The Sri Lanka Podcast: The Jungle Diaries

The Ceylon Press
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Off-grid in Sri Lanka. Deep in the jungle north of Sri Lanka's last kindgom, blooms a plantation once abandoned in war...

  1. La Petit Mort

    EPISODE 1

    La Petit Mort

    La Petit Mort: A Jungle Diary @ The Flame Tree Estate The French condition, “la petit mort” hung in my head as I woke up this morning, for there was a moment, as there is almost every day, when, upon waking, I could so easily fling myself back into sleep. Just like Ghandhi. “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die.” The room is dark, and cool, perfumed faintly of lavender; the bed sheets are soft; the world is barely waking, this being 5, or - at best - 5.15 .am.  But Bertie is doing his paw thing, extending it to my nose, a greeting made with all the polite hesitancy of an Oxford philosophy delegate at his first international conference. But hesitant or not, it is never withdrawn. Bertie maybe polite but he is also determined. The paw will gently tap my nose if not first seized. This morphs into “All Clear, Stations Go.”  He and Archibald begin an enthusiastic tumble; Bianca waddles up through the duvet and Coco lifts her silky, sleepy head from the adjacent pillow and yawns. The girls, I note, are far more languid in their first movements, than the boys. Do bitches feel “le petit mort” more than males? But I am now nearing the point of maximum danger - and greatest decision. I unbolt the doors, and the dogs tumble out onto the lawns and run around palms, mango, and clove trees. Archie begins the first of 2-3 circuits round the fences to ensure we have not succumbed to overnight attacks from wild elephants, armed dacoits, homeless monkeys, or feral peacocks. I return to the bedroom. It is still dark, cool, perfumed. I can feel that rapturous tug of sleep winching my head and heart towards the bed again. It is as inexorable as an AA Rescue Lorry winching up one of my suddenly dead cars off the M4 and onto its back. “La Petit Mort,” notes the AA Man shrewdly. “La Petit Mort.” Quite why the French reserved the little death to post coital siestas seems very mysterious, and not a little bit mean - from a rationing point of view. I’m English, I don’t need sex. I can feel La Petit Mort simply upon waking. And if I succumb now I’ll be out for at least two more hours.  So I do they only thing possible when waging a defensive campaign driven by thoughts of victory. I open the large sliding doors to let in the jungle air, and the view of wave upon wave of green mountains, hills, and valleys. There it is, the jungle; fixed as the call to prayer, but ever changing.  I turn off the Air-Conditioners; put on the fans, pull off the duvet and switch on The Archers. After this there can be no retreat. It’s like burning the boats.  As village politics erupts at Radio 4’s Home Farm and The Bull around the composition of the cricket team and Tracey Horrobin’s hen party, the dogs return one by one from their brief outing, curl up and join me, listening to the soap opera. By ten to six it is all over bar the next step. The day, like a blini now merely waiting for its dollop of caviar and crème fraîche, is ready to begin. But this jungle waking is, for all its dangerous rip cords and underwater currents, a relatively easy challenge. Waking up in London at ten to six when I had a normal job and the virtuous inclination to swim 50 lengths in the gym before the office – that was much harder. The water was always too cold; the other gym goers demotivating assembled like an order of silent monks hours before the dissolution of the monasteries, sleepy, cross, and awkward. The surge of city traffic noises rising like trenchant humidity. The Office itself waiting, like a vortex, or the chamber of a demanding mistress displeased with the roses just delivered.   School was little better; the windows open whether it was minus ten or plus ten outside; 30 other boys in the long dormitory caught in the institutional tentacles of a school schedule that drove us from class room to class room, playing field to canteen. There La Petit Mort was presidentially present - but kept hard at bay by howling prefects and unyielding teachers in Harris tweeds. Memories of La Petit Mort follow me through the day, like naughty angels.  But by 7 am they are all busted flushes; they have no chance of cutting through the dogged determination to keep buggering on.  All across the estate people are busy, sweeping leaves, brushing terrazzo, feeding goats, making cinnamon buns, laying tables, netting the odd petal of pink frangipani off the swimming pool. Early tuk tuks come and go, collecting people, depositing fresh tuna. In the frangipani trees outside my office square-tailed bulbuls with red beaks are building a nest. Never has keep-buggering-on been so better able to overcome the English version of La Petit Mort.

