A strong woman from Neeliyamoddai village in Vavuniya who is rebuilding her life after being displaced by the conflict. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

I had written this piece about Closing the Gender Gap in the “End Poverty in South Asia” blog after seeing that the Annual Global Gender Gap Index gave a higher rank to Sri Lanka that Australia. In that post I raised the question whether we Sri Lankan women were better than the Sheila’s ( Aussie slang for the ladies) in Oz and caused an  interesting debate.

Pala  (from Oz I presume),  gave an emphatic NO and said ”There is no comparison between the women in the workforce in Sri Lanka and Oz. The majority of women in the work force in SL are in poverty based jobs -plucking tea, working in garment factories and living away from home or literally in slavery in the Middle East. My heart bleeds for these sisters. Global Gender Gap Index fails to see these glaring inequalities which even Blind Freddie can see.” Fair enough….

Sujata pointed out in the direction of the Lanka Women and the Political Representation  for Women site and said that “empowerment of two Bandaranyakes does not in any way reflect the political empowerment of women in Sri Lanka.”

While it is apparent now that we shouldn’t go into an euphoric state about the status of us women in Lanka, for me the issues are still of discrimination, the stereotyping, the need not to rock the boat and be that  good little girl. Good behavioue was rewarded with love, and if deemed bad you sat in the corner alone ostracized.

Just think, gender didn’t exist for three billion years when we were all single cell creatures. Then came the  XX and the XY sex choromosmes, and a  host of complication not entirely  algebraic .

Being a woman I muse about our lot. Etched in my mind is my favourite play of Henry Jayasena — Kuveni. the legendary iridescent foremother of Sri Lanka. Her story takes us back some 25 or so centuries.   Kuveni was Sri Lanka’s first queen of the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka and was indeed a woman in control of her tribe.   the first power woman?  However, history branded her as a “she devil” who bewitched the Indian Prince Vijaya, who landed in Sri Lanka,. Vijaya apparently saw this beauty weaving and was mesmerized by her.  (Incidentally, Vijaya, the Son of King Sinhabahu was banished from India as a problematic prodigal son).  

Kuveni was in turn supposed to have been “tamed” by the prodigal Vijaya, and they had ruled the country as partners.  But in this story as old as time, Kuveni was thrown out of the palace with her two children when Vijaya replaced her with a princess from India.  Legend says Kuveni,  banished from the palace went  back to her own people, who killed her as a traitor. She had the last word or words – a legendary lasting curse on the island. So according to legend she was powerful enough to leave a casting spell that has lasted and been effective for  25 centuries or more but she was not powerful enough to save herself.

Kuveni’s story resonated with the sensitive playwriter Jayasena was who saw her beauty, the wronged mother, the  wife , and cleverly juxtaposed her  through the ages  as the wronged woman betrayed by her husband.  As she was so are we . Embedded in all of us are hopes, desires, curses, condemnations, peace, love, beauty, power and freedom.

The question for me is do we stay swathed in curses, forever saddled by karmic genes, stuck in roles imposed on us? Or can we women break free from the age old moulds we have been cast into , be strong enough to shape our lives and be the persons we’ve always wanted to be?

No truth the eye can see

In a world that darkness fills

Unreal was the past –

Can the future bring truths at last?

In the darkness that prevails

The eye can only see

Dreams and drifting delusions

Caught in the net of illusion

Our eyes are tricked by its veils

Which mould only magical visions.

 (Translation by Lakshmi de Silva from the play  Kuveni by Henry Jayasena)

Tharindu Udaya Kumara and Niroshani Dilki. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Saturday mornings are for lying in – there’s birds chirping on the lawn, noisy squirrels on my barren avocado tree,  and I can just about see the “Thalagoya” (monitor lizard) sunning on the wall.  I am slow to emerge from layers of sleep, trying to hold on to the view in my head of the breathtaking beauty of the Knuckles range, the Randenigala dam, the glimpse of Adam’s Peak on the edge of  a blue sky – an aerial view from flight to Batticaloa. Breaking this lazy morning reverie, the door bell rings. Mentally, making yet another note to get that door bell changed, I was ready to chase a salesman.  Doe like eyes, hesitant not sure of the reception, he stood there, the ubiquitous plastic bag in one hand and in the other a bunch of greens. 

Would you please buy this last bunch of gotukola?

What’s your name?

Tharindu Udayakumara

Do you grow them?

No, my mother buys them and we sell them again to make some extra money for the family. This is only Rs.10 (1 US$=LKR 115 approx)

How much do you make a day?  Oh, about Rs.200

A little girl puts her head through the door and smiles coyly.  She is a little princess – Is she your sister? 

Yes, her name is Niroshani and she is nine years old.

She corrects the brother — It is Niroshani Dilki

How old are you?

I am ten and she is 9 years.

Go to school?

Yes to Revatha , I want to be a doctor.

And  Niroshani Dilki?

The smile is wide and the eyes light up

I want to be a teacher.

Any more in your family?

Yes, eight – eight kids?

No, there is my mother and  father, and my elder brother , and baby sister and grandfather ( that only makes 7 but  I didn’t add properly at that time).

 Achchi – where is she?

She died.

Where is your brother?

She is looking after my baby sister who is three as my mother has to wash clothes and cook.

And your father?

He is a labourer

Do you help your mother?

Yes, we wash dishes, sweep the garden, the hand goes protectively round the sister.

May I take your photo?

