Going Home…

(This is a small editorial I wrote for UKLanka Times (January 2008) and it's caused a bit of a ruckus among several rotund people...await my very angry reaction...)

It’s a monumental moment. The sort that is preceded by long years of roaming the world as an expatriate and two days spent in a stinking cesspit of an airport somewhere in the nether regions of South India. It is what will hopefully be a triumphant return. I’m coming home. After 8 long years of travelling from North America to the Gulf to Southern Africa and Europe, I’m returning to Sri Lanka for my first meaningful holiday. Meaningful because I’ve been back several times over the past 8 years but only for fleeting visits to change a visa, attend the wedding of an ex-girlfriend or to pay a visit to the home of a relative who has either passed on or is about to pass on. But this time it’s special. It’s just me, my worldly possessions in a solitary backpack and an entire country to roam.
People are going on and on about how India’s is the second fastest growing economy in the world. I had been extremely excited to visit this burgeoning land. The Indira Ghandi International Airport in New Delhi however, had completely burst my expectant bubble. Sure it’s undergoing some sort of renovation program but it looks like a dump from the 1960’s with luggage trollies covered in a thick layer of dust, probably from that decade. You would think that the solitary international airport in the biggest city in the second fastest growing economy in the world would be one of the first things that would have been fixed with the billions that are streaming into India. In any case, having trawled through North India’s appalling roads, squatting toilets, broken heating systems and being utterly enchanted by the thrilling vibrancy of India, I prepared for my return to mother Lanka. My first concern had been the heat. I had packed a single set of jeans before leaving London because I knew North India would be cold but had failed to pack in any shorts for Sri Lanka. Heavy jeans are anathema to walking through Sri Lanka and I was reluctant to jaunt around in my beautiful Barefoot sarong. Thankfully, my flight got into Colombo early morning; serendipitous given that my body could slowly adjust to the searing heat that was expected in the morning.
The air is warm and heavy even at 1 o’clock in the morning as I step out of the aircraft at BIA, my subconscious mind forcing me to glance around worriedly, half expecting a rocket attack or something. That’s what being away does to you. You start absorbing all the bad news that comes out of the country and you lose the detachment from the violence that you had when you were living in the country. All’s well though and we are transported to the terminal building and lo and behold!! Indira Ghandi International eat your heart out is all I could think of. The clammy dump that was BIA several years ago has been replaced with shiny surfaces, glitzy stores and escalators. Escalators for goodness sake! Bless.
The escalator though throws up a surprise. No, it was working fine. Rather, as you ascend towards the immigration desks, a massive white figure appears to the left. Startled, seconds later, you come face to face with the biggest and whitest Buddha statue this side of Bamiyan. Now, I grew up in a staunchly Sinhala Buddhist family but even I’m not entirely certain as to the message that this gives out; “You are now entering a conservative Sinhala Buddhist country where the government professes to adhere to the compassionate values of Buddhism but is flexible in implementing those compassionate values on the people. And we mean VERY flexible.” It is the first thing that strikes you having alighted from the airplane and as you are making your way towards the country’s first port of entry. A Canadian tourist whom I had met in the plane asks, ‘Is Sri Lanka a religious state?’ I said of course not.
One of the things that I was determined to do on this trip was to once again experience the very essence of Sri Lanka. To that end I only carried a single back pack and a scarf (to soak in the sweat that was pouring off my head). Instead of taking a 2400-rupee taxi ride into Colombo I hopped on a bus, paid 60/= and got to the Pettah bus stand. Determined to stay awake at 3.30 in the morning I snuck into a dirty looking tea shop/kottu roti joint for a cup of coffee. I thought New Delhi and India in general was rather dirty. Dusty, open sewage, that sort of thing. The Pettah bus stand though takes dirtiness to an entirely new level. A quarter of the way through my coffee, I’m startled by a sudden series of thuds to my left. Right underneath the platform where the Kottu roti is made, a family of rats slightly smaller than the bus that I had travelled in were happily rummaging through the main ingredients for the next day’s Kottu, completely and utterly oblivious to my presence or my foot thumping. I kept the cup down and asked the yawning owner of the shop if he was aware of what was happening literally under his nose but he just shrugged. I scooted and took another bus down to Galle Face Green (or Galle Face Brown, depending on how hot it is) wanting to take in the ocean breeze and the colonial beauty of Colombo once again before checking into my accommodation in Mount Lavinia in the morning.
It seems hard to digest that Colombo has developed so much over the last 8 years. A bloody civil war anywhere else would mean slow deterioration of economic conditions but it has had the exact opposite effect here. In spite of the daily escalation of the war and the vast cost associated with it, in spite of the eternal presence of bleary eyed, 12-year-old soldiers armed to the teeth, Colombo is fast gaining on other concrete jungles such as Dubai. The rate of development is astounding. And it’s not like there’s a lucrative oil industry that counter balances the vast sums of money being spent on the war effort. So where’s the money coming from for these glistening concrete behemoths? People on Galle Face Green (or brown) at that time of the morning, revellers leaving night clubs, taxi drivers, soldiers and others say that expatriate Tamils are pouring money into Colombo snapping up apartments and real estate like there was no tomorrow; all in a supposedly sinister effort to eventually take control of the economy. I can’t, however, vouch for the spending habits of my Tamil expat friends in London who are instead putting money (rather stupidly) into the Balkans. As morning approaches the city, after about half an hour of sleep, jumps back into life; busy, polluted, noisy and thrilling. The perfect antidote to a man tired of the dreary, wet, blandness of London.
