issue 4
Aspirational. Inspirational. Sri Lankan.
Unmatched Booker-nominee Romesh Gunasekara gives us a sneak preview of his new novel
The Outsider Millionaire. Author. Adventurer. Meet Sir Christopher Ondaatje
Hip Hotels Escape and unwind at Aditya
volume 1 issue 4
Cricket Fever
We go batty with our cricket special! ISSN 1749-6144 (print) ISSN 1749-6152 (online)
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36 Aditya
22 “Kim Cattrall told me she loved my dress!” above and cover shot: Adrian Alex R Roberts
52 Christopher Ondaatje
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contents 8
Serendipity Cricket Party A wicked bash in the name of charity
10 Your Country Needs You! Sri Lankan events this cricketing season 12 Kothu Art, films and hip-hop news 14 A Thousand Words Serendipity’s newest photography feature
16 My Island An American’s take on growing up Sri Lankan
36 Unmatched Cricketing fiction by Romesh Gunasekara
22 Brooklyn Bombshell Dushyanthi The newest face of hip-hop
42 Inside Aditya The soul of the South
24 A Thousand Smiles Per Gallon Spreading joy – London Style 30 Modern Living An eclectic take on urban design
48 Big Match Fever It’s not just about the cricket, y’know? 52 Christopher Ondaatje Millionaire. Adventurer. Author. Outsider. 58 Cricket Fixtures The guide to the Sri Lankan tour 2006
editor’s letter
Ah, Cricket. To Sri Lankans the world over, there is nothing quite as deeply unifying as cricket. Differences are put aside, old rivalries adjourned, as we all sit back and drink deeply of the Glorious Game. Walk down any street in Sri Lanka during the nail-biting finish of a one-day international and you’ll hear the commentary coming out of every window, in every house, down every street. As ‘the boys’ (as the Sri Lankan team is known) gear up to take on England this spring, we devote this issue to examining the subtleties and intricacies of this noble pursuit. There’s Shiromi Pinto’s exclusive interview with Booker-nominee and all round nice guy Romesh Gunasekara about his new novel ‘The Match’ (about, you guessed it, a cricket match), Suranga Rajapakse’s ode to that most famous of schoolboy rivalries, the Royal-Thomian, and Chris Lenton’s evocative article about growing up in Sri Lanka and his love affair with the country and cricket. All in all, a pretty good innings. Don’t forget to come along to the Serendipity Cricket Party on Saturday 17th June at Agenda Lounge Bar and Club in the City of London - the night that Sri Lanka play England at Lord’s for the first One Day International. Whatever the outcome of the game, it’s going to be a hell of a party – and it’s all in aid of a good cause, Teardrop Relief. Turn to page 24 to get an idea of the great work they’ve been doing. Looking forward to seeing you at the party,
Afdhel & the Serendipity Team feedback@serendipitymag.net
PS. Come on Sri Lanka ! PPS: And we bid a fond goodbye to our Associate Editor Leah Marrikkar, who is going on to focus on her own projects. We wish her the best of luck!
Published by Diasporic Media Ltd.
Sales Director: Gaddafi Ismail
Mailing address: Flat 1, 36 Craven Hill Gardens London W23EA
Art Director: Geoff Cowan
Email: letters@serendipitymag.net Publisher: Tony Thirulinganathan Editor: Afdhel Aziz
www.serendipitymag.net
Picture Editor: Alefiya Akbarally Colombo Editor: Suranga Rajapakse Editor-At-Large: Nihal Arthanayake Digital Marketing Manager: Ravin Fernando
party people
Serendipity Cricket Party It’s gonna be a party y’all! To celebrate the first One Day International between Sri Lanka and England on Saturday June 17th, SL2UK is proud to present the Serendipity Cricket Party in association with Teardrop Relief, at Agenda Bar in Bank, from 9pm to 3 am. With DJ’s including Nihal from Radio One and hip hop legend Big Ted from Kiss 100 playing upfront urban tunes and old school classics, this is one night guaranteed to rock!
back the Sri Lankan smile. If you want to get an idea of what they do, turn to page 24 to see some of their great work. The future of Lankan Promotions & Publicity, SL2UK is now one of the leading Promotions & Publicity websites in the UK, aimed at the Asian diaspora, promoting and publicising events from Talent Shows involving 300 people to Outdoor Festivals attracting 5,000+ people.
Aimed at the discerning older crowd (over 21), make sure you dress smart and sexy to get in, with mixed groups (boys and girls) getting priority at the door.
To buy tickets, call the hotline on 0780 0513987 or email party@serendipitymag.net.
You can party in the knowledge that all the profits from the door are going to a truly worthy cause – Teardrop Relief, a charity dedicated to bringing
www.sl2uk.com www.teardroprelief.com www.serendipitymag.net
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You can also buy tickets online at the following websites:
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places
Your Country Needs You! Serendipity is teaming up with the Sri Lanka Tourist Board to support a range of initiatives designed to mobilise the Sri Lankan community with one aim: getting more tourists to visit Sri Lanka. After the Tsunami, the Sri Lankan community in the UK did a fantastic job of fundraising and relief work – now the next stage begins. JeanMarc Flambert, the director of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board says ‘ With over 100,000 Sri Lankans living in the UK, if each person can convince three of their friends to visit, that would increase tourism by 300%.’ If Sri Lanka is to survive in the long term, then it needs tourists – and here’s how you can help. 1. THROW A TEA PARTY: Invite ten of your friends to tea (Sri Lankan of course!) and try and convince them to visit the country. We’ll send you information packs, posters and copies of Serendipity magazine so that they can see what a beautiful, enchanting place the island is. Just email your address to srilankantourism@aol.com with the subject line ‘tea party’. 2. TAKE THEM OUT TO DINNER: Invite your friends to sample the delights of Sri Lankan cuisine. Sri Lanka Tourism & Sri Lankan
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Airlines are organising an opportunity to sample authentic Sri Lankan flavours at the Royal Garden Hotel, 2-24 Kensington High Street, London W8 4PT. Not only will you get to also see some traditional Sri Lankan dancing, but you may even bump into the Sri Lankan cricket team who are staying there! 3. TAKE AN AFTERNOON TO DISCOVER SRI LANKA: Come down to Trafalgar Square on the afternoon of the 17th of June, where there will be stalls featuring Sri Lankan food, handicrafts, arts and culture and much more. 4. COME AND PARTY! And of course, you can come down to the Serendipity Cricket Party at Agenda on June 17th from 9pm, where you can experience another great Sri Lankan trait – the ability to party like there’s no tomorrow! For more information and up to date listings visit- www.srilankantourism.org.uk
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The best of Sri Lankan arts, culture and beyond….