    7 min
  2. Walking The Dogs

    EPISODE 2

    Walking The Dogs

    Thursday, 25 May 2023 There’s something very special - in that most ordinary of ways - about walking the dog; or dogs, in my case.  It’s taken a few years to understand what the exercise is really about; but I believe that both the hounds and I have now properly taught one another how to behave so we all get the most out of it.  For them, it’s about going very, very slowly - so as to allow the appropriate amount of time to sniff at all their usual spots (for purposes of verification); and uncover new sniff sensations – mostly immediately outside the Front Porch Gates where the greatest evidence of new humans, their cars, tuk-tuks, lorries, vans, bikes, or just plain flip slops, is to be found.  Often, as we saunter down the drive, they will uncover new evidence of monkey intrusion; or that of giant squirrel, wild boar, deer, and most certainly porcupine, who bulbus black and white spines lie like clues from an Agatha Christie novel on the rough road. This slow progression to the old gates of the estate and back again takes around 30 minutes; all of us quite content to wait for the slowest or sniffiest one in the pack.  And as they walk, exhale and compare notes, I keep half a mind on making sure the leads doesn’t get entangled, 20% on clocking the progress of the hundreds of plants that have been shoehorned on the embankments, 5% on plans for the day, and 80% on the private loveliness of this serene jungle highway, the leaves of so many tropical trees filtering the early morning light, the grass damp with dew, pockets of air perfumed by sudden blossoms that were not there the day before; and may not be there tomorrow. The main estate road, now that we are well into May, is carpeted with the brilliant red and sometimes orange-red flowers of the flame trees that we planted back in 2008; and which have now, with the help of generous monsoon rains and warm fecund days, stretched from little green saplings into branching trees tall enough with which to consecrate an outdoor cathedral.  Each is a little different from the next, the species DNA drawn from almost every continent in the world, from seeds collected seeds on holiday and work travels and saved up to sow here – a solicitous, cherished shrug of multiculturalism, albeit one that is challenged outside the estate boundaries - in racists attacks by police in the UK and America; purges of Muslims in Burma; the murderous homophobia in Uganda, the war against young people in Iran (and on and on).  It is so depressing as to imply progress all too often goes too far backwards before it is allowed to inch forwards. The oddest thing about it all is its dull blanketing stupidity: traditions, history, the future -all die if they can’t be renewed, represented, and reinvented – and you can’t do this by putting two ancient male ebony trees together and hoping for the best, or whatever is the social, religious, cultural, philosophical, botanical, or engineering equivalent. But here, we love flametreees of all kinds, from all quarters. There are of course, the Sri Lankan flame trees, the seeds coming from Kurunegala and the main road to Kandy where several specimens, large enough to partner American skyscrapers, have, on their uppermost branches, massive wild bee hives swelling out like elongated pregnancies. Some come from Grames Lane in Madras, and the old flame trees my mother planted in our house there back in the 1960s. One or two come from the streets around the shimmering Victoria Memorial, outside of which the last statue of Queen Victoria gazes down the Calcutta Maiden, the only colonial statue the West Bengal Communist Party was unable to abolish. (All the others, it removed from across the city, and reassigned to random columns and perches at Barrackpore, in the grounds of the old Governor-General’s house, where they stood, Generals declaiming to Administrators, Governors to Monarchs, statesmen to the odd scholar [scholars never being very popular outside of Bloomsbury].)  Several flame trees have made the long journey from Sydney and Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand - and Ho Chi Minh City , where they grew along the banks of the somnambulant Saigon River, a stone’s throw from my beautiful, winningly-decrepit, Grand Hotel, once a home-from-home for Andre Malraux, Graham Greene, and Rabindranath Tagore.  Others come from a yachting holiday around the Caribbean where French colonial islands like Saint Martin, or Saint Barthelemy, as formal departments of France, qualified for EU subsidies and so boasted immaculate roads and pavements lined with such trees. Others - like independent Dominica or the rather-down-at-heal British islands - offered no less an array of leafage, albeit shading shabbier streets.  Micky brought many seed pods back from Tunisia, Morocco, and Niger, Ghana, Senegal, and The Ivory Coast. Others have come from the well healed pavements of Zamalek in Cairo, from the antique monuments of Luxor and Aswan, Abu Simbal, Esna, and Edfu; from Hurgurda, Sohkna - by the jaws of the Suez Canal, overlooked by Sami and Nini’s winter house - and a curious Mediterranean resort on the north Egyptian coat that was close enough to Libya as to attract tired holidaying warlords and their AK 47 wielding entourages. All now grow here, a United Nations of Flamboyants, each one ever so subtly different from the next, a little redder, or more orange, later to flower, or with brighter yellow streaks on the fifth petal. Mae West thought that “too much of a good thing can be wonderful;” and so it is with these trees whose massive clouds of red blossom paint the skyline all month long.  Ananda, our head gardener, has been collecting new seedlings for us to plant across Frangipani Valley; and in bursts of midnight gorilla gardening, on nearby hills and mountains within view of the estate.  It’s not hard to understand their lush attraction. The leaves, which have scores of tiny oval leaflets, sift the bright tropical sunlight making the world beneath look calm, cool, and kind. From their crowns, at 40 feet, to twisted serpentine roots that cleave to the soil, binding it a bandage, they dominate their landscape, a choir singing plainsong down cathedral naves.  All around the world they are known by many different names – (unkindly) False Acacia, (happily) Flamboyant, Flametree, Flame-Of-The-Forest, Gold Mohur, Gul Mohr, (or grandly) Peacock-Flower, and  Royal Poinciana. Keralans are adamant that the flowers get their colour from soaking up the blood of Christ; whilst in SE Asia they are used in villages to heals mouth ulcers and arthritis; and even, it is said, overcome baldness.  I feel far from bald walking beneath them with our schnauzers, the red carpet of flowers stretching on like a Oscar VIP overlay on this little known jungle road in central Sri Lanka. My only regret is our Illawarra Flame Tree, a non-flame-tree-flametree; a quite separate species, with still redder flowers, smaller in size, with broad thick leaves. This specimen comes from the streets of Stellenbosch, a long way from its native New South Wales, - from outside an exceptionally good second hand bookshop where I found, unexpectedly, a first edition of Alan Paton’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.” In order to harvest some seeds Simon has to climb on Micky who had to climb on some rickety street furniture before the pods were reachable. Only one seed took root and has grown in a dignified silence, minded to flower only twice in its 14 year history. It is clearly a late and reluctant starter, but we are in no rush; and when it comes, it comes. The Ceylon Press currently produces three podcast shows.1. The Jungle Diaries (www.theceylonpress.com/thejunglediariespodcast)2. The History of Sri Lanka (www.theceylonpress.com/thehi...

