Polonnaruwa (Sri Lanka)

March 20, 2021

Polonnaruwa (Sri Lanka)

From my diary (November 2012)

During the week spanning 12–18 November, there are no classes at the University as it is the mid-semester break, moved a couple of weeks so as to include the Hindu festival of Deepavali and the Muslim festival of Awal Muharram (all the main Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian festivals are celebrated in Malaysia). Therefore, tagging on the previous week’s Friday when I have no classes to teach, I have a good ten days at my disposal to set out on a trip. This time, I wish to take advantage of the break to start exploring a part of this continent I have never been to before: South Asia. More precisely, Sri Lanka.

Friday morning at 11, my flight takes off for Colombo. Less than three and a half hours later, having flown over the green island, we land at what in 2012 is still the only international airport in the country, 30 kilometres north of the capital. I’m in South Asia at last! In a nation that is patently less poor than India, a little less densely populated too, and where the dominant religion is not Hinduism but Buddhism. The Tamil community in the north and east is Hindu, and for the larger part of this island’s history the two religions have lived together in concomitance, much more so than in the other Buddhist countries I have visited thus far. However, in spite of the proximity of Buddhist thought to certain aspects of Hindu thought, and in spite of the fact that Buddhism is one of the most peaceful religions that has ever existed, this nation’s leaders have exerted an uncommon violence on the Tamil minority that was fighting for its independence, bringing to an end a 30-year-long civil war in a blood bath only three years prior to my visit. Reasons of state and nationalist ideology had once again proven stronger than the tolerance preached by Buddhism. Would it not have sufficed, one might ask, to grant the Tamils a fair level of autonomy to spare the lives of thousands on both sides?

I get out of the airport and head for the free shuttle bus that takes passengers to the nearest coach station. Looking around me from the bus window, my first impression is of having arrived in a country not unlike others I have visited in Southeast Asia: poorer than Malaysia, perhaps closer to several places I’ve seen in Indonesia. The heat is the same as in Malaysia, and the difference that stands out most – besides the statues of the Buddha that one glimpses – is the dusky hue of the people’s skin and the shape of their eyes, which is here more ‘Caucasian’ looking. Even though many are in Western attire, I can also see several multicoloured sarees, bulwark against the incipient westernisation, together with the tasty local food. Once I arrive at the coach station, I don’t have to wait long to catch the coach for Kandy, my first destination. The coach is not big, it has no air conditioning, and there is hardly any space for my bag, which I just about manage to slip between my feet. Besides, there aren’t enough seats, which means some passengers have to stand for a good part of their journey, shaken and jolted along the way. During the three-and-a-half-hour-long journey, two things strike me most: the intense green of the landscape, with its coconut palms everywhere; and the driver’s offhand way of driving, his continuous and often dangerous overtaking along the narrow roads forcing cars and motorbikes approaching from the opposite side to either get out of the carriageway or come to a halt altogether. Yet, perhaps because of the moderate speed we’re moving at, or because this way of driving seems to be the norm here, I do not feel I am in any danger; everybody else seems to be alert at least, and ready to avoid other vehicles. At a certain point, the heavens open – a tropical storm – and one can see some of the houses on the edges of the road already flooded. As a matter of fact, the rain does not abandon me during the week I spend on this island, as it is now the rainy season here, as it is in Malaysia...