RUKI Coming out of Chicago, rapper Ruki (pictured left) is getting some solid props from the hip-hop community for his work. Bad Boy Records, Jive and Arista have been sniffing around and he’s been featured on Chicago’s hottest mix tape producer Mr. Bim’s ‘Guaranteed Fresh Volume 2’ (www.localkats.com). Tracks like ‘Loco’ and ‘I want the World’ display a distinctly old school anthem ethos, while cuts like ‘South Asian’ have a gritty, realistic feel. Ruki is currently working on his first album ‘Grind Mode’ and you can check out his music at www.rukionline.com. THE NOBLE SAGE ART GALLERY Serendipity would like to congratulate Jana Maneulpillai on the opening of his new gallery ‘The Noble Sage’. British-born Sri Lankan Jana has taken the experience gained at institutions as diverse as the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and combined it with his passion for sub continental art to create a cutting-edge space in East Finchley. The gallery was launched on the 6th of April with its first stunning exhibition ‘Chennai Excite: New Work from South India’ which featured the work of 17 gifted artists, both famous and emerging. For more information visit www.thenoblesage.com. NO MORE TEARS SISTER A story of love, revolution and betrayal, “No More Tears Sister” explores the price of truth in times of war. Directed by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Helene Klodawsky and narrated by no less than Michael Ondaatje, the documentary recreates the courageous and vibrant life of renowned Sri Lankan human rights activist Dr. Rajani Thiranagama. Mother, anatomy professor, author and symbol of hope, Thiranagama was assassinated at the age of 35. This powerful and moving documentary recounts her dramatic story. 12
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MANN/EARTH Tongues on Fire recently presented the British Premier of this Sri Lankan Tamil feature film shot entirely in Sri Lanka. ‘Mann’ is set in northern Sri Lanka in the early 80’s in a time before the civil war in an idyllic village, primarily agrarian and peaceful on the surface. The arrival of a Tamil family from another part of Sri Lanka opens the underbelly of feudal village life stirring long established prejudices and customs. A man returns to the village where he grew up after 18 years and on the journey remembers his life as a teenager growing up in a social environment of strict structures of class and caste. He is soon involved in a complicated emotional situation where love, lust, obsession and betrayal ultimately lead to tragedy. Directed by R. Puthiyavan, with a screenplay by Raj Kajendra and a cast including Chandrasekar, Selvekaran Mohan Kumar, Kadal Sugumar. Tongues on Fire is an annual film festival dedicated to expressing the drive and spirit of Asian women. It provides a unique international platform for Asian women working in film and media throughout the world. For more information contact info@tonguesonfire.com Look out for our independent film special coming up in the next issue of Serendipity. serendipity
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a thousand words
A Thousand Words Welcome to a new section in Serendipity, which aims to showcase the work of exciting new Sri Lankan photographers from around the world. Whatever the subject matter, we’re looking for one single image which is worth – you guessed it – a thousand words. If you’re interested in seeing your work here, please email our Picture Editor alefiya@serendipitymag.net
This picture:
‘Self Expression’ St Martins Square, Birmingham (2005) “A city of contrasts, between the two iconic Birmingham structures; St Martins Cathedral and Selfridges. It is the picture that captures me. Love abstract patterns, reflections and contrasts.”
The photographer Senthooran Kanagasingham (‘Sen’ for short) “I worked as a film designer with Indian film makers like Santosh Sivan (‘The Terrorist’) and Mani Ratnam (‘Dil Se’ and ‘Alaipayuthe’). I recently completed a MA in Visual Communication at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.”
His influences “It’s a long and varied list. All time greats like Henri Cartier Bresson, the abstract works of Aaron Siskind, film makers from Fellini to von Trier, the mysticism of Jungian archetypes, the questions of Foucault… to the common graffiti artists of Herne Hill… and of course the cinematography of Santosh Sivan.”
His favourite Lankan things “Umbrellas, Morris Minors and Tea.”
His dream assignment “To visually convey a book or a collection of poetry (on an endless budget).Probably an old myth coming to life in a contemporary urban setting.”
About his camera bag “Anything that comes in handy… SLRs to DV Cams.” To find out more about Ken’s work visit:
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‘It was assumed by most people who didn’t know me that I was a tourist.’
Words & Pix: Chris Lenton Illustration: Geoff Cowan
Many Serendipity readers will have experienced growing up Sri Lankan in a foreign country. Here’s the story of someone who did it the other way around, growing up Sri Lankan whilst being of non-Sri Lankan descent. In the summer of 1986, Chris Lenton moved with his family from New Jersey, USA to Kandy, Sri Lanka. It was the beginning of a love affair with his adopted country, with all its tensions, quirks and secret joys.
Kettarama Stadium, Sri Lanka’s largest international cricket ground. The scene is frenzied. The crowd is jumpy - clapping, dancing, waving flags and colorful signs. The lights have just come on and swarms of insects hover near the giant scoreboard. Somewhere a papare band is playing. Above the grandstand squawk a chorus of crows. The heat, unyielding despite the recent sunset, clings to our skin. I’m yelling in rhythm with the others, against the wishes of a hoarse voice. Suddenly there is a hush as loud as the previous din – a delivery has skipped past the bat of the Sri Lankan opener, Roshan Mahanama, knocking back his middle stump. Bodies freeze, talk diminishes to a whisper and the bands go quiet. Only the insects, birds and sounds of the distant city can be heard. For a few minutes this eerie half-silence continues. But the noise returns, unerringly. For hours the scene unfolds – eight should the match get to the final delivery – and for hours the crowd shouts, dances, frets, sings, hugs, and gets drunk. Sri Lanka has a remarkable record at home in one day internationals – I cannot remember witnessing in person a Sri Lanka loss. At the end of the game, Sri Lanka wins and the stadium becomes a bonfire; hundreds in the stands set fire to pamphlets, newspapers, cigarette packs, lunch boxes, and anything else flammable. Some brave
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the high fences and hurtle their bodies onto the pitch. Cars in the distance honk loudly. The island beyond erupts in celebration. ••• In the summer of 1986 we moved from New Jersey, USA to Kandy, Sri Lanka. My father had been offered the opportunity to run an irrigation management institute in Digana Village, a small town just outside of Kandy. In the space of a few days, he had transported his wife and four young children from the quiet order of the suburban US to the dense, chaotic green of central Sri Lanka. For three years we lived atop a hill, overlooking the Kandy Lake and the country’s most sacred Buddhist shrine, the Temple of the Tooth. On the weekends my brother, two sisters and I would roam the jungle behind our house, looking for hiking trails, scouting out waterfalls and climbable trees. Often we’d return to our house to find leeches on our legs and for a few frantic moments we’d yell, screaming for salt to rid us of their grip. Over lunch, we’d laugh about it with our parents, feeling tough and adventurous. The years in Kandy – the cultural heart of the country and a former capital - were full of critter stories. Jo-Jo, our plump Siamese cat groomed on dried American cat food, took a liking to geckos a few months after arrival. He crunched >> serendipity
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people them loudly as we sat on the verandah eating our own meals. A few years later, he famously hissed down a spitting cobra for an audience on our front lawn. Not to be outdone, Ferris - our overeager black Labrador – stayed up through the night to bark at the wild boars that nocturnally roamed the garden looking for edible shrubs. •••
‘I felt tied to the land, to its histories and struggles. But in many ways I remained separate, and this I could not fight.’