    10 min
  3. At The Barbers

    EPISODE 3

    At The Barbers

    At the barbers H.R. Managers are in their happiest pace when discussing either redundancy terms or the compensation package that will tempt you to leap across to their well-moisturized limb of corporate life, and begin, once again, the ascent up the greasy ladder.  There is the salary, of course, sometimes, but not always, cut up into digestible discussable sections, each adorned with dependencies like earnings longing to glitter. Each a niggling dialog. Then there is the bonus: this is always deliciously Byzantium and requires fortitude and a sure command of a longish dictionary to fully negotiate.  Then there are the allowances: a car perhaps, or travel; schooling maybe for those many children that may now ripen like fruits on the branch of a well sustained tree? Clothing?  The cigar allowance has sadly become a thing of the past; and even the allowances for recreational drugs in the music industry appear to have been phased out. But never mind, there’s the golden hallo; the parachute (also golden); the softer accessories: office, equipment, aromatherapy diffuser. Then the Gordian knot of working hours and the working-from-home options. On and on it goes, a menu that challenges even that put up in Paris by La Tour d’Argent. But never once do they mention barbers.  Dilrek, the barber, is most certainly one of my main elements in the compensation package that comes by virtue of running an estate and hotel in the middle of the jungle in central Sri Lankan. Like all barbers, Dilrek is always changing his own hair style.  His hair is thick and black, endowered with a vigour that ensures it grows at the speed of Formula 1 cars at Silverstone. Sometimes, the sides are shaved to a brutal Number 1, leaving the middle section standing proud as a souffle above his forehead. Sometimes it is all cut, soldier style; or trimmed neatly everywhere like the well-meaning coiffure of a young accountant.  Occasionally Dilruk turns his full attention to the sideboards, fashioning them with a careful attention to detail so that they curl out in luxuriant twists like tiny croissants. Rarely – but most grandly – the beard and moustache are brought into the mix, often cut to the opposite style of the head hair – so presenting you with a magnetic Before and After image.  Dilruk is a mere WhatsApp away; and arrives, gear in hand right down to the hair sheet at precisely 8am. He sets his barbering chair up under the shade of a frangipani tree.  Today, yellow and orange oriels flit from branch to branch. On his last visit it was a baby giant squirrel.  Before me stretch long dewy lawns, acid green topiary hedges (than even now Janaka is trimming), and brick paths lined with gothic mothers-in-law tongue. Four schnauzers chase suicidal squirrels before coming to rest under my chair. I have tried to persuade Dilruk to lend them a simultaneous fur cut; given what feats of fashion he lavishes on his own beard; I don’t doubt he would make something splendid out of schnauzer beards and moustaches. But dogs it seems, even schnauzers, appear to be firmly outside his bailiwick.  The radio is playing a discussion led by little Melvyn Bragg about the Sun King, Louis XIV, which seems apposite given the grand hairstyles adopted in Versailles by his courtiers, though the guests, all academics in early modern history, have little to say about either Marie Antoinette’s Pouf or the exuberant wigs worn by the men around her. Dilruk’s style is very mellow. Softy does he wield his long sharp scissors; they move like elven whispers around your head. Although built with the sturdy compact efficiency of a Challenger 2, Dilruk is so light on his toes that you never know where the next cut will land.  He gives off no smell or sound as he steadily moves around my head, so different to the boisterous Italian barbers on Fulham Road who rattle through the colourful highlights of their day and life like Hallo Magazine. Instead of coming out of the encounter like a chocolate sundae sprinkled with too many hundreds and thousands, Dilruk leads you out of it as if you had both been on the same meditation.  And what compensation package, you have to ask yourself, can ever compete with that.

