Chenturan Aran: The import-export of identity

Thousands of Sri Lankan children were adopted illegally between the 1960s and 1980s, leaving many inter-country and inter-racial adoptees grappling with lost identities. Sri Lankan-Australian playwright, Chenturan Aran, uses dark humor to explore this painful history in his new production, 'Cut Chilli'. But how does one craft such a story in Australia, a country with its own history of stolen generation, while also renegotiating their cultural displacement as a child of the diaspora? Dilpreet hosts.

Mostly adopted by Europeans, Sri Lankan adoptees around the world often struggle to trace their roots. Many were sold illegally, produced in baby farms, or put up for sale by parents unable to provide for them. Inter-country and inter-racial adoptions—in this case, brown children adopted by white families—can lead to a lifelong grief of not knowing where they come from or why they were given up.

There has been limited reporting on such adoptions in Australia, including the illicit routes through which they may have persisted.

Chenturan Aran, aka Chen, whose latest play 'Cut Chilli' draws inspiration from Sri Lanka’s troubled history of adoption fraud, joins Dilpreet in the Sydney studio to explore how theatre serves as a medium to unearth vulnerability, truth, and hope within these narratives while also reflecting on his personal research and interviews that deepened his understanding of the identity removal caused by adoption.

Chen shares personal experiences of cultural disconnection, underscoring the importance of empathy, self-awareness, and intersectionality in our shared comprehension of grief.

I hope this play helps recover an urgent and suppressed story around the victims of inter-country adoption fraud in Sri Lanka. A lot of governments are embarrassed by what happened. So the more we tell the story, the more understanding we'll have, and the more pressure there is for them to meet their birth families or [at least] understand where they came from.

Chenturan Aran on the significance of 'Cut Chilli'

Confident in the fact that the play "isn't persecuting anyone for political incorrectness", Chen tells Dilpreet why he named it 'Cut Chilli' and where the diaspora might find itself when embracing its heritage more openly.

'Cut Chilli' will be playing at The Old Fitz Theatre in Sydney.

Tap the audio player to listen to the full interview.

SBS Spice breaks new ground with English language content for young South Asians in Australia by exploring what is making us tick or ick. Find us in your podcast app such as the SBS Audio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or LiSTNR and follow us on Instagram @SBSSpice