka lasted 26 years, and ended in 2009. Photo: LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI / AFP Ramesh’s family are Tamils, the second largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka. The majority in Sri Lanka are Sinhalese. Relations between Tamils and Sinhalese were good when Ramesh was a boy. But when he was 12, something happened. A group that called itself the Tamil Tigers wanted to fight for the rights of Tamils. They demanded an independent Tamil state, and in 1983 civil war broke out between the Tamils and the authorities. – We were like brothers, dad worked at the Sinhalese school. And then suddenly we were going to fight each other. It was very strange. In the following years, Ramesh and his family are constantly on the run. According to him, it worked like this: the Tigers blew up some bombs in a place, and left from there. Then the government forces came after and tried to take those who were in the area, mostly civilians. A bus that burns during the civil war in Sri Lanka. Photo: REUTERS – That was guerilla warfare. They didn’t have enough forces to resist all the time, so then it was the civilian population that had to take the brunt, says Ramesh. Therefore, he and his family had to constantly move. If there were skirmishes near where they were, they had to find another place to be. – But we knew people all over the place, and then we came back when the military had gone on their way. That’s how it was. The rumor went, that’s how it happens. What also happened was that the Tamil Tigers started recruiting children and young people, and both Ramesh and his younger brother Ramanan were in the middle of the target group. The Tamil Tigers recruited youths for the civil war in Sri Lanka. Here is a group of soldiers on a cargo plane. Photo: GEMUNU AMARASINGHE / AP – I considered it. We were afraid of dying, and I didn’t want to be killed. Then I would rather carry a weapon and be able to defend myself, he says. So Dad made a choice. The sons had to be sent away to avoid becoming part of the war, but the family had limited money. Therefore, they could not send both boys to the same country far away. So Ramanan went to Qatar, Ramesh to Norway. 16 years old, in a plane for the first time. Dad was standing on the stairs when the plane taxied out onto the runways. Ramesh remembers that his father was sad and that he himself was excited. What would a new life be like in a country where there were polar bears? The only thing Ramesh Nagarajah knew about Norway before he came here was that there were supposedly polar bears here. Photo: Vidar Arnesen / Governor Open shops, salt and pepper There are not many polar bears in Svolvær, but there are fish. Lots of fish that Ramesh can transport here and there with his wagon trains. The boy from Sri Lanka who came to Norway with a small red bag now owns a company with five wagon trains. And the road here started, according to Ramesh, with the good welcome he received when he arrived in the country. After Ramesh came to Norway, many doors have opened for him. Photo: Petter Strøm / news At the reception in Sandvika Norwegian learning started straight away, and they also had activities almost every day. Barbecues, trips to the beach and strawberry picking. Always someone who took care of Ramesh and the others who came from Sri Lanka. It continued like this when he was moved on to Tinnsjå in Rjukan. – I learned Norwegian very quickly. It was important. If you have to wait to learn the language until you get a residence permit, that waiting time, if you don’t do something you’ll go crazy, says Ramesh. In the beginning, Ramesh hardly had time to think about his family in Sri Lanka. Just as well, perhaps, because calling them was complicated. The parents didn’t have a phone, so Ramesh had to call a neighbor and arrange a time. Then they had to pick up the parents and Ramesh had to call back at the appointed time. – They understood nothing of what I told them. That we stood inside and cooked on an electric stove, and that we could go into the store and pick the goods ourselves, for example. And that Norwegian food only had salt and pepper. It was probably also difficult for the parents to understand why their son would eventually move even further north. Ramesh was actually just going to Svolvær to do some work. But he stayed. Photo: Petter Strøm / news – She was the one who fell in love with me first Ramesh had some cousins in Lofoten. So, after completing primary school and completing a year at folk college, he went to Northern Norway to work. Here there were high, pointed mountains, people who were easier to talk to, cold fingers, fishing