    6 min
  4. Now Thank We All Our God

    EPISODE 4

    Now Thank We All Our God

    Now Thank We All Our God Once, when people still had time for, or a belief in things other than shopping or raw survival, Sundays were special.  There was getting up late for one thing -  very late perhaps; or not at all. Staying all day in bed was always a wicked though rarely called-upon option.  That was the point: getting up when you wanted to. Even if, after that, the day was dotted with destinations. There was church of course -  though this was, even in my lifetime, a frail insubstantial affair, in full retreat; a mere whisper of its once titanic Victorian self. “Hymns Ancient & Modern;” the “Book of Common Prayer;” the sermon, reassuring anaemic; the bread, and the water – all of it – before my eyes -sliding through gargoyles accompanied by Bach's “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”   But other things took its place.  In the golden famine years before the internet, there were the Sunday newspapers, bursting with sections for business and culture, property and fashion, news, and gardening, knitting and pets. On and on they went, a breathless orgy of newsprint and colour illustrations to inform or titillate most legal interests. It took whole days to get through. And there was Sunday Lunch; a massive piece of meat at its heart, accessorized with smaller dishes, sauces, vegetables, pastries, puddings, condiments, coffee, chocolates. A Hollywood film on telly for later? Or a walk? And dinner, composed of scraps of all that was left. The family, eating and fighting together. Joined by friends or relatives.  All of it seems, from my jungle clearing, like an enigmatic piece of ritualistic theatre, filmed in sepia - a silent film. You can see the mouths of people moving; but you cannot make out what they are saying. You can see what they are doing, but not what they are thinking. It is another country; as lost in time as Knossos or Camelot. Easy to get sentimental about, through the nostalgia has little depth to it – and is barely gin and tonic deep.  Here in the forest I often only just about know if it is Thursday or April. This once made me tingle with guilt – but no longer. The weather gives me my first clue as to where I am in time; but after that there are few clues. Humid or cooler; dry or wet: this merely hints at the month; and with the amount of random weather chucked about through climate change, sometimes not even this. This being an hotel, there are always the same number of staff on duty: chefs, butlers, gardeners, housekeepers. Who is around or not tells you nothing. It could be Wednesday or Sunday. Guests come and go; some idling with treasured delight around the pool, instagramming, reading on sun loungers or ordering deliciously late comfort lunches; others race off to climb the Sigiriya Rock and delve into the caves of Dambulla between sunrise and sunset. The call to prayer sounds through the coconut palms as it does every day of the week – so that doesn’t help much either. Newspapers are non-existent. There is no radio, no television, no choir of chatty media hosts to inform you what day it is and what they think about what might have happened. Nothing. Zilch. Nichts. You are on you own here. You have to figure out what kind of day it is; and then decide, in the absence of any templates, how it is going to pan out.  And it is easy to get distracted, as I am today, witnessing, through the odd breathless online news report, of the implosion of Britain’s most loved Breakfast Sofa Show. The Breakfast Sofa Show is an amusing format whereby two people who pretend to be BFFs invite other Best Friends onto the show to sit on overstuffed sofas and discuss such things as sun cream, or political corruption. For years these presenters will be revered as National Treasures until, as surely as night follows day, it draws time for their public Excoriation. This is the part most loved by the media. It doesn’t come round that often, but when it does it must be savoured, dissected, drawn out in loving rants of outrage.  In today’s case, one of the two English presenters has been cunningly terminated by the other, but, in the ensuring revelations, his affair with an 18 year old young man then galvanized the show’s many detractors into demanding its immediate closure. As the devil has many faces, nothing short of the abolition of live TV would truly solve matters. But the howling roll of comment, story, gossip, and press release from far off London, reminds me, here in my jungle lair, that I enjoy the sort of protection from nonsense that only Vestral Virgins, astronauts or abdicated kings could once expect. And for this, it is probably useful to have a slightly tenuous hold over what day of the week it is. It is, after all, what I do, not when I do it, that matters most. True, I can sit in my office with a view to researching endemic owls of Sri Lanka – and even get some way into identifying what differentiates the Collared Scops Owl from the endemic Serendib Scops Owl, before there is a knock on my door and my attention is turned to the water supply that has been interrupted by wild boar digging out the pipes; the guest who missed their train to Ella; the new mango and pummelo chutney that will not set – or the Sri Lankan Tourist Board, who can minimise the achievement of life on Mars by the bureaucracy attendant on getting their latest certification.  Sundays or Wednesdays – they pass in the same way, random events breaching the best laid plans to keep me on my toes better than ever could a Sunday Roast or the distant strains of “Now Thank We All Our God.”