Speaking of London, there’s this constant debate in the English capital about the ever expanding gap between the rich and the poor. I’ve never really seen it in London. Sure there are the super rich, the kind of rich and the white trash but no one is really badly off are they? The council-flat dwellers that live on benefits are seemingly doing better than most middle class workers. The phrase “gap between rich and poor” is really put into context in Sri Lanka. You are either one of those who earn somewhere between Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 a month or you’re someone who earns a salary above Rs 140,000 a month with nothing of substance in between. Something remarkable I noticed every morning near the apartment I was staying in, was that the Rs 140,000-and-above crowd would visit a slightly posh looking pastry shop for breakfast, downing fish cutlets that cost 35 rupees washed down by iced coffee that retails at 50 rupees. The local bus drivers and government clerk types would visit an adjoining tea shop where half a loaf of bread and a small dish of delicious dhal (I know because I tried it and loved it) costs 40 rupees. The rich really are getting richer while the poor…well you know what I mean. It’s astonishing. It has come to a point where a majority of the population has to carefully consider having chicken for dinner because the decent stuff is so prohibitively expensive. A cup of tea for 30 rupees?? Our country makes the bloody tea for goodness sake!
If you were to ask me, “what’s the best thing about Sri Lanka?” I would not have any hesitation in saying, the beach son! I visited Mount Lavinia beach, a place I grew up, diligently whenever I was in Colombo. There’s something so nostalgic and melancholic about Mount Beach. And it’s not just a personal sentiment either. Forget the fancy place along the new “marine drive” in Wellawatte; rather begin at Mount Lavinia Hotel and walk towards Colombo. The cleansing effect you feel is incredible.
Sri Lanka may be the land of a thousand smiles but everywhere you look there’s a draconian feel to life on the Island. Out celebrating with a couple of old friends in Colombo one night and the waiter comes in at 10.30 pm and asks us to vacate the restaurant. When asked why the waiter shrugs and says “That’s the rule now sir. Mathata Thitha.” We scamper off down to the beach, and continue our drinking there. On another occasion, I’m walking towards the main Mount Lavinia bus stand and light up a cigarette. Four police officers, three males and a female, two of the officers carrying automatic rifles, are walking towards me. I take scant notice. They suddenly stop and stare at me. Now I wasn’t wearing fluorescent slippers or pink underwear. Our eyes meet and one of the officers asks, “What’s with the cigarette sir?” “What about the cigarette ralahaami?” I inquire. “You can’t smoke on the road now.” I’m flabbergasted. I tell him that I’ve just landed on the island and was completely unaware about any law of this kind but my protestations are to no avail and I’m slapped with a Rs. 2500 fine. Preposterous is a word that kept doing the rounds in my head. Nothing is predictable. Even as a smoker, I applaud efforts such as the British government’s to cut down on smoking indoors but this is taking the British example and bastardizing it isn’t it?
Two days before I leave the island a government minister storms into the national broadcaster’s office and proceeds to assault a news editor for cutting out a speech the minister gave at the opening of an obscure bridge somewhere in the south. What was most alarming was the fact that all the newspapers in Colombo ran the story on their front cover but no one bothered to openly criticize or comment on the rather blatantly arrogant behaviour. Even the taxi driver shrugs it off saying that this is “normal”. A month earlier, the same minister had walked into the Canadian Embassy (sovereign Canadian territory FYI) and brandished a gun at the terrified entry clearance officer asking him to provide the said minister’s son with a visitor’s visa. It’s madness.
Walking back one day from Galle Face towards the ridiculously priced Deli France at the Crescat to have an Iced Coffee and yet another police officer walks up to me and demands that I move into a nearby building as “they are clearing the road”. With that I’m bundled into a sweaty and dark corridor where another 20 people are crammed in while whatever is happening outside ceases to happen. At first I think that they may have discovered some sort of explosive device somewhere. I find out however that it’s in fact to clear the way for a very important dignitary to pass. The speed with which this clearance was achieved was impressive on one level. On another level, the inconvenience it caused was infuriating; being pushed inside a dimly lit corridor with 50 other people in a hot and humid space because crony in charge of putting on the president’s cuff links had to pass through…
And it’s not like people don’t criticize. Everywhere you go, from the three-wheeler driver to the tea shop owner to the radio-presenter friends, people are constantly chatting about the apparent daily deterioration of the living standard and the growth of an oppressive culture. But it’s just that; talk and more talk and lamenting. Nothing goes beyond that. Even the most powerful in the country dare not.
And yet amidst all of this…the joys of Sri Lanka remain. Sri Lanka has this amazing ability to infuriate you with its ludicrousness and overwhelm you with its sense of history and romance. There is something so relaxing, so familiar about Sri Lanka and I’m not just saying that because I was born and brought up there. It’s a sentiment shared with people who have visited once, fallen in love and never visited anywhere else. I used to wonder why expatriate Sri Lankans, some with absolutely no connections to Sri Lanka in terms of family members or property, insist on spending their hard earned annual holidays only and only in Sri Lanka and not in some other exotic location like the Galapagos. There’s a deep sense of home about Sri Lanka, no matter where you are from. It embraces you, sucks you in, frustrates you deeply, elates you no end and an eternal love affair begins. It is amazing how this beautiful, magical place can move me and overwhelm me while at the same time frustrate and infuriate me. It is amazing how affectionate warmth can coexist with blatant injustice, and comfortably at that. And nothing will ever change.

Necessity is the mother of invention? Frustration more like...

I feel terribly frustrated and what a wonderful this blogging thingamagic is for me to vent my frustrations...await juice!