The JVP unrest of 1989 forced us to leave Kandy for the capital, Colombo. It was a grim time – my family received death threats and curfews were frequent. Stories of killings, of people dragged out of their homes at night were common. But we were kids (I was barely eleven), and the upheaval seemed removed, part of something not fully comprehensible. I remember enjoying the curfew days, locked up in our hidden hilltop home, idling away time in the tree house, free of homework and the long daily drive to the small international school in Digana. This was the constant in our years in Sri Lanka: we were always slightly at the periphery, deeply shaped by the people, customs and events, but never fully a part of that world. Colombo was loud, hot, urban. We lived next door to the country’s most famous family, the Bandaranaike’s. At night loud gatherings from their garden filled our house with noise. There was a persistent army presence on the street; once, fearing a protesting crowd outside her house, Sirimavo Bandaranaike – the world’s first female prime minister – climbed over our wall with her entourage and surreptitiously exited through our front gate. In her seventies by this stage, her health was weakening, but she pulled off the heist without a hitch. Life was more familiar in Colombo. Gone was the interminable jungle, the hills, the quaint town bustle – Colombo was a city proper, densely populated, alive, moving. Vendors sold egg and fish buns outside the house. Cars, buses, motorbikes and three-wheel trishaws whizzed by. We lived near a mosque, and the call to prayer pierced the sky periodically. Funerals and parades rolled down the street, loudly, regularly. I liked to sit on
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the roof watching all of this, eating mangoes from the tree that hung high over the house. At night life slowed down. The heavy traffic died down at sundown and the street lights, dimly lit, gave the air a sleepy orange tinge. As we sat down for our large rice and curry dinners, crickets chirped, mosquitoes buzzed and fruit bats swooped low. Ants formed moving mazes on the walls. Geckos – the ones that survived the cat – skirted shyly around the ceilings. The night belonged to the creatures. I was comfortable in Colombo, unquestioning, accepting. But the anxiety of violence remained. It was 1993. The president was killed at a May Day rally by a suicide bomber. The rest of my family was on a trip to Sigiriya, the beautiful rock fortress in the Dry Zone. I had stayed in Colombo to study for my GCSE exams. Instead I was spending my time playing cricket. I was playing cricket in our front garden with a friend when we heard the news that the president had been killed. The cricket pitch, like most in the country, was make-shift. We had three sticks for stumps, and the boundaries were: the gate on one side, the house on the other, and the fence in front. We sensed something was wrong when the helicopters flew overhead – there was always, at the margin, the feeling that tragedy was imminent. Bomb blasts in Colombo were periodic. They happened just as everyone imagined things were quieting. Some were close, and shook the house. Others we learned of through the change in the city’s atmosphere. We moved to the roof to watch the scene once we heard the news. A curfew was enforced immediately – within hours the city was empty, quiet. We looked out over the sprawling city and saw only calm. I was not sad. How was his death any different from the deaths we read about in the paper everyday? For two days we were shut up in the house – my friend could not leave to walk the few blocks home and the other members of my family couldn’t return from their trip. We spent those days happily watching movies and playing sports. >> serendipity
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people I knew the savagery of the war. By my middle teens I was savvy, interested and involved in my surroundings. I knew the history of the country well. But it was difficult to feel anything more than distant fear in relation to what was going on in the North. A war was being fought, yes, but we felt it only in spurts. The daily news, so obviously censored, made everything remote – the struggle could have been in Kashmir, Palestine. What’s more, because of the fact that I was not a Sri Lankan, I was an additional step removed. I shut it out. We all did in Colombo. Life was great. I had a terrific set of friends, both local and international, people of all backgrounds, races and religions. On the weekends we traveled on the old British train down to the beach. We stayed in small inns by the sea and spent the days swimming, body boarding, water skiing. At night as the sun set dramatically over the Indian Ocean we drank arrack and coke. We spent the night dancing in the bars that spilled out onto the beach. Other weekends we’d spend playing cricket. A group of us would meet on the large grounds in front of the parliament in Bataramulla. We’d bring proper equipment and play 20 over games. Sometimes we’d play other teams. Usually we were thrashed by kids who grew up on these pitches, kids who tailored their actions to suit the weight of a soft tennis ball. (An interesting side note - current Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga attributes his strange whip-like action to playing soft ball cricket with his friends). ••• In 1995 my parents made the decision to leave Sri Lanka. My father’s job was done, and he accepted a position with the UN in New York. We were to leave a few months after I graduated from high school. Leaving Colombo was tremendously difficult. It is a pain I still carry with me. In many ways Sri Lanka was all I knew. We had spent almost ten years on the island, three in Kandy, the remaining years in Colombo. The food, weather, 20
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customs, speed of life, way of speech – they had become a part of my personality. My friends were here. My first love, my stories. It was an incomparably beautiful place to live – the endless empty beaches, the sunsets over the city, the rice paddy, tea estates, palm trees, the thick jungle. I felt tied to the land, to its histories and struggles. But in many ways I remained separate, and this I could not fight. I knew only the simplest Singhalese (our international school offered the language exclusively to advanced speakers). It was assumed by most people who didn’t know me that I was a tourist. Even friends would assert this during an important or tragic event - but you cannot feel exactly as we do. You are not a Sri Lankan. You have no real claims here. This made the prospect of leaving far graver. It was a final goodbye – to my childhood, to a life we had all fought to make familiar. Regardless, as I packed my bags to leave the island, I felt an emotion as close to patriotism as I will ever feel. ••• And so we return to the cricket. Here, at this manic international cricket venue, watching the little ball skid off a dirt pitch many meters away, lost in a giant crowd, I am indeed a part. I am submerged into the massive screaming unit. We all want the same thing. We all cheer at the same time. We are innocent kids in a way, without reason – everything we do is from the gut. My smile is as large as possible. In moments I wave the large flag with the stalking lion. We’re sharing in the delicious food and drink. Gone is the notion of war from our thoughts. Gone is the notion of identity in my own mind. Here we are yelling wildly, here we are having a blast.
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music Model. Playwright. Solo artiste. What takes priority? My main focus right now is music. In music, you explore yourself as a singer, writer, dancer, actress and overall performer. It combines a lot of my interests. Describe your sound in four words. Urban-Pop, Fun, Exciting. What has been your most memorable performance thus far? Hot 97 showcase at SOB’s. It was my first NYC performance, so I was already nervous. The crowd was this hard-core, rap crowd which was intimidating. But they loved the show-I sang Many Men and did this hip-hop/belly dancing routine. Music can really transcend different groups of people. What was it like to get on Sex and the City? How did you land that? My modelling agency booked me. It was amazing to be on the set of a huge TV show and see how it was filmed. The director bumped me up to having a slightly bigger part so that was cool too.
