Yala is about wildlife.
That’s the story. It is not
incorrect. I first went to Yala in
1971. Family trip. I remember seeing
peacock and jungle fowl, deer and wild buffalo. And of course elephants. The next trip was in the late eighties. Friends. All of the above and leopard
too. Sure, there were birds and butterflies,
trees and flowers and the odd wild boar and crocodile, but it’s mostly
elephant, deer and peacock. I had different
eyes then and possibly better vision too.
This time it was different and not just because of changed ecological,
social, political, cultural and economic contexts.
I have the deepest respect for the natural world; just don’t
claim to know much about it. I like
photographs, but I am neither photographer nor photo-critic. I like to watch animals, but neither have the
means nor the knowledge to appreciate them the way I am sure a wildlife
enthusiast would. So this is not an essay about wildlife in Yala.
There were more people in Yala than there were animals, or
so it seemed to me. Perhaps it was the
wrong time of the day or wrong time of the year or perhaps because there were
too many vehicles on the dirt tracks in the park but we saw very little
wildlife. Didn’t upset me.
I went with family. A big party of people. Lots of children. Stayed outside the park. Governor’s Camp is a nice place. Lots of space, clean, neat, comfortable and
thankfully none of the trappings of the usual tourist hotel/lodge. Abeysinghe
and Ranjith, the two man staff, did the work of 10 people and I was told they
had not had any rest since the beginning of December. They cooked, cleaned and in my case provided
excellent conversation about all kinds of topics for free. That itself was your-money’s-worth in my
book, but the place offered much else besides.
This is rain-time in Yala (and almost everywhere else in Sri Lanka !). That was a big difference from what I
remember. Things were green. Not just not-brown green, but all-shades
green. A roll of gaze from left to right
would in one sweep give me such colour variation that I wished I was a painter.
Or photographer.
One didn’t have to move around to find things that fascinate
eye and provoke meditation, I found.
Well, that’s true of all places, even the most congested road, crowded
market place or a garbage dump can ‘give’ in like manner; but these tidbits for
the eye came clothed in a pollution free wrapper made of birdsong, breeze,
brick-less surroundings and uninterrupted play of light and shade. Made a difference.
I suppose everyone takes something and hopefully leaves
nothing behind that is not biodegradable.
There’s a lot one takes from empty spaces and a lot from places
relatively untouched by human beings.
Yala is a goldmine. Sorry, every square inch of that place is a
goldmine. This is not the moment or
place to draw a map and mark in detail the treasure-filled spaces. Indeed, I am not a surveyor equipped with
relevant tools to do justice to such a project.
I will just write a few paragraphs about what made this trip different.
Stone. On the
beach. From the finest grain of sand
through pebbles crafted by the fingers of three accomplished artists – wind,
sand and water – to the mighty sentinels that have greeted sunrise from who
knows when and meet in silence the touch of the elements, the whip of wave and
storm as well as caress of spray and breeze.
My most worthwhile hours were made of these. No, not at Yala, strictly
speaking, but a few hundred meters from Governor’s Camp.
The universe and the eternal verities were all mapped out
and etched on these entities. The story
of life, the vagaries of emotion, the ambiguities of the human condition and
the timeless wisdom of the Buddha’s discourse on impermanence I saw in flashes
of illumination as my uncrafted eyes dwelled on and moved from signature to
signature, those chiseled over aeons in the peculiar union of moment and
century with sun and rain and sea and wind.
I’ve heard that the universe is contained in a grain of
sand. I can’t say that I saw universe or
really saw grain of sand, but from my perch on rock, bathed by sky, sun, the
arc of bay, wide expanse of water and the myth that is horizon, I figured that
all things constitute a call for meditation, an invitation to get off the
particular safari-jeep (metaphorically speaking) that we are loathe to leave
and stand still.
Yala is made of wildlife.
Yala is not made of wildlife.
Yala is located at the South-Eastern corner of Sri Lanka . Yala
is not in the South-Eastern corner of Sri Lanka . Yala is a rock that is right in front of your
nose, in your pocket, in the eye that catches your eye and the entwined gaze
such encounter produces.
I wished I was a photographer. A painter. Or a poet. It is something that I want to share, this
experience I mean, but I lack word and wonder also if it would matter to
others.
Perhaps I should say, ehi passiko, (‘come, see’), the
invitation to contemplate the Dhamma as expounded by Siddhartha Gauthama, and
leave it at that.
Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation' and can be
reached at msenevira@gmail.com
1 comments:
Made me smile. And that's a big thing. Smiled for more reasons than one :)
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