trips, grilled sausages and several different jobs. Including at King Oscar’s factory where Elin Anita worked. – She was the one who fell in love with me first. The two chatted a lot before they actually got together. And it was Elin Anita who made Ramesh pursue his dream of starting his own transport company. Even though he only had around NOK 4,000 in his account. Ramesh Nagarajah with his family: Emmy Ajantha (Ramesh’s biological daughter, left), Ramesh, Martin Samer (center front, adopted from Colombia), Maja Roxana (center back, adopted from Colombia, wife Elin Anita and Eilert Erik (front to (right, adopted from Norway). Photo: Ramesh Nagarajah The banks had little faith in Ramesh, but he managed to wrangle himself into an overdraft of NOK 200,000. Just enough for the first diesel bill, as he says. But with the help of good customers on the quay , who could pay for himself right away, he got the company Ramesh Nagarajah on the wheels. In the first year, in 2016, he had a turnover of NOK 2.2 million with one car. Now Ramesh has five trucks, transporting everything from fish to moving loads , had a turnover of over 10 million last year, and has a clear desire for the future. – I get quite proud when I see the five cars in a row, says Ramesh Nagarajah. Photo: Ramesh Nagarajah – Have they forgotten us northerners? Right now is there an election campaign Sylvi Listhaug has driven the length and breadth of Norway in her white and blue FRP motorhome and talked about what needs to be done with roads in northern Norway. Trygve Slagsvold Vedum (Sp) in search of votes stood in the ditch on E6 in Sørfold together with Bjørnar Skjæran (Ap) and promised billions for a completely new road. Transport Minister John Ivar Nygård (Ap) put the shovel in the ground for Northern Norway’s largest road project ever. At the same time, the local politicians in Lofoten, Ramesh’s starting point, fear that the roads there will be forgotten. This is what worries Ramesh Nagarajah. Because he depends on the road being open and safe. So are all the drivers he has in his stable. And their customers. Ramesh loves the freedom behind the wheel. Then he can listen to the blues and drink coffee. Photo: Petter Strøm / news – If something happens on the roads, we risk not being able to get there in time. It goes beyond our missions. And the fish we transport can deteriorate. Then our customers don’t get paid as well for it, says Ramesh. – It seems that they have forgotten us northerners. I’ve been driving on these roads for years and nothing happens. At the same time as traffic increases, at least in the summer. This summer, traffic on the roads in Lofoten was so heavy that tourism entrepreneur Sandro Della-Mea thought enough was enough. He decided to discontinue the bike tours he offers to tourists. – I have no need to be nervous about people being driven to death, he told news. An attitude Della-Mea shares with Ramesh Nagarajah. Many tens of motorhomes drive in a row along the roads in Lofoten, and meet the photographer couple Stine Mette Fjerdingstad and Halvdan Jarl Laugerud. @stineogjarlen – I miss a politician who takes this on. Who come up here and see what our everyday life is like. I want it to be safe for us who drive trailers, those who drive cars and those who walk along the road. But for now, Ramesh Nagarajah continues to get into the cab of his wagon trains. The machinery beeps when he turns the key, before the hum of the engine starts. – Should I just take it easy? asks Ramesh. The dialect is Northern Norwegian with a hint of Tamil. Ramesh has five permanent employees and three temporary drivers, but even though he is the day-to-day manager of his company, Ramesh likes to drive quite a bit himself as well. Photo: Petter Strøm / news This time he will drive a moving load south, from Svolvær to Oslo. – Then I work to get hold of an assignment when I go north again. But it usually works out. Ramesh’s father died in 2018. But he managed to experience that the son he sent to Norway in the late 80s has started a company with the family name written on the side of the wagon trains. – He was proud. It is not usual to come from there and run a transport company here. If dad hadn’t sent me here, I don’t know what would have happened. Ramesh Nagarajah Listen to the podcast about Ramesh here: And here you can hear what Rikard Gaarder Knutsen, subject manager at the Information Council for Road Traffic, said about the northern Norwegian roads when he visited “Ekko”.
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Ramesh Nagarajah from Sri Lanka as a refugee. Now he earns millions from trucking in Lofoten – Nordland