Brooklyn Bombshell
Dushyanthi Words: Suranga Rajapakse Pix: Adrian Alex R Roberts
Born in Brooklyn, multi talented Dushyanthi is a singer, dancer, actress and writer. Describing her music as “urban/pop with a bit of Indian influence”, she’s already added modeling for Savoy Magazine, starring on ‘Sex and the City’ and performing at Hot 97’s S.O.B.’s in NYC to her résumé. Currently recording her first studio album, Dushyanthi took time off to chat to Serendipity about Sri Lanka, music and the future. 22
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What was your most memorable moment on the show? Kim Cattrall told me she loved my dress!
What did you love the most about SL? The weather-85 degrees all year! What did you hate? I was bothered by the politics. It was very politically instable while I was there, and I hope for a peaceful Sri Lanka in the future. What are you listening to right now? Destiny’s Child, The Pussycat Dolls, Kelly Clarkson, and Christina Aguilera in Spanish. What do you love and hate about the music business? Love the music! Being a part of creating something that can affect generations of people. Hate the instability of the business; you never know what’s going to happen from day to day, but I suppose that’s part of the excitement too. What’s next for you? I’m shooting an MTV Diary episode with MTV Tempo. Many Men is on rotation on MTV World. I have offers from a few record labels, so I am hoping to finish my album soon. I can’t wait to do an official release and go on tour. I love to perform. After that, movies, writing…who knows? Life takes you to some pretty wild places.
What was your recent trip to Sri Lanka like? Amazing. The island is so beautiful, the people so welcoming, and the parties are unlike any I’ve ever been to. I performed at Mount Lavinia on the beach on New Year’s Eve and it was hands down the best party I’ve ever been to in my life. P. Diddy’s birthday in Morocco is the only one that comes close! What were your experiences during your relief work in the Tsunami affected areas? The team and I set up medical clinics and saw about 3000 patients in four days. I taught the children music and dance too. A lot of the tsunami affected areas have received some sort of international aid, but there are other parts that were not affected by the tsunami that were even more poverty stricken. These people haven’t received any aid.
Log on to www.dushyanthi.com for more info on Dushyanthi and to listen to samples of her latest music.
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A thousand smiles per gallon Words and Pix: Teardrop Relief 24
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The funny thing about standing on the upper deck of an old London open top double decker bus it is that it attracts cheers and waves from complete strangers. And when the Fun Bus drives into an orphanage or tsunami camp, the children instinctively know that something special is awaiting them. Here’s the story of a group of ordinary Sri Lankans who did something really extra-ordinary. serendipity
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All aboard There is something about London’s old double decker buses that makes people love them. This was evident last year by the amount of column inches that were generated when the last of the Route Masters were retired. So, if you take such a distinctive vehicle, strip out its inside and convert it into a play bus packed with a bouncy castle, face paints, parachute games and lots of toys, and drive it along the roads of Sri Lanka, it is bound to create excitement. This is exactly what Teardrop Relief, a charity founded by a group of second generation Sri Lankans living in the UK did. Except Teardrop sent not one, but two of these lovable icons to Sri Lanka. How it all began In the aftermath of the Tsunami, the generosity of the British public was incredible. Donations of food, clothing, medicines and toys, made their way to the Sri Lankan High Commission as well as to similar collection points around the country. A group of volunteers met each day at the Sri Lankan High Commission to help with the relief effort. The group, mostly unknown to each other, worked well as a team, packing boxes, organising warehousing, and arranging logistics and distribution of the donated goods. Three weeks later, once all the donations had been cleared from the High Commission, the 26
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volunteers had now become firm friends. They decided to establish a formal charity with the aim of conducting long term projects in Sri Lanka. Their efforts were to be directed towards helping under privileged children through stimulation and play and so Teardrop Relief was born. The six trustees of Teardrop all share the belief that having fun should be an essential part of a child’s life. Driven by that single belief, Teardrop conceived and delivered a unique project in Sri Lanka with the aim of bringing back the Sri Lankan smile. Why a Play Bus? There is no end to the number of great projects that were established by Sri Lankan expatriates and friends of Sri Lanka, post Tsunami. Whilst most of these endeavours focused on short term need, primarily supplying food and medicines, other projects were established to tackle more long term requirements such as construction and infrastructure redevelopment. Teardrop’s desire to help was motivated by looking after the overall wellbeing of children through structured play and entertainment. It was also important for Teardrop’s trustees that the project was not localised to one particular area and that it covered the whole island. The mobile play buses were the perfect solution and two beautiful, iconic, open top Route Master buses made their way to Sri Lanka. >> serendipity
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people The project to-date The Route Masters were sent to Sri Lanka in November last year and much of the initial funds raised by Teardrop were utilised on purchasing the buses and shipping them. Limited funds meant that only one of the buses has been kitted out with inventory. However this bus has already started operations and with the help of Impakt Aid, a Sri Lankan charity, the bus conducts 3 visits per week to Tsunami camps and orphanages. Not only is the first fun bus fully equipped with exciting activities, but the project is being implemented locally by a team of experienced children’s entertainers that includes jugglers, acrobats and a magician. A team of volunteers that comprise of mostly students from different countries assist the full time staff to run each fun bus event. It’s hard work since most camps house over one hundred children to entertain. At the end of every fun packed day, each child is given a nutritional snack and milk, and the memory of an unforgettable day.
To find out more about Teardrop Relief please visit the website: www.teardroprelief.com To date, Teardrop’s first fun bus has made over thirty visits to camps, orphanages and deprived areas in Sri Lanka and a total of more than four thousand children and their parents and guardians have enjoyed the play bus experience. Teardrop is currently raising funds to finance ongoing activities of the first bus and to buy inventory and launch the second play bus. If you would like to get involved with any part of the Teardrop project, and there are many aspects to consider (eg fundraising, sponsoring milk and cookies for children, being a volunteer on the fun bus when you visit Sri Lanka, ideas on how to improve the programme etc), then please do get in touch.
Cricket Party Proceeds going to Teardrop Relief DJ’s: NIHAL (Radio One) BIG TED (Kiss 100) Date: Saturday 17th June, 9pm-2am Venue: Agenda Lounge, Bar and Club www.agendabar.co.uk (Bank tube) Tickets: £15 advance, £20 on the door For advanced tickets call: 07800513987 or email party@serendipitymag.net Web: www.teardroprelief.com www.serendipitymag.net www.SLUK.com *Right of Admission Reserved. Over 21 only. Mixed Groups get priority entry. VIP Admission 8pm.
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architecture
Modern Living Words & Pix: AleďŹ ya Akbarally
Lofty heights, urban fabric, and a treasure trove of collectables. Think you’re looking at a loft space in Tribeca or Soho? Try Cinnamon Gardens, Colombo.
