Sri Lankan places as seen by Razeen Sally, then and now

“The attraction of Sri Lanka …, for me, is all wound up with being half Sri Lankan and having been born and spent my childhood there, and then coming back about the country. My main fresh discovery, traveling around the island properly, was the back-of-beyond places that I didn’t really get to see as a child. Getting under the skin of people in these places, walking all over the landscapes, was just wondrous. I can’t think of anywhere else—at least that I’ve been to—where in a comparable space you have as much variety of people, cultures, flora, fauna, and landscapes… In a mid-sized island roughly the size of Ireland, you have an incredible variety.

“The other thing I would point to about Sri Lanka is its baffling complexity. I call it ‘paradoxical’ in the subtitle of my book, and for a small country with a population of around 20 million, there are just so many contradictions. In the book, I say it’s a heaven-and-hell country, engulfed and consumed by its own extremes. The obvious paradox is this beguiling charm I mentioned, especially of Sinhala-Buddhist culture in the lush, green wet zone, alongside an astonishing record of violence that leaves admiring foreigners completely puzzled and in a state of consternation. They just can’t explain it. That, among other contradictions, always puzzled me as a child, and they lingered with me during my three decades or so of absence. I suppose that the central paradox of beguiling charm and violent eruptions was the really hard puzzle that I set off on my travels with, when I came back to rediscover Sri Lanka in my mid-40s. So, that’s the attraction of Sri Lanka for me, in a nutshell.” – (Quote from an interview Razeen faced.)

The 2019 book

I write after absorbed reading of Razeen Sally’s Return to Sri Lanka: travels in a Paradoxical Island published by Juggernaut, New Delhi, 2019, 386 pages. I was very impressed by the book which provided most interesting and easy reading. My son who read it day and night when on holiday here, compared it very favourably with John Gimlette’s 2015 excellent travelogue titled Elephant Complex. Yes, it is on par with that Britisher’s book on Sri Lanka; both being much, much more than mere travel books.

Razeen has attempted much within 378 pages of text – a travelogue and autobiographical memoir where ‘memoir’ means “a historical account or biography written from personal knowledge”. His father, Farouk Sally, RAF cadet, met on board a ship, when returning to the island, a Welsh telephone operator Pat Kneen who was travelling to Australia. Their love culminated in marriage when she returned to Wales in the 1960s and came over. Razeen and two younger brothers were born and grew up in Ceylon but his father, facing a foreign exchange case during Mrs B’s government (1970-76), was imprisoned. Mother and children left to settle down in Wales; Razeen was 12. He first returned after he turned 42 and the book is about his impressions on his various visits; biography; people met and associated with; history of the country both ancient and current, including ethnic violence and political see-sawing down the years. This varied mix he deftly and cleverly deals with and presents in a most readable volume.

The article I write today (with his obtained go-ahead) is his impressions of places, quoting him when needed. I mean to write a second article about Razeen Sally, his family and other persons who were in his life The most invigorating feature of the article is that I know most places and sites, meaning those he mentions I have lived in or visited. Thus it is personally enlightening and even more than interesting to see how he accepts/reacts to changes. His book will be greatly appreciated by the better sort of tourist too who needs more than just R&R and visits to places.

I comment on Part Two titled Sri Lanka through Adult Eyes: A Travelogue.

Razeen starts with Home Town Colombo – Then and Now

This chapter covers p 111 to 166. We know most of what has changed, particularly the skyline with the Port City grabbing attention whether of admiration, surprise, or consternation. He deals of course with ‘development’, especially in infrastructure and buildings; so also the tensions: tsunami, ethnic riots, Buddhist uprisings et al which we recollect so sadly or disgustedly.

He writes “Home Town is not what it used to be. Manners and mores changed. Fraternizing still takes place across religions and ethnic lines, but much less so…. Some things, though, have not changed. For all Colombo’s expansion since the 1970s, it retains a small-town feel…”

He writes at length about the colonial era hotels giving their histories and legends too. His uncle owned Mt Lavinia Hotel and his father was GM so he knows that hotel in and out. He stays mostly at the Galle Face Hotel when in Colombo. The extensive renovation of GFH brought on a “bland opulence” which to him was disappointing. The GOH/Taprobane “Now a shabby shadow of its colonial glory.” The Capri Club was his father’s favourite watering hole with buddies “alcohol–sodden sanctuary for male badinage and bonding.” His narrative about the shooting of Mrs Boon Wat is different to one we heard then. He writes the Burmese diplomat shot both wife and lover when in bed, and the latter escaped. We heard the band leader came to fetch her for a dental appointment and she was shot when descending the stairs in the Residence, now the Capri Club.