Yes.

No smiles for me?

The smiles are enough to warm the cockles of my heart.

They turn towalk away hand in hand. He turns back and repeats I want to be a doctor. My thoughts ping back to another boy I met at the Kotmale Internet Radio Station. He too had walked up the hill selling gotukola and stayed on fascinated to learn about computers.  By the time I met him he was posting information on a website in Sinhala, Tamil and English and for a good measure was teaching the rudiments of flash to his buddy. Both his parents were estate labourers. He too had a dream. …

P.S.  Gotu in the Sinhala language is conical and Kola is leaf .  Scientific name Centella Asiatica. In Sri Lanka it is made into a finely finely sliced salad with onions, fresh coconut,  flavoured with  lime and a pepper dressing. It is also cooked into a curry with coconut milk and is popularly taken in the morning as a local watery porridge  –Gotukola Kanda –made with red rice, coconut milk and the extracted juice from the leaves. My gym serves this and is great after a workout. There is at least one posh restaurent in Colombo that has on the menu as an elegant upmarket soup — no doubt flavoured with cream.

Mine went into a not so finely sliced salad and it tasted pretty good with my crab curry — ahh to be in Lanka:-))

No matter that I had to drag myself out of a cosy house, drive through pelting rain, the perpetually  maddening Colombo traffic ,  to get to the Cinnamon Grand.  It was worth the effort to see the E-Swabhimani awards  by the Information Communication Agency  (ICTA).    As the name Swabhimani  means it was   certainly a night of “Our Pride,” a night to be a proud Sri Lankan,  a night to remember.  ICTA lived up to its tag line of Smart People, Smart Island to spring on an unsuspecting audience the creative and innovative talent of Sri Lanka’s digital content developers/producers from its e-Society program.  This was even more satisfying for those of us who had listened to much criticism being leveled at ICTA.  But that’s another story  –this was a night of the winners.

 Minister Tissa Vitarana was pleased as Punch. He was unstinting giving credit to the creative talent of the ICTA staff.

 There were eight e-categories and 27 winners.  They came from near — Colombo University Department of Computing as well as from far away interior places with exotic names — Galenbindunuweva, Sooriyaweva, Tantrimalai.

Here’s some that caught my eye. Please note that this is only a selection and is not a comprehensive list of the winners.

For me the most interesting was the e-inclusion and Participation category where the winners were:

Techkatha (Technical Chats) is really cool and uses cross media and a friendly chatty environment for learning from peers the techi stuff.  It is in the Sinhala local language, community driven, podcasted discussion about solutions to technical problems one encounters daily,tech news, new inventions etc.  Every Thursday at Sri Lanka time 9:00 pm you can join techkatha.com/chat via real time web chat.  Google Group, Skype, SMS, email or phone.  So far they have had 40 program chats.

ICT for teaching the hearing impaired ( www.lankasign.lk):  A multi media based interactive DVD and e-learning website to teach sign language in Sinhala and Tamil.

Ganidu Nanayakkara. Photo reproduced with permission ICTA agency

“Watch” the invention of young Secondary school student Ganidu Nanayakkara which features  a specialized hardware and software to enable people with disabilities  to use a computer with a key pad of only four keys.  So a finger, a toe, a head the hand or even the tongue can be used and the software and hardware system can be customized to cater for  specific needs of a disabled user.

E-entertainment & Games section had two interesting winners. One was the Ranasara Internet radio  from the Balangoda Nenasela ( IT/Knowledge Centre)  which partnered with an IT company microimage to set up   a commercial quality broadcasting studio in the Nenesela.  Using commercial quality broadcasting software and drawing and training  announcers from the community they provide an interesting service enabling many working abroad to stay connected with their communities. Other  district telecentres too get one hour time slots per week to produce news and programs from their districts.

The other winner in this category, the Toppigala/Jamis Banda, Sri Lanka’s equivalent no doubt of James Bond is  a locally developed PC Game by Games Core.

The e-Learning & Education sector had three very useful contributions reaching out to educate through ICT , primary, and tertiary learners and farmers in the agriculture sector.

e-Curriculum Master: Mastering the Primary–an easy to use interactive educationla software for children sitting the Grade 5 Scholarship examination.

Vidupiyasa — the virtual campus for ICT education from the University of Colombo’s School of computing.

Wikigoviya – The Agriculture Wikipedia, an interactive web tool for agriculture development.

Then there were the winners e-commerce for SME’s; project e-Diary; Farmernet in the e-business and Commerce category.

Nenasakmana Mobile Library of Sooriyaweva Nenasela. Photo reproduced with permission from ICTA

Having been a librarian in my previous incarnations I loved  the Nenasakmana Mobile ( can be loosley tranlated as “strolling knowledge”) Library of the Sooriyaweva Nenasela from the Hambantota district. It serves remote villages who can not afford internet facilities in a converted “buddy” lorry with four laptop computers powered by a solar panel and with connectivity through a dongle.

Inside the Nenasakmana Mobile Library. Photo reproduced with permission ICTA

“It’s not easy providing this service on rainy days when there is no sun,” says Deepika who runs the service.  Then it is only a reading library and we carry newspapers and magazines in addition to books. But on good days in addition to Internet,  users can access educational CDs, games. etc.”

The Juror’s special mention  is another worthy project.  The Centre for Women and Development, Jaffna’s “Violence against Women” website, documenting violence against women. The aggregate anonymous information collected from this website has been shared with other civil society and government organizations to help them better understand the extent of the issue.