    7 min
  5. The Lovely Now

    EPISODE 5

    The Lovely Now

    Wednesday, 7th June 2023 The Lovely Now After days and days of heady sunshine, the rain falls. As ever, spectacular.  Within minutes of the monsoon deluge starting, the lawns become shallow green lakes, their surface calm obliterated every millisecond by fat cool rain drops falling like a bedtime story from heavy skies. Cool damp breezes stir and waft across the frangipani garden and into my office where Bertie is asleep on a chair pulled up by the window, his father, mother, and sister asleep on the terrazzo below. Several cross monkeys have taken shelter just within view under the thick leaves of the mango tree. The best thing about this rain is that it is Now Rain. It’s so delicious and overwhelming as to rub out the past and negate the future. It does the work of a thousand therapists, and focuses the mind simply on The Now. Two inspiringly meditative guests from Singapore are lapping up the lush dramas from a back veranda. Two others have set off intrepidly in a tuk tuk for Ella.  All sound gives way before the downpour. It fills the estate like the sort of unending “Um” you might breath out after a particularly reviving yoga session. The shower plucks flame tree blossom, scattering the red glitter across the gardens. I can hear our goats bleating with satisfaction within the dry walls of their new Goat Palace that we have just constructed beneath the main estate road. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”   Buddhism and Rain are very complimentary.

    3 min
  6. The Pride Owl

    EPISODE 6

    The Pride Owl

    The Pride Owl, 15th of June 2023 The owl’s hoot kicked it all off.   It was 5.49 am and it rang out, sonorous, low, loud but not noisy.  Mellow.  Rather beautiful.  Almost bewitching.  A thing of the night, heard in the day.  Just like Gay Pride, sounding out exactly where it shouldn’t.   This is June, so the season of Pride marches is lighting up so-so diary pages of many souls within the good globe’s silent minority.   The owl was certainly late to bed.  Most other creatures were already up – excepting the monkeys that is, who – like languid diplomats – were still reaching for their jungle equivalent of morning croissants and in-bed latte – before deigning to recognise that the day had started. But started it certainly had.  And the owl’s lateness to bed made me feel guilty on its behalf.  Had it been to an all-night owl party?  Back from the wing version of a long road trip?  Insomnia?  Nightmares that stopped it risking sleep?   Guilt manages to seep into almost everything.  And Owl Pride is clearly this wise rejoinder to this nonsense, night sounding by day.  Of course, many Pride events have now become Mega Pride Happenings, planned months ahead like coronations or music festivals with corporate sponsors and ticketed events.  You can buy Pride candles, Pride mortgages, Pride bed accessories, Pride cakes, Pride phone condoms, and pretty much anything else so badged.  But when the assembled marchers sing Tony Robinson’s legendary anthem “Sing if you’re glad to be gay,” it is really just the chorus that is appreciated, blasted out like “Rule Britannia”.  The bitterly ironic other verses about violence, humiliation, and injustice, are washed away, no longer understood today. It’s an awfully long way from Stonewall, 1969, when the New York gay community just randomly fought back one night after an especially egregious piece of police harassment. Their defiance and courage set off a mighty avalanche.  All the Prides worldwide stem from that, and the best are still the most local, in tiny towns and villages rather some borrowed city.  In these very local spaces people claim the right to be themselves in exactly their own streets and homes.  Not unlike my little jungle owl this morning.   I say little, but it’s quite possible he is tiny and very good at sound projection.   The authoritative International Ornithologists' Union classes 255 birds worldwide as owls of one kind or another. Looked at from this perspective my Sri Lankan owl  is a member of a very high achieving club.  