EMBRACING SERENDIPITY

Promising as it may seem, I had no other desire than simply to be there, ready to welcome whatever I’d get on my plate as a good guest should be.

Thus, opening the door to serendipity on the island whose Arabic name Serendib (“island of gems”) is whence this word comes.

And so it went. From the very first moment on, when I was immediately upon my arrival hugged by the nocturnal heat (30C) and a tremendous humidity.

This combination I’d normally find challenging, felt now like the magical breath of a piece of earth covered with wild vegetation and surrounded by the warm ocean. Green. Lush. Sensuous.

Sinbad’esque.

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“Just what would one’s first impressions of Ceylon be? Mine were formed a little over seven years ago, but although the country has changed considerably since then, very likely I should notice the same details today: fireworks, flags and lanterns of festival time, thousands of clowning and chattering crows, Christmas-tree bulbs strung through the branches of the trees, catamarans like primitive wooden sculptures beached on the sand, zebus pulling enormous painted carts, umbrella-shaped shrines in the Buddhist temple precincts, the Sinhalese with their frail bodies and betel-stained lips and, more than all the rest put together, the reckless luxuriance of the vegetation. It is hard to visualize any scene here without its backdrop of trees, so completely do they dominate the landscape. They are always there, the vast rain-trees and the ancient bo-trees with their quivering sequin-like leaves, the bread-fruits and the jaks, the abnormally tall cocos (in the neighborhood of my home they grow to eighty feet) and the incredibly thin areca palms” says Paul Bowls beautifully in his Letter from Ceylon (Travels).

His essay is from 1957. After 56 years, those were the details I too noticed with amazement –except for the carts and betel neither of which is allowed today. (One may smoke or chew betel only indoors, including public spaces like restaurants or bars, not outside. Cigarette butts on the ground are just nonexistent.)

Nor I saw the Christmas tree bulbs. It was the Buddhist New Year though, and the bulbs were replaced by fireworks and the incessant tumult of the crackers for one week!

As for the “reckless luxuriance of the vegetation,” ah!

Starting from the small seaside village Negombo (neat and low key in contrast with the nearby busy capital Colombo with its suffocating pollution), travelled to the north, then to the highland with the country’s only “mountains,” heading finally to the south, I covered a good part of the island (skipping the national parks -I’m not really into the safari- and leaving the east coast to some other time). And during all the time it was this abundant vegetation the leitmotiv. Driving through the dark green tunnels of the centuries-old huge trees, pass the mahoganies, teaks, rubber trees, ebonies, tall, tall cocos: a thick cover, densely woven with infinitely diverse threads of different trees and their whole palette of green.

What a feeling of riches is this! Fading all the human misery, poverty, trivializing them it comes to the forefront as if pointing out the true affluence. (I can’t help but compare the effect of this with, say, that of the rich towns in arid California. Human versus natural abundance.)

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Those exotic inversions..

A street vendor selling on his straw mat laying on the ground potatoes, onions and.. pineapples!

Slaking your thirst with some coco juice from its husk, cheaper than a can of pop. And healthy.

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Observing the traffic in a country is the shortest way to get its prevailing sense of time.

Distances are not great. But what you see on those very decorative signs in three languages (Sinhalese, Tamil and English) is utterly misleading! After half a day, I realized that distances here are measured not in kilometers but in time. Having no hurry they respect the speed limit (70km/h) willingly. It took almost 5 hours to get from Anuradhapura to Kandy –the distance being “just” 147 km. It’s as though they drive slowly to enlarge their island in this way.

No, they really have no hurry. Exasperating at first (strong is the grip of entrenched habits) this islander sense of time mirrored my own ambiguous stance. After a healthy confrontation I let go and relaxed deeply.

Time is not a whip cracked on their backs. A separate entity which alienates one to life. Something one has to obey its demands for the best part of their life to be emptied and released for the rest. Time to them, it seems, is life itself. It’s they who let it flow as they like.

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Proximity and mingling of such different cultures bring about unique mixtures of customs.

The first driver I hired was a Catholic with two tiny plastic Jesus figures glued to the dashboard and prayer beads hanging from the rear-view mirror. In the morning he was doing a puja, honoring the Lord with freshly plucked white flowers and an incense stick. The second one was Buddhist with a ceramic Samadhi Buddha at the same place on the dashboard.

I saw temples where Buddha and Hindu deities are worshipped together. A contradiction I’m still unable to make sense of.

One enters barefoot not only Buddhist and Hindu temples but also churches. In fact, considering how many of them you visit you may as well go barefoot all the time for the rule is valid in the entire area seen as part of the temple. Sometimes you have to take off your shoes a few hundred meters before the building itself.

Stepping burning stone ground, climbing rocks in the midday heath was hard to my delicate soles at first. But then I saw the logic to this madness. Taking off the shoes, being barefoot is something humbling, and so, readying. Besides it brings one to their body. Grounding.

After some time I started to enjoy this greatly.

This and eating your food with fingers. (They say that it tastes so much better so, and I agree. 

Putting aside the aggressive, insensitive, metallic cutlery really makes a difference. It’s like making love without condom.)

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I am blessed with people I meet in my travels. Highly interesting, helpful locals and fellow travelers who share their insights, impressions and knowledge generously. This trip was no exception. I’ll particularly remember Mr. Faiesz (an archetypal uncle type who went out of his way to help me find a room in Ella during the impossible period of the Buddhist New Year –also how elucidating were his numerous anecdotes) and handsome Danush (a true born storyteller, in love with his ancestral heritage he told passionately about for hours). (By the way, listening to the classical poem/songs from him was the only time Sinhalese sounded pleasant to me. Dry and harsh, this language I’ve heard in the street is hard to reconcile with Buddhism. In contrast with its cursive script I find adorable. Derived from Sanskrit it’s fluent and calligraphic. Visually musical.)

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Swimming in the Indian Ocean. Warmth and power. It’s like moving through some liquid form of Yin and Yang.