 

Puttalam, situated about 80 km north of Colombo, has been lashed by severe storms today that damaged over 1000 houses, destroyed completely another 500. I am not sure if  it was a storm like this that drifted the sailing vessel of one of the greatest Arab traveler of the medieval times to land in the Puttalam lagoon in 1344.  He was non other than Ibn Battuta,  the  native of Tangiers in Morocco.  He had set out for the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca,  got bitten by the travel bug and continued to roam for some thirty years a  record 75,000 miles covering all Muslim countries except central Persia, Armenia and Georgia.  

Travellers in the desert. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Battuta’s  record of his travels the Rihla is one of the most famous travel journals.   

“First, though the book is commonly referred to as “the Rihla,” that” is not its title, properly speaking, but its genre. (The title is Tuhfat al-Nuzzar fi Ghara’ib al-Amsar wa-’Aja’ib al-Asfar, or A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling.) The Prophet Muhammad’s traditional injunction to “seek knowledge, even as far as China” had the effect of legitimating travel, or even wanderlust, and, in the Islamic middle ages, gave rise to the concept of al-rihla fi talab al-’ilm, travel in search of knowledge. In Islamic North Africa in the 12th to 14th centuries, as paper became increasingly widely available, educated men began to pen and circulate first-hand descriptions of their pilgrimages the Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah. ( Editors of the Longest Hajj by Douglas Bullis)”.

In medieval Sri Lanka  travellers’ rest stops were called Ambalama’s and were made of stone and wood pillars. The peripatetics  may have  cooled off in a nearby stream, had their home wrapped parcel of food , chewed their packet of betel, snoozed on a stone slab in an Ambalama before proceeding on their journey. 

 Now, couple of centuries down the line from Battuta’s day, we are spoilt for choice. There are inns, cafes, the good old colonial relics the Rest Houses and an abundance of little kades or  wayside boutiques that carry name boards grandly denoting it is a  Hotels.  These please note are quite different from the star class variety.  “Hotel” is a term used  quite generously on name boards, but basically they are pitstop cafes catering for travellers, truckers -lodging is not always available.  This one we stopped at was on the Puttalam- Anuradhapura  road. 

Fresh young coconuts compete with Coca Cola to quench the thirst of travellers. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

The first to catch my attention in the “Hotel” was Somaratne.   He was a little shy. I put it down to to a reluctance to be photogrpahed and he did gradually thaw out to tell me that he was 71 years old and that he was from Wariyapola and had migrated to Puttalam for work. I asked “why” and he looked at me as if to say you shouldn’t be asking that question and replied “you go where the work is.” I was too busy trying to focus on him, I didn’t  notice his injured eye at first, and saw it only when I had a look at the photograph I had taken.  “I fell on a sharp object, and although Dr. Seimon, the famous Kandy  doctor tried to save it, he couldn’t do much,” he said with a wry smile. 

The economic migrant Somaratne. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Any takers for veg rolls? Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Uvais making the popular Gothambas ( Roti Chanai in Malaysia), on the other hand is a native of Puttalam. and is a Muslim.  He was rolling out the dough but not as with so much flourish as I have seen in Malaysia. Some of these flat dough “Gothas” were  stuffed with  a veg mixture made of local yams ( cheaper than the potato) and shaped into triangular patties.

Then there was the young, hip and talkative Rajin who made us tea sans milk,  hot and sweet.  He wanted his photo taken at the fruit stall by the road side.   Without missing a beat or his pose he said ”Why not buy some passion fruit or this Papaya, naturally ripend on te tree.”   I ended up buying the papaya and promising to send a set of photos. 

Rajin was bilingual and was talking in Tamil and Sinhala  both. Trading seams to come naturally to him.  There we had a  trio of of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim workers, garrulous Rajin, quiet Uvais, and the pensive Somaratne,  all happily working together. 

 

  Rajni of Sudeera Hotel. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

Mosque in Puttalam. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

This mosque built near the spot where Ibn Battuta was supposed to have landed, is a proud land mark in Puttalam. Apparently Battuta’s writings describes  pearl fishing in Puttalam, a visit to Adam’s Peak, Dondra (Dewinuwara), and Galle, the other town in the South where many of the Arab traders landed. Batutta after his travels in Ceylon is supposed to have sailed back to India from Puttalam.

Crumbling shop house close to the spot where Battuta landed. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

Was Puttalam  and Galle then rich markets where traders of many nationalities roamed?  Did the Sinhalese. Tamils and Muslims live together amicably? 

A unique trilingual slab found in Galle in 1911, now in the Colombo Museum has inscriptions in Chinese, Persian and Tamil. The inscription is dated  1403 AD, the tenth regnal year of the Chinese Emperor, Ying Lo. the slab is said to have been installed in Galle by Chen Ho (1371-1435).

Did Battuta determinedly set out to have a good time, or did he just take off with only the adventure lust and stars to guide him?  We as travelers  cannot hold a candle to him. Sometimes, we spend a lot of money, select destinations carefully, and yet the magic eludes us. Sometimes, in life too we think we’ve got it all right to have a good time and someone or something moves the goals or puts a spoke in the plan. Often the nicest experiences in my life have come my way more subtly, when I am least expecting them. They don’t seem like much to write home about, but then I am here writing because this is precisely what I’d like to remember. 

