Sri Lanka by Padma Rao Sundarji

Author:Padma Rao Sundarji [Sundarji, Padma Rao]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

IN JEANS AT TEMPLE TREES: THE RETURN TO SRI LANKA

After my chat with Justice Wigneswaran in July 2013 and the confirmation that the elections in Jaffna were to be held on 21 September 2013, I plunged into hyper-frenetic activity. I had to get my media visa. I had to be in Jaffna five days before the election. And, I had to interview Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa before I left Colombo for Jaffna. As always, the Sri Lankan high commission in New Delhi was a supreme example of Buddhist patience in the way it dealt with my frequent phone calls. The media visa was issued. After all, there were many other Indian journalists travelling to Jaffna to cover the elections too.

But it was a Catch-22 situation. I couldn’t make a flight reservation until I had a confirmation from the president’s office of a date for the interview—my second in his two tenures. There was no guarantee it would be granted before I headed to Jaffna. Flights were filling up fast. The high commission could at best call the president’s office in Colombo every day, and tell me to wait.

In the meantime, I booked a car, preferring it to a commercial flight that at the time departed from the military airfield in Ratmalane to land in the military airfield in Palali in Jaffna. I called up various car companies to search for the best deal, still toying with the idea of the time-saving flight. Then I remembered the depressing trip on the air force plane. Though things were different now, I still decided against it.

As I waited for confirmation of the interview, I planned ahead. I would stop, as always, at the shrine of the white horse and the magical powers, just short of Chilaw. I would then halt at the government rest house in Puttalam, so reminiscent of Pune cantonment’s army mess in the 1960s: all trellis, tablecloths, breezy dining halls and rattan chairs on leafy verandas. Lunch would be, as always, a curry-rice thali with fried fish, sambhol, mormolaga (Puttalam is a Muslim, Tamil-speaking region and the food resembles that of Tamil Nadu).

It is during mealtimes that it strikes me, no matter where in the South Asia region and despite all our political rivalries and hostilities, just how very similar our countries are. This is most noticeable first at washbasins and then at the dining table: that it is always the right sleeve that is rolled up before a meal. This and many other aspects enhance the cultural comfort I feel anywhere in Sri Lanka: from its ‘short eats’ streetside stalls to its simplest curry-rice buffets to sophisticated sunset cocktails on the veranda of the Galle Face to very English high teas on lavish tea estates in upcountry Sri Lanka.

Sri Lankan Airlines called and prodded me gently. There were only ten seats left on the flight I had made a tentative booking on. I was to decide within seventy-two hours. The president’s office had not called the Sri Lankan high commission in Delhi as yet.

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