Sri Lanka has but 0.01% of the world’s land mass yet hosts 0.8% of its endemic owl species. In a country that has been repeatedly invaded by Cholas, Tamils, Dutch, Portuguese, British – even the Danish at one point - endemic is something of a debating point and the owl world is no less alive to this controversy than the human one.  Whilst some Sri Lankans claim there are but two endemic species; others claim it is actually three.   Both camps take great pride in the endemic Sri Lankan Serendib Scops Owl. It is a species new to science since just 2004, and, as a rainforest night roamer, is almost impossible to see. Its detection was a long drawn out process for Deepal Warakagoda, the Sri Lankan ornithologist, and a pioneer in natural history sound recordings. He first noted its sounds in 1995 - for it emitted the most distinctive quivering notes. It was not until 2001 that he actually saw the creature. “It was just after dawn that the first-ever observations of the species were made, in a flashlight beam, at the Sinharaja rainforest,” he wrote.  It took until 2004 before sufficient further research had been done to justify naming the discovery as a totally new species of bird – the first since 1868, when the Sri Lanka Whistling-Thrush was described.  The other endemic owl on which there is broad agreement for its endemic-ness, is the Chestnut-backed Owlet , a small stocky fellow barely 8 inches long; but one that is at least more visible for it can be seen often during the day and into the early evening.  But it is over the third owl, the Sri Lanka Bay Owl, that eager taxological arguments rage about its status and endemic-ness – for this owl apparently calls both Kerela and Sri Lanka home. It is something of  a beauty.  Coming in at around 10 inches in length, with a white feathered body and gorgeous white disc of a face, its eye area is picked out in darker feathers as if it has visited a Beauty Salon specialising in Baroque eye brows and eye lashes.  It is more than likely that my Pride owl today was such a one, beautifully if not outrageously dressed, singing away day or night, proud to be an owl.   But it’s just as likely that he was in fact one of the non-endemic species that have passed the challenging Sri Lankan Department of Immigration citizenship tests to become firmly resident in the country.  The Brown Fish Owl, more fondly known as the Brown Boobook, is one of these Resident Aliens.  Some 13 inches in length, it is one of the most commonly seen owls, happily urbanised.  But if trying to decide on which owl was mine by its call alone, I might opt for the Brown Wood Owl.  This species is large (17 inches in length) and though shy has loud, reverberating hoots.  It is a real Owl’s Owl - large serious black eyes set off within a frame of white feathers on darker ones.   Cuter, though smaller (10 inches in length) are the Collared Scoups Owl or its cousin, The Indian Scoups Owl.  Both come complete with those delightful tell-tale ears or head tufts - like Yoda in Star Wars - that give it the appearance of being able to listen to your every problem Two last Resident Aliens make up the island’s Owl tally.  The Barn Owl, seen everywhere, is more often heard first for it has an ear-shattering shriek that it enjoys drawing out to its fullest extent.   But nothing beats the Spot-bellied Eagle Owl. This massive raptor, some 3 feet in length is the world’s sixth largest owl; and well distributed in Sri Lanka’s forests. Its grey and white markings make it easy to spot and the ledge-shaped tufts that lie horizontally over its eyes gives it a learned and quizzical look. But it is its savage, human-sounding shrieks that has granted it the greatest notoriety, for on the island it is also known as the Devil Bird and its cry is said to portend death. Neither of these two are likely to have been my little Pride Owl.   As I write, Coco’s six tiny puppies chewing my feet, Bertie barking at the giant squirrels in the Ebony Tree, the Owl has moved on.  I like to think of it in its tree hole, feet up, sipping a cocoa laced with whiskey, a trail of glittering clothes strewn across the floor.  He is getting ready for bed.  He has done his thing.  He has hooted when least expected, and claimed his rightful place.