What better than a pile of sand to play in? Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

Please  read: The Longest Hajj: The Journeys of Ibn Battuta by Douglas Bullis, Saudi Aramco World (July/August 2000). This article is worth about as much as all other material on the web, and something of a find as the search engine’s don’t think much of it yet.. This first link is the editor’s excellent introduction to the three articles, which mix recitation, translation and commentary. The parts are:

Part 1: From Pilgrim to Traveler—Tangier to Makkah. Bullis discusses Ibn Battuta’s unique, 58-page account of Mecca (Makkah), with a nice footnote on authorship problems pertaining to some of the sections.

Part 2: From Riches to Rags—Makkah to India. “All through the Rihla Ibn Battuta’s personal character comes out in hints and fragments. Today he might be regarded as a bit of a fussbudget or a meddler, evidenced by the rather too generous outrage he expresses at minor lapses in others’ behavior.”

Part 3: From Traveler to Memoirist—China, Mali and Home. “[I]n China, his reliability is so maddeningly variable that one can argue for or against his having been there at all.” Has good sections on Spain and sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Wikipedia: Ibn Battuta. This is an exemplary Wikipedia page, a lengthy, authoritative and hyperlinked

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Outside the small hotel we stayed in, the wind howled in the night.  It was eerie – spirits of the past wailing or just my fertile imagination?  I was up early to see the first feint pink streaks grow darker across the sky behind the large mango tree. The colour was gone by the time I got dressed.  I could see Jeya the hotel worker in the garden, as he chatted happily to a co-worker.

Jeyaharan 51 Years . Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 Jeya was out sweeping the garden with an ekel broom. He greeted me with a cheery “Good morning.”  No sign here of the howling night winds bothering him.

Others were out in their bicycles for early morning shopping.

Early morning shopper. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Jeya sweeping the Thinnakural hotel garden, Jaffna. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

When we were young we used to do this in our grandma’s house on weekends.  Then we tried hard to leave a nice pattern on the sand sweeping in one direction making  about one foot sweeps diagonally that left a row of fine lines on the sand and then turn around to sweep so the design formed – sort of a herringbone design.  After a sweeping, I’d be disappointed if someone walked across and the footsteps invariably messed it up. That is besides the fact that  we ourselves would come out to play and draw 2D doll’s houses  and build little 3D stone houses for fairies  later in the day.  It was a must that the sandy front garden “midula” be clean swept in the morning.  So this is what Jeya was doing too.  He needed to sweep the dead mango leaves away, no matter that vans and cycles would leave marks on the sand later on.

Luxmy Vasa, Jaffna House. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

I had seen the front of this house late last evening when we checked in and noted the beautiful design outside this house called “Luxmy Vasa” – abode of Luxmy the goddess of good fortune.   I’ve always had an affinity for this goddess, specially as the name was given to me by my father who believed that I was the Luxmy of our house “Siriniwasa,”  at Hikkaduwa. 

Generally, these early built houses all had some sort of motif like this with writing on it .  There was a  “porch” where  the household driver  in immaculate white would bring the car around from the garage, for the gentleman master, the lady of the house or for the children to get in. 

Breamvilla, Jaffna. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Across the road, there was another  house that looked as if it was being refurbished.  The peach wall colour was new, the board said S. Ponnambalam and the house was named “Breamvilla” – I wondered whether the B should have been a P and the house was meant to be a Premvilla ( House of love), or whether in Jaffna the B is pronouced softly to sound like a P.  

My imagination was in full swing on what this street would have been  50 years ago. Families would gather, children would play, ladies would gossip at the well, go shopping together, share cooked food over fences (walls came a lot later on),  weddings and births would be celebrated . …  I heard the sadness in the voices of friends who lost their houses and property.  Jeya brought me down to ground zero with a thud as he came running across with a bunch of keys and asked if I wanted to see the house.  I really did, but didn’t want to invade anyone’s privacy.

“Oh, no not a problem,” said Jeya.   We walked through the symmetrically laid out garden with two jack trees on either side, through the car porch to the open verandah.  This is  where most of the casual entertainment would have happened.  Politics would have been discussed, marriages arranged, successes at exams celebrated. Those were the days of no TVs , when friends, neighbours just dropped by a for a cup of tea, a vadai, a sandwich , small pastries like patties or cutlets, biscuits or whatever sweet meats that were in the house. 

“The house is being refurbished by the hotel, and we will make these rooms available too,” expalined Jeya showing me around the house. He pointed out the work he had done on polishing the doors, and pointed to a large rectangular wooden box, that might have held harvested paddy or rice and said “very old.”  A relic of not much value, left behind.

Beyond the sitting and dining area there  was a courtyard open to the sky — what we in the South called a “Kotu Midula. ”  It reminded me of our Kotu Midula in the Hikkaduwa house,  damaged during the Tsunami of 2004.

The window from the dining room opening to the Kotu Midula in our Hikkaduwa house damaged during the 2004 tsunami. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Out in the main town people were out shopping.  Shops were opening.

Jaffna street early morning. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

We women can’t resist shopping. So we too went looking for Jaffna specials — Nelli cordial,  thal hukury or thal juggery ( molasses from the Palmyrah tree) and in addition found red wine made in Jaffna.  My two colleagues  were shopping for more,  justifying the buying saying  “we are contributing to Jaffna’s economy.”  I was trying to catch the street scene with a few photos in the short space of time I had.