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architecture Across the globe, young couples are still attracted to living in urban centres, avoiding long commutes and enjoying the conveniences of city life – and Colombo is no exception. With smaller rooms and tighter living spaces, the older neighbourhoods can seem cramped to those who have experienced modern spacious floor plans. Answering the call, the young couple behind this hip apartment have taken their mid 90’s style family mansion and carved it into a liveable space with wide open floor plans and a distinctive personal touch. Set in the heart of Cinnamon Gardens, and camouflaged by its parent home, this newly renovated space is an idiosyncratic and highly eclectic take on an urban interior. >>
“Its raw industrial feel pays a worthy tribute to Modernist pioneers”
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Working with Suchith Mohotti Associates, the owners have created an impressive 2 floor, L-shaped extension, echoing the sentiment of the loft style apartment, so prevalent in East Coast American living. Its raw industrial feel with exposed concrete, terrazzo floors, concrete columns and wooden beams pays a worthy tribute to Modernist pioneers. A Ranjan Aluvihara silk screen deck suspended above the double height living space was retained by the couple in their final renovation of the space. Structures and materials aside, what makes this space most intimate and breathtaking is the unique and hand picked display of collectables in key settings around the loft. Most treasured is a TRS80 Model Computer, the first of its kind bought by the owner’s company and kept aside for many years until he could finally display it in his new home. Another striking installation
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is a triptych of backlit panels, their colourful comic-book style pictures revealing the oldschool pinball machines from where they were extracted – a very Pop-art touch. Amongst others are an antique telescope, a Thai lamp and a 25 square display cabinet, which hosts a handpicked international treasure trove. The extension also acts as a modernist gallery for some of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated contemporary artists; the likes of Raju and his collections of Rock “small squares” alongside the staircase and the almost iconic Anup Vega blazing orange masterpiece, reminiscent of Rothko’s later works. This renovated modern space hits at the heart of what modern living is all about. A refreshing and stylish urban space, its elements combine to create a bold statement for modern living.
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Romesh Gunesekera’s prose looks deceptively simple on the page. Words elegantly formulated and arranged in a collection of slim volumes that belie the weight of the themes entangled within them. His greatest preoccupation is with time - its slippery nature, its inexorable movement forward and always away. “One of the impulses for writing,” he says, “even when you’re 11 years old or whatever, is that intuition or sense that time is passing and how do you deal with it.”
Unmatched Words: Shiromi Pinto Pix: Alefiya Akbarally. Shot on location at Lords
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We are sitting in a café in Hendon, north London, resolutely passing the time amidst chocolate and halva croissants and freshly baked chollah. “Aunty Lillie would not have approved,” he chuckles. Given to anti-butter outbursts, Aunty Lillie is one of a battery of characters that populate Gunesekera’s latest book, The Match. Led by its protagonist, Sunni, The Match is a story of lost pasts and vague presents, forced amnesia and missed opportunities, lingering resentments and ultimately reconciliation. It begins and ends with cricket, though the two matches that make up its opposing ends are fundamentally different from one another - one full of uncertainty, the other a catalyst for decisive action. On the surface at least, The Match appears to be the most autobiographical of Gunesekera’s works. Sunni was born in Sri Lanka and spent part of his childhood in the Philippines before moving to England in 1973 - all familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of Gunesekera’s own history.
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“It doesn’t reflect my own life; what it does is reflect my own geography,” he clarifies. Having eschewed the usual first-novel-as-pseudo-memoir route, Gunesekera wanted, in this his fifth and longest book, to explore something more elemental. “What is interesting is trying to work out what you need to invent and what you don’t need to invent. In the last book I wrote - Heaven’s Edge - I pretended to invent everything, including the place, the landscape, everything. I thought with this book, I don’t want to do that again; I would like to take something as given. But I didn’t want it to be just predictable, so I thought I’d use locations that I know and use that like a skeleton - like a framework - and invent the characters. Basically, it’s a physical past that I’m using - so it’s like a little atlas.”
the end of the novel, sitting in a stadium with his past, present and future. And it is at this moment that he finally realises what he has.
If The Match is an atlas, it plots not only a physical, but also an interior geography: Sunni’s journey away from and back to himself. It is a journey through time that eventually finds him, toward
The Match itself found its own space somewhat unexpectedly, defying time by arriving a few years earlier than anticipated. Since 1996 - that seminal year when Sri Lanka won the Cricket >>
“One of the things that Sunni does is cut himself off from the past,” explains Gunesekera. “A lot of people cut themselves off from the past because it’s too painful or too difficult or they’re just not interested. And then you’re left in a kind of limbo. It takes Sunni 30 years to discover a past again, but that past is the 30 years he’s lived. He’s kind of made a past for himself which is his current life as opposed to the lives of his parents or the lives of other people. I think we all do that to some extent. Whether we move from anywhere or not - even if we live in the same place - it’s that slow transition from being in someone else’s space to being in your own.”
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people “I am absolutely certain that if the history of Sri Lanka was completely different, I would still write the same books.”
World Cup - Gunesekera had been thinking of a way of tackling the sport in his fiction, because, as he explains, “quite a long-lasting aspect of my writing has been the violence and tragedy of Sri Lanka. For a long time, the one thing that has gone right has been the cricket.” But in 1996, Gunesekera was in the midst of The Sandglass which is all about mortality and death and somehow cricket couldn’t possibly have featured in it. So he left the idea to brew until 2002. “I just wrote a few pages and thought, maybe I’ll do this in five or six years’ time,” he confides. “Then I wrote another few pages and suddenly I knew I had started a new book and thought, there’s no point in waiting, I’ll just do it. I was completely seduced by it.” Gunesekera is a master of unravelling voyages of the interior - from Monkfish Moon to The Sandglass, he returns time and again to the bulwarks of the mind: the mechanisms we use to reject a part of our history because we cannot or will not face it. And often, paralleling this personal distress is Sri Lanka’s blighted past - the trauma of a paradise lost. Just as there are two matches that bookend The Match, says Gunesekera, his first and last books also have ‘a kind of bookendish feel’. He explains how he began writing ‘Storm Petrel’ - one of the stories in his first book Monkfish Moon - before July 1983, when riots against the Tamil communities seethed in Sri Lanka. He completed the story about five months later. “That period was very traumatic,” he says, “though I wasn’t there. For me, it was something that was hugely signifi40
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cant and I suppose it coloured my writing. “In The Match, even more important than the cricket was that window of opportunity for peace in 2002, which I felt I wanted to somehow absorb into my fictional world. 2002 seemed to me a chance when things might really change radically, so that’s why The Match starts with covering those 19 years between 1983 and 2002, which is the same period that my other books fit into. So, in that sense, yes, it’s a trauma to deal with.” But to those who would equate his work with some nostalgic yearning for a golden age, spawned by civil war in Sri Lanka, Gunesekera is unequivocal: “I am absolutely certain that if the history of Sri Lanka was completely different, I would still write the same books.” Our concerns are more fundamental, he continues, referring to Proust and thus returning to the notion of sands trickling - of time slipping away. “Most writing has to do with the past. Even if you write a futuristic book, it ends up actually being about the past. Because that’s what writing is... you’re reconstructing the past somehow.” And it is through the past that the present is understood in Gunesekera’s world. If he gets us to look back, he is also asking us to look forward. “Maybe that’s something that’s come through in each successive book” he says, “that getting to the end is actually getting to the beginning.” The Match is published by Bloomsbury (£14.99). Shiromi Pinto is the author of Trussed (Serpent’s Tail £8.99).