    9 min
  7. Hand Gestures

    EPISODE 7

    Hand Gestures

    Hand Gestures: An Alternative Tutorial At 6 am Mr Goonetilleke the Younger’s workers were already busy tapping the rubber; and as I shot past them, four dogs on a single lead, I waved a good morning. The wave I got back reminded me that hand gestures in Sri Lanka are rarely like this – of the usual kind.  Simple, easy to interpret, quick to deliver. To mention “Hand Gesture” in England is to imply the semaphoring of indelible insults.  The “V;” the single finger, the waggling little finger, the nodding sideways fist,  it’s a menu to delight those for whom actions speak louder than words. But here in Sri Lanka, hand gestures are more likely to connect with the wisdom and life of Lord Buddha, than they are to deliver slights, slurs, and abuses.  Everyone, of courses, knows the two palms pressed together as if in prayer, as a greeting that negates the sticky bacterial swopping of a western handshake. This is known locally as the “Anjali Mudra” - a 1 on 1 respectful gesture of greeting. But there are plenty of others beyond that, used in temple, home, and office to convey a feeling or thought.  And, in dance too - for traditional Sri Lankan dance is nothing without the many complex hand gestures that have been passed down the centuries like a piece of supra-DNA choreography.   Sometimes, as in an auction when you want to take care not to let your fingers brush some invisible fluff on your jacket or face and so be mistaken for a serious bid for the School of Canaletto on sale, it can be prudent to simply sit on your hands until you know what your random hand gestures might really mean. To get an inside track on island hand gestures, its as well to spend a little time with Lord Buddha.  Even his most serene and pacific statues offer a dynamic lesson in the evangelising of fundamental Buddhist beliefs.  For if ever hands can speak, those of Lord Buddha most certainly do.  There are at least 11 core messages encoded in such hand signals, known as “mudras,” some with the most subtle of further variants; and most, but not all, in common use in Sri Lanka. The most popular Mudra is probably the “Karana Mudrā,” made by raising the index and little finger and folding all other digits, to ward off evil, negative thoughts – and demons. And not a hundred miles away from this is the “Abhaya Mudra” – or “gesture of fearlessness," a pose made with the right hand raised to shoulder height, arm crooked, palm facing outward, fingers upright; left hand hanging down at the side of the body. In this pose, Buddha represents protection, peace, and the dismissal of fear. Popular too is the “Bhumisparsha” – or “Earth Witness Mudra.” Here, all 5 fingers of the right hand touch the ground, to symbolise Buddha’s enlightenment under the bodhi tree. The left hand - held flat in his lap - symbolises the union of method and wisdom. At the other end, and not for the faint hearted, is the “Uttarabodhi Mudra.” Here, index fingers touch and point up; all other finger entwin at heart level – a bold gesture of supreme enlightenment, brought about by connecting oneself with divine universal energy. This Murda finds its nearest cousin in the “Jnana” or “Wisdom Mudra” - thumb tip and index finger touching as a circle and facing inwards, representing spiritual enlightenment. The remaining 5 Mudras are more complicated, eclectic, or doctrinal - or, quite possibly, all three. The “Varada Mudra” is a largely one-handed affair. Here, the left hand hangs at the side of the body, palm open, facing forwards with all fingers extended – a representation of charity and compassion, one finger each for: Generosity; Morality; Patience; Effort; and Meditative Concentration. The “Dhyana” or “Meditation Mudra” is made with one or both hands resting on the lap and is a gesture of mediation made when concentrating on Buddhism’s substantial body of “Good Laws” and the attainment of spiritual perfection. The “Vajra Mudra” symbolises the unity of all Buddhist beliefs, the erect left hand of the forefinger being closed into the right fist, the tips of both fingers curled together. The “Vitarka” or “Discussion Mudra” has the thumb and Index finger touching, the remaining fingers pointing straight, the gesture reflected with both hands and indicative of talking about and communicating Buddhist teaching. And last of all is the famous “Wheel of Dharma” or “Dharmachakra Mudra.” Here the thumb and index finger of both hands touch at their tips to form a circle that represents the union of method and wisdom. To really complicate (or enrich) things, the 3 free fingers of both hands are also extended, and carry their own separate meanings. The 3 extended fingers of the left hand symbolize Buddha, the Dharma (the doctrine of universal truth), and the Sangha (the Buddhist monastic order, of monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen). Those of the right symbolize the 3 main tools for his teaching – namely: the Hearers - who practice the teachings they listen to and – after 3 lifetimes - achieve "small" enlightenment; the “Solitary Realizers” who cultivate merit and wisdom over a 100 eons to achieve "middling" enlightenment; and the Mahayana or 'Great Vehicle' - collectively, Buddhist traditions, texts, philosophies, and practices. “Uses promptos facit”.  Practice makes perfect.  Shut the door.  Pull up a chair in front of your bedroom mirror, and begin.  Within a week, you will be hand gesturing with flawless confidence, and opening up an entirely new channel to communicate with yourself, and others.  And even God.