Jaffna Street. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 This boy was highly amused that I photogrpahed the neatly laid out slippers by the side of his shop. So  with his permission I photographed him too, amidst peals of laughter from his mates in the shop.

Young boy in Jaffna. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

  

Mother and daughter in Jaffna. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 Zen masters encourage us to ‘just be.’   If asked, ‘Just be what?’ They apparently reply with enigmatic silences. Or so we are told. I haven’t met any Zen masters. They don’t do much travelling. They are too busy, ‘just being’.   And in Jaffna, it seemed to me that most were also following the Zen masters.  So, I too plan to “just be” in Jaffna.

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The sea just behind our house at Hikkaduwa. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

The first to strip was Hikkaduwa itself, when it got corrupted to Hikka,  to draw  the  Colombo glitterati to the  Hikka fest. And now we have a furor about a few doctored nude photographs that have some people  frolicking at a Fest  but apparently not at this one.  The alleged “pic doctors”  we are told by my favourite Sunday paper Sunday Times are three employers of ADIC (Alcohol and Drug Information Center). 

 

The beach behind our house on 2008 tsunami anniversary day minus the topless tourists. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

As a born in Hikkaduwa native, I take offence at the corrupted shortened “Hikka” much more than the embarrassment of these doctored photographs.

Anybody who knew the high tourist seasons in the late 70’s would ask what’s the big deal about a few tourists going nude?  They’ve paid to bask in the sun, get their Vitamin D and return boasting a tan. Having a house where the back garden ended in the sea I can vouch for the fact  that from the late 60’s there have been few tourists in various stages of undress in Hikkaduwa.  The  Hikkaduwa natives  — including my parents who were then in their 60’s  — hardly batted an eye lid  when confronted with nudity.  On the other hand, my erstwhile spouse and I on holiday from the cloistered Penang beaches watched the tourists with open mouthed amazement.  One memorable January 1, there was a yacht parked just behind our house and the mother and the nubile daughter both walked , posed, and sunbathed on the deck not the least bit bothered that I was trying to photograph them. 

Father Benny with my sons Suren and Ranil bathing behind our house. Late 70's photograph from the family albums.

Then there was the time I overheard my father Bennie greeting a regular visitor to a our garden “ Good morning Linda, yes we are certainly seeing more and more of you each day.”  My father and mother Bennie and Manel  too cashed in on the tourist boom turning our house into a guest house. Once having taken a tray of tea to some Lufthansa air hostesses my father came out shaking his head “I really thought they were wearing clothes but then I realized that was the part that was not sunburned.” To his credit he didn’t drop the tray.

Ravi with a tooth missing in the middle with his expressive hands at my son Suren's 6th birthday. From the family albums.

Then I have an unforgettable description of the “Hikka beaches” by our Malaysian friend’s son Ravi Charles. Ravi and his brother Aaron with their parents Bharathi and Joe had spent an eventful holiday in Sri Lanka.  Asked how his holiday was, Ravi with all the knowing of a  6 years old shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he had seen and said “I’ve never seen anything like that in all my life, Aunty.  There were so many women without clothes on the beach and for good measure he leaned forward from the back seat, cupped his hands , lowered his voice and said “Aunty the boobies were v-e-r-y  big.”

All this eventually led to Hikkaduwa being labeled as a town beyond redemption and authorities scrambled to close the stable door after the horse had well and truly bolted.  So, nude bathing was banned and a brave cop had been sent to arrest nude sunbathers.  One young thing when confronted by a cop had flatly refused to wear any clothes, so the cop had  no option but to lead her to the Police Station. Am not sure if she was handcuffed or not but when the cop tried to get her into the lock-up she had bitten his hand, escaped and run down the railway line, still without a stitch on her. 

That was also the time in Hikkaduwa, when mothers even in the interior villages would shoo their children out of the house on school holidays and weekends and say don’t dawdle at home, go earn some money.  Not sure if the mothers dwelled too much on how the money was earned.  But there was no Child Protection Authority or an ADIC.  Unofficially, it was said then Hikkaduwa had at least one drug addict per house. 

Diving is a popular sport in Hikkaduwa. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

After three decades of Tourism, Hikkaduwa still remains a little back packers’ paradise, with a sprinkling of better class hotels.  Last year, after the Hikka fest I asked a young man from the Wildlife Conservation  office  “ so how was last week’s Hikka fest?”  The answer “Eh, what fest? we don’t know, we are not invited, these are all for the Colombo folk.”

Hikkaduwa main street. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

The Hikkaduwa main street is still part of the main A2 Galle road. The Bus stand, the banks, the railway station, the pola ( open market) are more less the same. The police station has been relocated after the tsunami and is now in bigger premises. Although our neighbour Asilin Akka’s grand daughter running a neat road side cafe says “people who had nothing are doing well after the tsunami,”  by and large Hikkaduwa missed the tsunami recovery boat to build back better.   

 

Building controlled or uncontrolled? Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Doctoring of photos is a no, no, but as anyone who knows the Net would say the biggest profit making e-commerce sites are the pornography sites .  “Nudes at Hikka” are no doubt embarrassing but we have more pressing issues to attend to before the new wave of post conflict tourism gets going.   Are we ready to deliver the services?

And please drop the Hikka. .. it shouldn’t be a tourism hiccup.  I love my Hikkaduwa. Underneath the garish blare of fests like the Hikka lies a gentle town twith a charm of its own. Hikkaduwa is the birthplace of many scholars, the most famous being Hikkaduwe Sri Sumangala Thera.  There are  temples with interesting history, quiet interior villages where aged old customs are observed and respected.   Don’t let that disappear with the new glare and blare of tourism.