“And Colombo is still a combustible mix. This mix (races) I consider a Colombo attribute; what vigour the city has could be much diminished without it. But the same mix can be a tinderbox when Hermann Hesse’s ‘gentle doe-eyed Sinhalese’ turn into a feral mob or when Islamist suicide bombers blow up churches and hotels.(That sentence, apart from the statement made, is a pointer to his excellent writing style and seamless mixing of features and factors; also total lack of prejudice).

His next sojourn is a Turn in the South detailing not the towns but remoter places of interest from Kalutara to Kirinde. He introduces Nihal his faithful, efficient driver, and is accompanied by The Handbook for the Ceylon Traveller (Studio Times, 1974), a family possession. He starts with a quotation from Leonard Woolf as he does all chapters – quotes from various persons. The next chapter on Kandy carries several quotes from Robert Knox.

He mentions the changing ownership of Count De Mauny’s Island to writer Paul Bowles with Robin Maugham visiting. Also Weligama Rest house of yesteryear, now renamed and Valentine Basnayaka designed Tangalle Bay Hotel. “Tangalle became Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ultimate refuge. Tangalle, not by accident, was the cauldron of JVP ferment, being the birth place of Rohana Wijeweera.”

“Hambantota is Sri Lanka’s ‘Malay town’… also the cradle of Rajapaksa vanity projects, all located outside the town” The resthouse on the small hill, wonderful say fifty years ago now “Looks woebegone like other state run RHs” He mentions what many previous satisfied stayers felt post 1970s, Hambantota RH was not the place to be in due to “police officers and other municipal officials arrived after work to get rat-arsed.” He writes much about Woolf and his conscientious work and writing; to him Woolf’s second volume of his autobiography “‘Growing’ sparkles with lyricism.” He visits Mattala airport and mentions rice storage in the cargo terminal. “In 2016 over 300 soldiers and police and volunteers were deployed to chase away wild animals that strayed on to the airport.”

Chapter 6 Kandy Road – To the Hill Capital and Tea Country has Razeen describe sites of interest en route to Kandy. He quotes copiously from Hermann Hesse. Robert Knox and Sir Ivor Jennings and writes about John D’Oyly. He found the Temple of the Tooth unwelcoming and there is little to see. He is taken up much more with the history of the Kandyan Kingdom and kings and writes at length on the University of Peradeniya. He climbs Adam’s Peak, stays over at Warwick Gardens proximate to Nuwara Eliya run by Jetwing. Life then in estate bungalows was a style apart. He finds these mores alive in the bungalow; and the estate lines of poky smoke filled rooms per family substituted by neat, self contained basic houses.

One of the Sally family owned a tea estate and bungalow off Hali-Ela. Razeena was a place of recuperation, rest and peace of mind to his mother and the kids. He stayed over when his mother joined him in Sri Lanka after his earlier visits and they journeyed up country via Belihuloya and Bandarawela. Ending this section he writes: “I felt sadness for what had become of Razeena, but the setting was everlasting: the remoteness, the Uva hills, the cool clean air, the scent of tea leaves outdoors and of tea dust from the factories. I was glad I returned; it was a homecoming.”

Chapter 7 Rajarata. Land of Kings is short: 262-289 p. Chapter 8 covers War Scars – The North and East. He finds it like his quote from Handbook for the Ceylon Traveller “The landscape is full of a bleak and bitter beauty such as you will find nowhere else in Sri Lanka.” That would have been soon after the war. When I visited in 2013, Jaffna and even the East Coast was buzzing economically and people bustling about. May there be complete reconciliation is the hope.

In his final Chapter Envoir (an author’s concluding words), Razeen ends the chapter and his book thus: “This mingling, peaceful and harmonious, this unity in wartime terror, and now in newfound peacetime prosperity: what a lovely, sweet metaphor for the best of Sri Lanka’s past and present… I mulled over it as Nihal drove me back to Arugam Bay. I thought of it as a metaphor of hope for Sri Lanka’s future.”

My conclusion: a beautiful book to read and mull over; and visit places with.

Thanks Razeen Sally!