    7 min
  8. The Kerfuffle in the Kitchen

    EPISODE 8

    The Kerfuffle in the Kitchen

    The kerfuffle in the kitchen  The kerfuffle in the kitchen has calmed down since I (at last) remembered the old adage about too many cooks spoiling the broth. And acted upon it. Sudeth and Kasun, our (pre) existing chefs, have stepped effortlessly into the gap created by the departure of a big enchilada and the pot is set again to simmer smoothly. Two Commis chefs have joined the team and the kitchen whirls once more with contented, timely creatively – rather than the sultry Gordon Ramsay B Side that is the alternative chorus of any kitchen. Both Sudeth and Kasun are pleasingly talented and able; well organized, properly mindful of standards, hardworking and curious to prod the boundaries of our Menu Mantras. Our kitchen is (I know I may be unjustly accused of bias here), the best within at least a 65 mile range, if not more. It’s certainly way better than anything in Kandy, Negombo, Matale, Gampaha, Kurunegala, Hatton, Dambulla, or most of the grand restaurants and hotels in Colombo. That’s more than conscionably good for a kitchen in the jungles of central Sri Lanka where finding pomegranate molasses can take the better part of a week. Having eaten my way through more Michelin stared restaurant menus than any generous god could countenance, I‘ve rediscovered the blindingly obvious: you can’t beat simplicity, authenticity, routine. Do a few things really well; keep to what you can buy that is really fresh and local; and take to heart that food is a tour (or at worst, an excursion) through a country, a district, a culture. That’s it. That’s our menu Mantra. Entirely. No more. And definitely no less. This means leaving other kitchens in other lands to fashion dry ice trompe l'oeil salads, pompadour cuts of preternaturally expensive meats from distant Japanese prefectures, mercurial seascapes daubed with caviar and served on mirrors dusted with blushing Anatolian salts; and all the other melodramatic dishes prepared for the jaded urban palates of this starving earth. No.  No., No. No. Food may be fuel; but it sure isn’t entertainment, brief and flimsy as anything you might catch flickering across the Netflicks screens before it is gone forever. Not unless you’ve run out of other things to do in a long and reckless life; and have taken to climbing the Munros or dropping in on the College of Hearlds to research your matriarchal family line. Food is culture; learning; life.  What I revere about our estate food is that all our ingredients are really really local (though the curd most certainly comes from heaven). The most perfect vegetables and fruit are sensually abundant just a stone’s throw or so away; most of the usual – but still more of the unexpected. The spices we pick from our gardens: cinnamon, cloves, pandom leaves, pepper. cardamom, vanilla, curry leaves, turmeric, goraka, curry leaves, ginger, cumin, chilli, . The herbs we grow ourselves.  With meats, we are very picky. Good beef doesn’t happen on the island: it comes from thousands of miles away, tired, jet-lagged and an affront to any armchair environmentalist. Pork is challenging; locally sourced, easily disgraced. Lamb, like penguins, have yet to call this tropical island home.  But the chicken is excellent. And the fish, of course, better still. Sailfish swims off all the coasts, its flesh thick, steaky and white with none of the oily after taste of some sea creatures. And tuna – well, enough said. Tasty tuna can be seen off every beach doing backstroke, breaststroke, crawl, a gleaming Sri Lankan passport clasped between its teeth. Tuna is very very good. And then of course there is rice.  Back west or down the sleek corridors of the G7 nations its mostly white. Intermittently wild,. Sometimes brown. Occasionally organic.  But here there is also Suwendel, Kuruluthuda Wee, Madathawalu, Sulai, Murungakayan, Pachaperumal, Sudu Heenati, Kaluheenati, Gonabaru, Kuru Hondarawala, Polon Wee, Guru Podi Wee, Kuru Ma Wee, Pulli Wee, Alagu Samba, Guru Wee, Pushpa Raga, Alagu Samba, Allei Perumal, Hapumal Wee, Mada El, Rasna Vaalu, Askarayal, Hata Da Wee, Rata Thawalu, Hathi El, Madei Karuppan, Rath El, Heen Deveradhari, Maha Maa Wee, Bala Goda Wee, Manikkam, Masuran, Bala Murunga, Heen Rath El, Rath Karael, Bala Samba, Heen Samba, Molagu Samba, Rath Mada Al, Bala Thatu Wee, Heen Suvuru Wee, Molligoda, Bata Kiri El, Hondarawalu, Motakarupan, Mudu Kiri El, Rathu Bala Wee, Beheth Heenati, Kahata El, Murunga, Rathu Sooduru, Kahata Samba, Niyan Wee, Kalu Bala Maa Wee, Kalu Bala Vee, Deveradhari, Kalu Handiran, Sudu Maa Wee, Goda Wee, Kottayar, and Wanni Dahanala.  To name but a few. As Van Goff might have said to a curious passer by: we am not short of colours. To shape food with all this around us is little short of joyful. The are the obvious things you should never deviate from, like toast soldiers with boiled eggs; nutmeg with comfort macaroni cheese, proper homemade marmalade, and freshly baked bread.  But the katsup with our lunchtime fish and chips isn’t Heinz -its homemade, with nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Curries come with Mango & Rosemary Chutney. Ice creams are flavoured with more than vanilla or chocolate – with cardamom or ginger; chilli & kitel or pepper & honey. Sri Lanka’s melting pot history of Indian, Portuguese, Dutch or British flavours tosses such loved invaders as hoppers, milk rice, love cakes, bibikkan, samosas, gulam jamun, bhajis, and lassis onto our menu. Soups made from carrot, cauliflower, beetroot, or pumpkin stir with the greater intensity of added ginger, cardamon, coconut or chilli. Island favourites like naran kawum, curries of cashew nut or vegetable, dishes of dhal, meats or classic dishes of tuna, cauliflower, spinach, salsas, potatoes, or beans are enlivened by a touch of lemongrass, rosemary & kitel, pineapple, saffron, tamarind or ginger, kittul & basil. You just can’t not meet a bit of the real Sri Lanka when you eat from Kasun and Sudeth’s kitchen, despite choosing your food with the judgement of dowager. Even their breakfast fried eggs have little smiles on the yokes picked out in pepper grapes.  Real food, as Julia Child observed, is a serious art form and a national sport.

    7 min
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Off-grid in Sri Lanka. Deep in the jungle north of Sri Lanka's last kindgom, blooms a plantation once abandoned in war...

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