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Sunrise: Look east @ Kurmba. Photograph © Chulie de Silva

Wake up early in Kurumba island, walk the few paces to the beach, sink your feet into the cool cool pristine white sand, look East and there you have it — all the joy of  a magnificent sunrise. 

 

The Kurumba atoll in Maldives was a picture postcard sight. Tiny waves lapping softly, the  water crystal clear inside  a man made reef.  Ahh, Once long long long ago, we played at Hikkaduwa on a beach like this behind our house.

View outside my bedroom @ Kurumba. Photograph © Chulie de Silva

 This now is the playground of the rich — the honeymoon paradise.   

Writing on the sand. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

Hotel pier. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Maldives was a poignant reminder what Hikkaduwa  was before unregulated tourism destroyed the corals. Then we would  try to catch the  little fish we called Batayas in rocky pools behind our house.  We’d  take bread to throw at the multi-hued  reef fish and watch spell bound as they clustered around the pieces of bread,  just as they did off the pier at Kurumba.  But here too were the signs of climate warming  — more dead corals and only a couple of new brain coral were alive.

 

 Maldivian atolls are renowned for these exotic luxury holiday resorts, with the tourists laying the golden $$$ eggs.  Threatened by rising sea levels, impacted by the global financial crisis Maldives’ newly elected democratic government is struggling to give a better deal for its citizens. It is however not an easy task.

 

Life for the people in the little atolls is a far cry from the luxury enjoyed by the tourists.  The delivery of services such as health, education and welfare to these scattered islands presents a different set of problems.  

 

To really see Maldives and its people and understand these issues you need to leave the luxury of the resorts and visit an atoll where there are no hotels . 

 

Life here in the small atoll Felidhe atoll Fulidhoo  is  relaxed. You can  just watch the sea or rock gently in a hammock as life flows on.  No problems are visible and you yourself begin to hunger for the smell of the sea, feel of the sand, a hammock to lie in, and a good book to read. 

 

Young man and the sea. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Fathima and Ibrahim relaxing. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sea would have provided everything for the islanders including the coral to build the houses.  Coral is not allowed to be used now, but there are still houses and a few remaining coral walls.

 

Coral walls Vaavu Fulidhoo. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coral wall detail. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

Streets were generally empty and people were more shy at being photographed and disappeared quickly into the houses.

 

Still shy but one that didn't run away.Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leftover election graffiti. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

Breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maldives had a peaceful transfer of power after a first ever multi-party elections in October of 2008.  Out here  this little peaceful island has many mega issues to solve. It has a population of 421,  living in 61 houses, one school with 84 students and 16 teachers and one health post. There is a Community Health Officer manning the post but there is no doctor and to consult a doctor the islanders need to travel to another island that can take about 2 hrs by boat.

 

Solid waste disposal systems are not there and the aged old system of disposing human excreta into the ground has polluted the fresh water of the island. The  one and only school in the island has a principal ”imported”  from India who is enthusiastic to give the kids in the island a good education.  He yearns to upgrade the computer labs and have Internet facilities.

 

We had a lot to reflect on as we walked through the village.  Fishing still remains the main livelihood. One could also see two huge partly built boats in sheds.   Maldivian  seafarers regularly traded with Sri Lanka brining the much priced Maldive fish (sun dried tuna) and the smaller smelly sort of salt water pickled fish called “jadi”  to Sri Lanka.  Down in Dodanduwa where the dhoani’s came, there were a string of small shops that sold these in huge earthenware jars.

 

On the beach children were busy building sandcastles as all children (and adults) do all over the world.  No bathing suits for the girls but they were having fun fully dressed. 

 

No sign of my cap. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

One last look at the island, many of the problems still ringing in our ears it was time for us to start our return journey in our very fast boat back to Kurumba.  My one and only cap had gone flying over the boat as the wind whipped it off my head. One more item polluting the sea.  Victor sitting next to me had gallantly quipped “no worries, we’ll pick it up on our way back:-))” 

 

Back in Kurumba, it was time for a swim and there I was on the beach with a lonely bird at sunset . And a little private chat time for me with my old friend the sea.

 

 

Sunset at Kurumba. Photograph© Chulie de Silva

 

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The rebuilt Jaffna Library at sunset. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

Beauty buds from mire

And I, a singer in season, observe

Death is a name for beauty not in use 

(Irving Layton)

What and how do you write about Jaffna? I had mused the whole day wanting to share some photos but unsure if I could find the right words.  This was my fourth visit to Jaffna. The excitement  this time around was no less than during my first when I was an impressionable child. So, somethings never change –the flight to Jaffna still took off from the  Ratmalana airport, and I still had my face pressed to the window watching the azure blue sea, the changing coastline, recognizing Puttalam and Mannar but trying to guess what the huge lakes and islands were.

Jaffna then was markedly different from any Southern town I knew.  It was neither barren nor brown as I imagined. My memories are of the upright Palmyra tress, large colonial houses, the Fort, the ladies in brightly coloured sarees, the Palmyra thatched fences . … the ladies are there still beautifully adorned

Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 When I asked children finishing a football match whether I could photograph them, they were amused at first but then eagerly clubbed togther.  

