Malinda Words: Earth-pieces Kerala and Sri Lanka

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 235th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

Liyanage Amarakeerthi is an educationist in and out of the lecture theatres at Peradeniya. I can’t think of too many people who are as consistent in sharing whatever knowledge they acquire.

It helps that he is frequently invited to speak at literary and academic events, but that is probably because from his earliest days in the ‘lecture circuit’ he was someone who came well prepared and always had insightful things to say in the post-lecture discussions as well. That however is not his preserve. There are others who are as engaging even when they venture to speak outside their area of academic expertise. What’s interesting and special about him is the teaching/sharing drawn from his everyday engagements that are not particularly academic. For instance, his posts on social media.

It could be an encounter with a three-wheel driver, something he saw as he walked or cycled, something he planted, the fruits of his labor or pictures and comments about places he visits. In recent times, he’s posted from Israel and these last few days from Kerala, India.

Amarakeerthi encounters something fascinating and almost immediately posts pictures along with a comment. He’s always introducing things which in his opinion could, if replicated, help people back home in Sri Lanka.

Sometimes he just speaks of natural wonders. The post that caught my attention, in this regard, is the splendour he had the privilege to observe in Kerala. He wrote it all down, stating that he deliberately wants to stir his middle class friend in Sri Lanka.

‘When you have saved enough money for the airfare and other small expenses, come visit Kerala. Instead of burying lots of money in a house that your children will not live in when hey grow up, reduce the number of rooms (you plan to build) it would be good to visit at least the neighbouring country with what you save. The waters of the river Chalakudy give me a special sensation. The other river is Poorna, The Malayali name for this river is Periyaru. Yes. It’s the Tamil meaning: “Big river.” I was scared to [bathe] in it. Tomorrow I will be going to see the “Niagara” of Kerala.’

In subsequent posts he introduces other wonders of Kerala. One which was particularly interesting was a set of pictures with the following caption: ‘I wonder if Sri Lanka is an earth-piece that somehow got dislodged from Kerala and floated far away.’

It is not a new comparison. The state of Kerala has been compared with Sri Lanka on many counts. There are similarities in achievements with regard to health and education that are remarkable. Kerala’s numbers are much higher than India’s averages in these sectors. The physical similarities have also been mentioned often. So, while I concur with Amarakeerthi on the logic of saving money to visit India and especially Kerala, I wondered whether people think enough about the Kerala elements that can be found in abundance right here in Sri Lanka.

The charms are countless. There are over 100 rivers, 16 of which are over 100kms in length and several that are longer than both Chalakudy and Periyar. There are over 500 waterfalls, many whose height is greater than that of Kerala’s ‘Niagara.’ There are over 1,000 village cascades systems. Eighty major dams make for massive inland water bodies. In addition there are between 10,000 and 14,000 village tanks used as irrigation sources.

Archaeological treasures are as abundant. The Department of Archaeology lists all such places in each and every district. Few know about them and fewer still visit. The off-grid ‘eloquence in stone,’ to borrow the title that Sinharaja Tammita-Delgoda gave the coffee table book of Nihal Fernando’s photographs of archaeological sites he has visited, similarly constitute doorstep-wonders. And the road! All you need to do is to roll out a map of the island, close your eyes, place your finger on it randomly. Visiting that place is more than likely to offer you a route that you might come to believe was made to delight in innumerable ways.

There’s beauty in all these places. Reduce one room, as per Amarakeerthi’s suggestion, and you would probably be able to vacation every weekend for an entire year.

I would urge people to consider visiting Kerala. Distance offers perspective. New places offer fresh ways of imagining a new Sri Lanka. But travel within the island and, in the very least, you’ll appreciate the fact that although Sri Lanka is not some kind of unblemished Garden of Eden, it is neither the hell-hole that people make it out to be. It’s an earth-piece with unique and fascinating features. Well worth exploring.

08 October 2023

Earth-pieces Kerala and Sri Lanka

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