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hip hotels
hip hotels: Words: Suranga Rajapakse Pix: Tashiya Mirando
Aditya
Travelling south on a humid March afternoon, I strain my eyes for an indication of my final destination. It’s been almost two and a half hours since I left Colombo and I am somewhere between the bustling coastal town of Hikkaduwa and the majestic city of Galle. I reach the 105th kilometre post as instructed, and finally perceive a single sign directing me off the main road. Five minutes later, I arrive at the end of my journey. I arrive at Aditya. 42
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Aditya is one of the newest hotels dotted along the southern coast to offer weary urbanites an escape for the soul. Its name is derived from Hinduism and refers to a group of solar deities, sons of Aditi and Kasyapa. In the Rigveda (the earliest of the four Hindu religious scriptures known as the Vedas), they are seven deities of the heavens; chief of these being Varuna. Followed by Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Daksha, and Ansa, the seventh Aditya was the Sun, Surya or Savitar. The land upon which Aditya now stands was originally bought over for an eye clinic. Later, it was acquired by the current owners who wanted to use the splendid space available for the purposes of personal holiday home for friends and family. It was during this construction that they quickly realised the potential of the location and so Aditya was conceived. The hotel took close to two years to build, and was in a semi-constructed phase when the Tsunami struck. “We were very lucky, we only lost 50 bags of cement and a single boundary wall collapsed. Unfortunately, the workers were from Polonnaruwa and most had never seen the beach before; so after the Tsunami, they all got so terri44
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fied they fled and refused to come back for ages!” said co-owner Yasmin Akbarally. Come back they did however, and the current structure stands as testament to their skill. Aditya has an incredibly spacious and relaxing ambience, greatly enhanced by the high ceilings and wide open spaces that feature throughout the hotel. The classical architecture and the interior décor are the most prominent characteristics; wood, cane and brasswork are show-cased in each and every room. The colour scheme throughout the hotel is well designed with milkwhite blending seamlessly with hues of leaf-green and sunrise-yellow. Most areas of the hotel are highlighted with natural lighting, courtesy of the massive windows and strategic skylights which usher in the soft sunlight. The black and white photography featured throughout the hotel contributes to the overall ambience, all personal works of the interior designer, Pat Mamelka. It is obvious that much creative thought and inspiration has gone in to creating the essence of Aditya which is subtly reflected in its old world charm. Aditya offers a selection of twelve double-bedrooms, each individually named in Pali >> serendipity
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£260 + taxes after a constellation. The rooms are spacious and encompass approximately 800-1000 square feet each. Each room includes TV, DVD player and a mini-bar. The antique bed-heads from Bali and the night sky projection on the ceilings (available in limited rooms) are guaranteed to set the mood for the more romantic traveller. Each room includes its own plunge pool, an excellent feature for guests who wish to relax and pamper themselves in complete privacy. The Suriya Suite is most definitely the highlight of all the rooms and is rightfully the Presidential Suite of the hotel. With its bed located up on massive loft which directly overlooks the dazzling sea, guests staying in the Suriya Suite can indulge themselves in incomparable scenic beauty. The food is well prepared and featured a range of fresh seafood. An excellent feature allows guests 46
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to dine wherever they please; be it in their room, poolside or in a random corner of the hotel that just tickles their fancy. The service is polite, attentive and never intrusive. To complete the experience, Aditya also offers guests advice and instructions from its very own in-house Yoga Master; a perfect way of de-stressing after a hectic journey. The adjoining beach also presents an ideal setting for absolute relaxation; it is secluded and the limited access makes it virtually private. Rates on bed and breakfast basis fall within US$ 185++ and US$ 400++ for the Special Suriya Suite. Aditya is quite simply perfect for the intimate getaway and offers a completely detached world from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Truly an escape for both body and soul. www.aditya-resort.com
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humour
Big Match Fever! Words: Suranga Rajapakse Pix: Indi Samarajiva
As Sri Lanka gear up to take on England, lets pause for a moment to reflect on another series of epic battles that take place every year in Sri Lanka: Big Match Season. Centuries-old rivalries between boys schools that are embodied in gentlemanly conduct on the pitch, and the polar opposite off it. Ah Big Match season… when a young blood’s thoughts turn to riding around on the backs of trucks, baila music blaring out, scoping out the ladies and getting happily sloshed on smuggled shandies. There’s nothing quite like it. Whether you are a Royalist or a Thomian, a Josephian or a Peterite, an Anandian or a Nalandian – or even if you’ve never attended any of these schools – this one’s for you. All together now… hip hip… hurray!
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If you’re looking for an article glorifying the wonderful game of cricket, then you might want to skip ahead. Let’s be clear about one thing, I don’t even like the game. While undoubtedly a poignant blasphemy to the vast majority of our cricket-frenzied brethren, I realise I am minority; a worthless statistic, unworthy of consideration in a nation that sways to the beat of the willow and leather. Yet here I am and beware; there are more like me. A thorn in the side of every fan, we’re charged of being unpatriotic, immoral and even insane. We’re not insane. Well, not all of us anyway. Yet as the month of March rolls in (like every March of every year), a phenomenon of noteworthy peculiarity will occur. Stalwart sceptics like myself will gather in lengthy queues outside the Singhalese Sports Club, vying for access to a school-boy cricket match. “So!” you may declare, “The cynics have been exposed! They have come for a cricket match!” It is then that we will calmly turn around and say “Take note sir, this is not just a cricket match. This is the Royal – Thomian”.
‘We’re not insane. Well, not all of us anyway.’