Young football players opposite Jaffna Central College. Photograph©Chulie de Silva

 

 

Jaffna Central College. Photograph©Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corridor linking the cottages. Photograph©Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stumbled upon the Dutch built Maternity hospital quite by accident. The long corridors of this maternity wing  are sadly in need of repairs.

The hospital shaded by a canopy of trees. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 But the splendor of a bygone era is still very visible. 

Roger's Cottage. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

Rogers cottage is one of the cottages that a family could rent/lease for the confinement of a lady of the family. They came from far away towns armed with all the cooking paraphernalia and the cook and stayed in the cottage. Interestingly, one of my colleagues brother was born there when his father served as a judge in Jaffna.

 

 

The city is slowly but surely limping back to life.  In a way it is strangley quiet, no mad traffic and it is almost like stepping back to what life was in the fifties. 

Tractor loaded with coconut husks. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

 

There are only a few cars and those are also like the old Cambridge  and Austin cars.  A few new high speed bikes are there but the majority still use push cycles.  It is not uncommon to see a mother in a saree one kid in front, one at the back  or a couple on a bike like the old song “Bicycle made for two. 

 

Despite the strains and crises that people would have lived through  the past three decades  or so the indomitable spirit of the Jaffna people lives on. ….  

The rebuilt Jaffna library attracts many young visitors.  These children are from a Children’s Home for orphaned and destitute children and they were being introduced to the library by  their  English teacher Anthony Quinn. Apparently his father was a great fan of Quinn.  The youngest Kanuga at 2 years seemed a tad overwhelmed and kept close to mum Jathna 22 yrs old.

Jathna and Kanuga at the Public library. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva Visitors to the Public Libray Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

 

Introduction to to books and reading. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quinn, too had injuries sustained when his house came under shelling but hobbled along cheerfully.

Anthony Quinn. Photograph©Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as we heard from many keeping Jaffna as a centre of excellence in learning  remains  very much a priority.  

Megala, A Higher National Diploma IT student at the Advanced Technology Institute. Photograph ©Chulie de Silva

 

The staff and students of the University of Jaffna and the Advanced Technology Institute were eager for progress, for knowledge,  with an unabridged  keenness to be involved with the development of the wider society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For a comprehensive information on Jaffna do read D.B.S. Jeyaraj’s column Jaffna, My Jaffna.

Those who read Love Marriage  read also Review of V.V.Ganeshananthan’s LOVE MARRIAGE on Meena Kandasamy’s blog.

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Birthplace of Martin Wickramasinghe Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

I have a weakness for quaint quintessential Sri Lankan houses like this one as they  bring back a flood of memories of sweet grandma’s, grand aunts, uncles and the happy carefree days of childhood steeped in love and affection. 

The open verandah was a must and was the meeting place at sundown, whether it was at Siriniwasa our house on the Hikkaduwa beach;  my great grand mother’s house in Panadura , or at my much admired spinster aunt Punchi Nanda’s also in Hikkaduwa.  The latter was the diminutive scholar aunt who was at one time the Principal of the Polgolla Teacher Training Institute.  She the learned lady  lived in a similar house to Martin Wickramasinghe surrounded by books.   Her brother Jin Bappa would come some days and ask my parents whether they could “borrow” me for a day. I’d  go willingly holding his hand skipping along the railway line and be “returned”  back in the evening.  All I wanted then was a life like her’s, independence like her’s, a house like her’s filled with books.  Sadly that house and aunt in Hikkaduwa and our famed long Siriniwasa verandah are no more. …

Now to stop my meandering and return to this house in Koggala, Sri Lanka   -  this house managed to survive not only because it was the birthplace of the iconic much loved Sinhala writer  Martin Wickramsinghe (29 May 1890- 23 July 1976) but  also because a female British  air force officer fell in love with it and didn’t want it demolished to make way for the Koggala airstrip during the Second World War.  Having saved it from being demolished along with some thousand village houses, we are told the lady officer did actually live in that house. This house was restored by the government for Martin Wickramasinghe in 1962 and after his death, the Wickramasinghe trust runs it as a museum.

 

Window looking into the bedroom with a four poster bed Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

The house is over 200 years old .  The time when it was built in Koggala only houses with sturdy lime plastered walls were those of the temple, the village headman, teacher and  the physician. As requested we take off our shoes and walk barefoot over the cool, clay tiles, ever so gently.  No photographs are allowed inside but compared to now the house seems tiny. There is a staircase leading to a loft  like upper floor but we are not allowed to go there.

Showing the room where the writer was born the aged guide tells us that Wickramasinghe was born after many girls and the midwife announced the birth by saying it’s a Sarong (long  tube like cloth worn wrapped around the waist by men) as opposed to a Kambhaya ( long cloth also worn in the same fashion as a sarong by females but with only a single seam). 

Behind the house there is a collection of his works and writings — family photographs, and a collection as expected of many interesting memorabilia.

Walking towards the museuem you meet  the  ”sekkuwa” –  a granite grinding stone well used for extracting coconut oil from dried coconut 

Sekkuwa used for extracting coconut oil Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

 

Dried coconut is placed in the stone well,  and two bulls tied to yolk on the pole walk around the sekkuwa .  As the coconut is crushed the oil starts to separate.  Sometimes a couple of guys sit on the pole to add extra weight.  The refuse from this process is called “poonac” and becomes a part of the feed for the bulls.

