Avatars of Uma

By Sumedha Jayasena

Once a notorious and ruthless terrorist group in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers, kidnaps Uma, a Tamil teenage girl on her way home from school. The organization delicately manipulates her immature and inexperienced mind to the point that Uma volunteers to become a suicide bomber to take personal revenge on the Sri Lankan military, the enemy of the terrorist group. She not only becomes a suicide bomber but establishes the hope for the beginning of a new class of female suicide bombers for the terrorist organization.

Uma goes through several incarnations or avatars in her suicide mission. She emerges from the jungle where the terrorist camps were in one such avatar as a spy. Uma sees life outside the warzone for the first time in her life and explores its beauty.

Ironically, she discovers the meaning of life, which she dreamed of with an army soldier, one of her enemies who she initially manipulated to take advantage of. Uma eventually became a victim of exploring her first-time experiences but survives.

For her safety, she manages to leave Sri Lanka to settle in the United Kingdom, where she learns the intricacies of society, which she had never experienced prior. Through her consciousness, Uma becomes a human rights activist in the UK and criticizes all angles of terrorism.

Uma never wanted to step on the soil of her native country, where she constantly shed tears and eventually buried agonizing misery when she left. Unexpectedly, she returns to Sri Lanka to rediscover that the country is still unsafe for her.

Uma lives within us. Her thoughts, actions, and characteristics mirror what ours might be, at least in certain times and circumstances.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BPGX31JB
• ISBN13: 9798353512370
• Release Date: December 2022
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 316 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 8.0"