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The Royal – Thomian; words that stir fond memories in both young and old of either College. I do not wish to bore you with a synopsis of the historic rivalry as I am sure that it would have repeated itself several times before the pages were turned to the present. Still, it must be said that it is a rivalry of great respect and its details ingrained in many, though the finer points may possibly be indistinct by the 3rd day of revelry. It is something that every Royalist and Thomian is proud to be a part of, even if they haven’t touched a bat or ball in their entire life. As a kid dressed up with the College golliwog pinned proudly to my (for the last time ever) white shirt, I’ve sat on the dusty hills of the Boys Tent, sucked on ice popsicles all day and sang songs to the beat of the papare band. As a College Prefect I’ve paraded around the ground, getting cheers from the old Royalists and jeers
from the Thomians. Still, it was only at a late stage in my Big-Match experience that I understood the true spirit of this encounter. It was as I returned home one day, dusty and tired from the SSC and was describing the day’s exploits to my father that he grinned mischievously and said “I had the exact same experience 40 years ago”. It was then that I realised the Royal – Thomian is so much bigger than 3 days or cricket, music and fun. It transcends generations and connects Royalists with Thomians, old friends with new and father with son. As the two teams battle hard in the middle of the pitch, they are surrounded by a unique celebration that I doubt even they can truly comprehend. Now having left Royal for several years, I return to the Royal - Thomian each year to enjoy the special feeling it brings, year after year, without stopping for a breath. It’s the same feeling that my father felt so many years back and believe me, it still feels good. It’s about singing at the top of your voice, cheering with your Royal friends and getting sloshed with your Thomian ones. This year I’m bringing my father to the game and between all that singing, cheering and getting sloshed I’m going to have a beer with him and share that feeling. All this coming from a person who doesn’t even like the game. Maybe I am crazy, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Royal went on to win the Royal Thomian in a nail biting last session on Day 3. Emerging victorious with less than two overs to spare, the Reid Avenue boys notched up their first win in 15 years. Intoxicated by triumph, this writer proceeded to pour good-humoured scorn upon his Thomian mates, loudly predicting a Royal whitewash for 2006. One week later, S. Thomas’ slammed Royal in an emphatic 37 run victory in the one-day game. 2006? Sorry, I meant 2007. serendipity
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people “I am more useful to Sri Lanka doing what I do now. I won’t turn my back on it, never have and never will.”
Christopher Ondaatje: The Outsider Words: Afdhel Aziz Pix: Alefiya Akbarally
Millionaire, adventurer and author, Sir Christopher Ondaatje, K.B.E is probably Sri Lanka’s most successful expatriate export – yet many know very little about the man. Serendipity recently caught up with him to discuss his new book ‘An Imperial Journey: Woolf In Ceylon’; a fascinating look at the time, writer and civil servant Leonard Woolf spent on the island. At first glance, Ondaatje’s life seems to be the stuff of fiction. At age 72, this tall, elegant man with a loping gait and a distinctly North American drawl doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’s crammed several intimidatingly successful careers into one lifetime. A financier and media magnate in his adopted homeland of Canada, he combined his love for literature with a shrewd financial sense and went on to build the Paguarian Press Corporation. 20 years later and just prior to its sale, The Pagurian Corporation controlled assets of over $1 billion. Along the way, for light relief, he also became a member of the 1964 Canadian Olympic Bobsledding team. In 1995, he divested himself of all his business interests in order to concentrate on his writing. >> 52
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people “I’ve liked being a chameleon.”
To date, he’s written six critically acclaimed books on subjects like writer Ernest Hemingway, explorer Richard Burton and perhaps his most famous book ‘The Man-Eater of Punanai’; a terrific book about leopards, terrorists and coming to terms with the ghost of his absent father. A Commander of the Order of the British Empire in June 2000, Ondaatje was awarded a Knighthood in the Queen’s honours list of June 2003. He’s a major donor to the Labour Party and even the stunning new wing of the National Portrait Gallery off Trafalgar Square displays a dapper portrait of him; it was his generous donation that enabled its construction. Oh, and by the way, he’s been married to the same woman for 45 years, with three children and 12 grandchildren. All in all, pretty extra-ordinary stuff. But in the flesh Ondaatje doesn’t have any airs and graces. He seems distinctly down to earth, charming and avuncular. A terrific raconteur, he’s eloquent, wellinformed and given to peppering his anecdotes with deliciously indiscrete off-the-record stories (perhaps a gift for story-telling that he shares with his younger brother, Booker Prize-winning author Michael) which we would love to share but were unfortunately sworn to secrecy! Nevertheless, we did manage to keep our tape recorder rolling as we settled in for a chat with this charming man. From the viewpoint of the Serendipity readership - all second-generation Sri Lankans born and raised in the West, your story is interesting because you were one of the first to leave, forge your own path and do your own thing. Why did you leave Sri Lanka in the first place? In 1947, Ceylon was still under British rule and the practice was for generally wealthy people to send their kids to England for a decent education. So, my parents sent me out to be educated at Blundell School. From 1947 to 1951, I was at school. When I went to school I was a relatively wealthy young boy but
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by 1951 I was destitute. My family had broken up; I did not see my father ever again. I saw my mother only when I was 17 years old, when the most formative years of my life were over. What was I going to do? I had a gift for finance so I went to London and worked for five years as a trainee with the National Bank of India, with a view of going back to Colombo. But during those extra-ordinary years of 1951-1956 at the bank, I literally saw the British Empire crumbling before my eyes. The great, wealthy banking sponsorship in the British East India Company in the colonial era was over. I realised that economically that wasn’t the most sensible move that I could make and I obviously wanted to recoup the family fortunes. So I didn’t go East – I went West. In 1956, I went to Canada with 13 dollars in my pocket and just learnt the game. Learnt the country, learnt the people, learnt the corporations, learnt the finance, took all the financial exams that I had to and worked my way through. I broke off from finance into publishing because in Canada I was at a lower level. I was in there working in the cage, keeping records of other people making money. I had to get out of this, get in at a much higher level, so I broke away. I was very successful in publishing and worked my way up through trade publishing and then to the Financial Post and then came back into finance, but at a much higher level. My head has always been in business; my heart has always been in publishing. So where does your writing fit into it? Our family has always been involved in literature as you know, right back to the very beginning. It’s always been something which is either in your blood or isn’t. When I chucked everything in 1988, people wondered what an earth I was doing giving up all that adulation, that power. But I sold everything, I got off the train, I resigned all my directorships, and I came to England to do my first loves – exploring and writing. It’s not been as profitable as it was in the financial business but enormously satisfying. >> serendipity
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people It must be hugely fulfilling to do the thing you’ve always wanted to do. You’ve got to have time you know, you’ve got to make the time. It’s about using different muscles, you’re using a different thought process. You have to use your brain more; it’s not just seatof-the-pants, answering phone calls and making investment judgement. If you write something, first of all, you have to know what you want to write about. There’s got to be a beginning, middle and an end. It has to be honed, it has to be perfect, it has to satisfy the publisher and it has to be a success with the public. Since 1988, I’ve now done 8 books, and this book ‘Woolf in Ceylon’ is the last one and almost certainly my best book because it is really the result of 20 years of research, on and off. Four and a half years of really solid work on it. I have used Leonard Woolf, who is this great colonial character in Ceylon, and of course one of the real pillars of the Bloomsbury set in England. I have used his stay and his career in the civil service in Ceylon from 1904 to 1911 as the shadow behind which I operated, so that I could make a social commentary on 100 years of Ceylon history. From the early colonial era, to pre- and post-Independence and to the current turbulent scene today with this civil war. All those aspects have been covered in this book.