 

 

 

 

 

Giant outrigger fishing boats Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

 

 

The museum also holds a magnificient collection of old fishing boats.  At Hikkaduwa we used to watch these boats push out at sundown and watch them till they were reduced to a single flickering  lamp. In the mornings they would be back, barring disaster storms, often with huge swordfish strapped to the side.  My cousin Dhyan Kirtisinghe as a budding scientist would be there during holidays collecting parasites from gills for experiments. We couldn’t understand any of the science but watched fascinated crouching on the sand as the parasites were collected.

 

Bullock carts Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

 

More bullock carts Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out there in the museum is also a collection of carts.  The bigger coconut leaf thatched carts are  the heavy load carts — the bara karththey s– which were the “containers” of olden days.  The carters ( drivers) would compose  verse and sing to keep the sleep away as they toiled with their carts  specially if they were on their way to the hill country.  These  carts are still in use, transporting coconuts, cinnamon leaves and sticks, firewood etc and even today we can see an occasional one in the cities. The smaller one is the more elegant one that families travelled in and we had one for going to school.  These small ones were called “Thrikkaleys.”  Once out of the vicinity of the house we’d beg the carter fondly called “Seeya”  ( Grandpa) to allow us to sit in front and hold the reins.  The fact that  Seeya was slightly grimy smelt of the shot of toddy he had early morning didn’t deter us one bit from the thrill of racing with another cart.

There are more in this collection of folk culture, artefacts –  far too many to mention here.  Building this  collection was something close to Martin Wickremasinghe’s heart they say.  The renowed scholar who left school at 16,  says ” his body grew like any Sinhala villager. My mind however developed differently.  the benefit of a private education from a centre of learning or from learned pundits was not available to me.  I resorted to learning by directly exploring my world and reading books.“

Three cheers to that mind for developing differently.  Some in the South attribute it to a healthy diet of  Bala Malu ( tuna fish) and red raw rice.  Whatever the reason he was an outlier, the “sarong” that came after the “kambhaya’s” and quietly, gently, rose to fame  through his writngs  and independent thinking.  The legacy he left behind is immense.  We can read and read again the classics, wrap ourselves in the trials and tribulations, triumphs and joys of village  life .  Then again we can  walk through this land so gentle and quiet, sit and ponder, watch the water birds and remind oursleves of a writer long gone but  yet very much there in that Koggala birthplace.

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Text & Photographs@ Chulie de Silva

Today, I sort of mused about  my days of working for the U.S. Embassy in Sri Lanka — the rush before 4th of July to supply articles to the newspapers for their supplement, and all the people that I got to know at that time.  This post is a little memento of a lasting friendship forged with Delores Boyer during that period and stregthened through the years  that followed .   It barely suffices for the many summer days of meandering through museuems, art galleries and the time and effort she took to introduce me to a variety of art and artefacts.

 

She knew where to go, what to see, I gladly followed imbibing as much as I could .  There was the newly opened Newseum, (there is a half written blog piece somewhere) , the Afghan Treasures exhibition.  the Dega’s little dancer, the Washington Cathedral, the American Indian museum  etc– the question was to select–what shall we see, what are the must see exhibits come rain or sunshine, when and how do I catch the light for a photograph, admire an archetectural feature etc, etc. Of all the images and the photos taken,  here’s a few that stand out…

Dale Chihuly’s hand blown glass in a boat at the National Garden, Washington DC, 2007. Photograph copyright Chulie de Silva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2007, She introduced me to Dale Chihuly and his hand blown glass – left on a boat in the open air at the entrance to the National botanical garden !!! Later I learned that he had been doing these since 1995, inspired by Finnish children who would gather the blown glass he had thrown into the Nuutajoki river.

Last year, I was introduced to the world of Martin Puryear  –  a Washington-born artist who works with wood that he apparently coaxes into various forms and shapes.  Many weeks after my return to Colombo, Delores sent me a catalogue from another exhibition of Puryear’s work  and I saw that he uses unconventional materail such as tar, wire, mesh, rawhide and rattan for his sculpture.

This is his Ad Astra  that I saw –   The body  of the wagon is made from various woods, a sort of a fusion of ash, sitka spruce, hickory and pine, says the catalogue and a large handle spike reaches out to the sky.   A sort of wagon that might have suited Jack  for going up the beanstalk.  And as always I marvelled at the positioning of objects  of art at American museums and  how they optimize and create the  display space — one can view this piece from two floors at different angles.  Viewed from down it looks as if it reaches out to the sky.

 

Ad Astra 2007, Martin Puryear Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

 

Delores reading near the Ad Astra 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there was Leonardo’s portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci– one of the “must sees” as it is the only one of his work in America.

Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci 1474/1478. Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

 

 The caption said the rather standoffish looking young Florentine lady was much admired by her contemporaries for her culture, beauty and character.  “She sits beside a juniper bush, an evergreen that not only provides a dark foil to enhance her pale features but also alludes to Ginevra’s name: the Italian for juniper is ginepro.”

 

Interestingly the back of the portrait frame is also on display.  The back panel has  a wreath of laurel and palm branches encircling a juniper sprig .  Entwined around the palm branches is a scroll with a Latin inscription meaning “Beauty adorns virtue.” 

Back of the Ginevra Portrait. Photograph@ Chulie de Silva

Together the plants and the text are supposed to present an emblematic portrait of Ginevra;. We are told that the laurel and palm are common symbols for intellectual and moral virtue, and it is the latin word for beauty that artfully twines about the juniper.

 

 

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Text & Photographs@ Chulie de Silva