people so much. Burton, apart from being a loner, was an outsider, all his life. I very much identified with him from an ambitious point because he led the life I wanted to lead. Woolf had always been an outsider. His grandfather was a Jewish tailor, his father was a lawyer but ran out of money. He managed to get into Trinity College Cambridge and got into this literary group ; then he applied to the Home Office and his marks weren’t good enough so he got this posting to Ceylon. It was a disappointment ; he was a good civil servant, but in his heart he really craved this literary set. So when he came back he had to make a decision – either enter this civil service life, or enter this elite, Edwardian literary set who all had money, while he was virtually a penniless Jew. And Virginia Stephen was his ticket into this Bloomsbury Set. And he gave up everything, it wasn’t a loveless marriage but there wasn’t any sex in the marriage, and she was a woman who had been on the verge of a mental collapse for a long time and had been institutionalised several times. So he took on the role of nursing this literary genius, with all the sacrifices; she was his meal ticket, she was his passport into this literary set – but he was an outsider.
Woolf reminds me of another literary figure who started his career in Colombo as a bureaucrat – the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Well, Neruda was indolent…I talk about the kind of thing you do when you’re young and you have time on your hands. Woolf too was a promiscuous young boy, he slept with everything in sight and frequented whorehouses and lost his virginity to a Burgher girl in Jaffna – all this is in there.
And do you think you’ve been an outsider all your life? Don’t you think so? I left Ceylon and came to England. Whether you like it or not you are an outsider. I learnt to live with that in school and succeed. I learnt to live with that in the City and succeed. And even now, with all the success I’ve had, I’ve come back to England, I’ve been honoured, I’m a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, I’ve been knighted by the Queen; I am now where I wanted to be. But I don’t kid myself. I am myself and I know that everything I’ve had to do, I’ve had to do as an outsider.
Let me ask you a question about your subjects. Burton, Hemingway, Woolf: all very strong, very independent, very literary men. Why are you attracted to these figures? Well, they’re all loners; Hemingway, maybe not
Do you ever relish the role of being an outsider? It doesn’t bother me. I mean, I’m an old man now, I’m 72. But I’m a young 72, I’ve got my work, I’ve got my health and I’ve got my mind. I am what I
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want to be – and I’ve liked being a chameleon. Is there still a Sri Lankan side to yourself? Absolutely. You should see me in Sri Lanka. I took this friend of mine to Yala and there was a bunch of ten of us, with the trackers, eating rice and curry and going around in sarongs in the evening and sleeping out in the verandah. For five days we lived this wild and irresponsible life in the jungle and I love it and I do it every single time I go there. It is a part of me that you’ll never get rid off. Just getting in the damn jeep and going to Ratnapura or Hambantota. You can take the boy out of Ceylon but it’s a lot harder to take Ceylon out of the boy. There is a point in every new expatriate’s life where you have to decide whether to harness your fortunes to that of the country you were born in – or turn your back on it. I guess you’ve made that decision as well. No, I won’t turn my back on it. I will do everything I can for the country and I have. With the Tsunami, I was more than generous and most of the money has gone to schools and fishermen in the Weligama area because that’s where our family has always been. I will give the money, because I cannot give the time and the emotional involvement of actually being there on the spot: I do not have the ability. I am more useful to Sri Lanka doing what I do now. I won’t turn my back on it, never have and never will. What were your motives for donating money to the Labour Party? Listen, when I backed Blair I was an outsider. Here I am, this very right-wing entrepreneur, and I said to many of my friends who were Conservative, you know what? ‘Blair is the last conservative’. They thought I was a bloody fool then. But you look at the Conservative party platforms today and they are all so far to the left of Blair. He has kept the Unions out of the party – Thatcher was the last person to do that. He went to war with Iraq…these are right wing, Tory policies. Blair is the last conservative. What did you say to the Queen when she knighted you? We talked about Ceylon. She’s the Head of the Commonwealth and she loves honours to be given
to members of the Commonwealth. The last person from Ceylon to be knighted was Sir Claude Corea in 1946 and she told me that. All of this, the Labour party, the knighthood; are you becoming part of the Establishment? Give me a break! I’m not part of the Establishment, nor do I ever want to be. I want to be myself and I want to make my own decisions. In England, politics is a social status thing. I’m not Labour or Conservative. You must have the guts to stand up to your friends and say “Listen buster, this is not a cocktail party, this is the right guy at the right time and I’m voting for him.” This country’s doing pretty bloody well. You know why no-one’s going to be able to kick Labour out? Because things are going pretty damn well. What’s been your biggest regret? My biggest regret was not going to university. Right out of school, we had no money, couldn’t pay the fees. I spent my 17th birthday in the City of London. I was good at cricket, I was good at rugger. I would have loved to have gone to Oxford or Cambridge, especially to Cambridge. My father went to Cambridge and my uncle went to Cambridge. That is still my major regret. Do you feel your biggest achievement has been your work or your family? No doubt about it – my family. The thing that destroyed me most was my family breaking up. The thing that has made me is my family. I’ve got three children and twelve grand-children. They’ve been strong, they’ve backed me, they’ve been supportive, and they gave me a reason for doing things. What are the loves of your life? My family. Literature. Art. Sailing. Cricket, I’m passionate about cricket but I won’t die for cricket. Would you die for literature? I think I have. I’ve given up a lot for literature. I gave up my business, I took the gamble, I started again. I’ve had a fourteen year career in literature, I’ve had a second chance and it’s been incredible. serendipity
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Sri Lanka tour of England, 2006 Your handy guide to all the matches… APRIL 2006 Mon 24 - Wed 26
British Universities v Sri Lankans Venue TBC
Sat 29 - Mon 1
Derbyshire v Sri Lankans County Ground, Derby
MAY 2006 Thu 4 - Sun 7
England A v Sri Lankans County Ground, New Road, Worcester
Thu 11 - Mon 15
1st Test - England v Sri Lanka Lord’s, London
Thu 18 - Sun 21
Sussex v Sri Lankans County Ground, Hove
Thu 25 - Mon 29
2nd Test - England v Sri Lanka Edgbaston, Birmingham
JUNE 2006 Fri 2 - Tue 6
3rd Test - England v Sri Lanka Trent Bridge, Nottingham
Thu 15
Only Twenty20 International - England v Sri Lanka The Rose Bowl, Southampton
Sat 17
1st ODI - England v Sri Lanka Lord’s, London
Tue 20
2nd ODI - England v Sri Lanka Kennington Oval, London
Sat 24
3rd ODI - England v Sri Lanka Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street
Wed 28
4th ODI - England v Sri Lanka Old Trafford, Manchester
JULY 2006 Sat 1
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5th ODI - England v Sri Lanka Headingley, Leeds