Between airports

By Siri Ipalawatte – Canberra

By the time I reached the Katunayaka airport at midnight I had been sleeping in the taxi for about 20 minutes. I woke up startled and bleary-eyed. After paying the driver, I checked to see if I have left anything inside. No, that’s fine, I reassured no one in particular. Families drifting around the hall have come to see off somebody or are passengers themselves. When I reached the Singapore airlines counter at the extreme end of the check-in area, there weren’t many passengers there; probably they had come earlier. I joined a queue of six people, and there was another queue of the same number facing a different check-in counter.  The passengers who stood waiting with suitcases more imposing than themselves had only their smiles and their passports to vouch for who they were.

Nothing wrong with the isle seat, I had decided. So after pushing hard to put my hand luggage and laptop into the overhead locker, I  settled into mine. A hostess came along the isle with a tray in her hand. Arms rose from the seats in front of me towards the wet face towels she handed out. I unzipped my bag, took out my field note pad and started reading. 

A jeep pushes through the dense jungle in Wilpattu. Only the moan of the old motor interrupts the hush of dusk. The land on the right begins to rise sharply, revealing the recent pug marks on the low embankment, covered by thorny bushes. The track bends to the right and the driver switches on the headlights and then suddenly applies the brakes. A leopard had sprung from the embankment and was pounding after a deer. The leopard grabs the deer between its strong jaws and backs into the jungle, dragging the body and emitting growls of warning. 

I’m 36,000 feet up but the safari memories are still vivid. On the long plane flight from Colombo to Singapore and on to Canberra, I’m re-writing my notes and re-living the daily events of that weeks spent in Wilpattu, Kumana, Wasgomuwa and Bundala national parks. 

The emotional transition began in the baggage claims area of the Canberra airport, and continues with my son and granddaughter waiting for me outside the customs area. First and foremost are the joy and relief of being back at home in a leafy suburb and close to my son and his family. Although I was born and grew up in Sri Lanka, I have been living in Australia for more than 35 years. Australians are included among my friends whom I have known for many years and with whom I now share  my life and many of my worldly interests. In Australia, I can expect to have quality food, to enjoy physical comfort, and personal security, effective medicine, easy access to doctors and hospitals. And one has the freedom to be alone, to have privacy, to express oneself, to debate openly, to hold unconventional views, to be more immune to peer pressure, and to not have one’s every action scrutinised and discussed. It means freedom to sit in a café on a crowded street in Canberra and read a newspaper in peace, without being besieged by acquaintances asking for help with their personal problems.

A different emotion hit me when I exited the Canberra airport and drove onto the Tuggernong Parkway. The landscape around me on the highway consists of an asphalt road grid, buildings, and motor vehicles. The sound environment is traffic noise. Reflexively, I turned down the volume knobs of my senses and my emotional states, knowing that they will stay turned down for most of the time during the following six months until my next trip to Sri Lanka’s jungles.

However, returning to urban life in Canberra means returning to time pressures, schedules, and stress. Just the thought of it raises my pulse rate and my blood pressure. In Sri Lanka’s jungles there is no time pressure, and no schedule. If it’s not raining, we walk out of the forest cabin each day before dawn to listen to the first morning bird songs — but if it’s raining, we sit in the cabin, waiting for the rain to stop, who knows when. A man from the nearest village in Kumana may have promised us yesterday that he will visit the cabin with some local fruits; but he didn’t have a wristwatch and couldn’t tell us when he would come, and perhaps he would come on another day instead. In Canberra though, life is heavily scheduled. My little pocket diary tells me what I shall be doing at what hours and on what days, with many entries weeks and months into the future. E-mails and phone calls flood in all day everyday, and have to be constantly re-prioritised into files or numbered lists for responding.

Back in Canberra, I gradually shed the health precautions that I adopted as reflexes in Sri Lanka. I no longer need to buy bottled water; tap water in Canberra is very clean. I no longer have to monitor each scratch on my skin, lest it develop into a tropical ulcer. I no longer have to wonder whether a twinge in my abdomen might mean appendicitis, at a remote location in Sri Lanka from where I couldn’t get to a hospital in time.

Returning to Canberra from Sri Lanka’s jungles carries for me big changes in my social environment with much less constant, direct and intense interactions with people. During my hours spent in Sri Lanka’s jungles I’m almost constantly within a few feet of Sri Lankans and ready to talk with them, whether we were sitting in forest cabins or out on a trail looking for birds or animals. When we talk, we have each other’s full attention: none of us are distracted by texting or checking e-mails on a cell-phone. In contrast, in Canberra, we spend far less time in direct face-to-face conversation with people. It is estimated the average Canberra resident spends eight hours per day in front of a screen – of a computer, TV, or hand held device. And submit himself to constant bombardment by sounds and images that come from minds other than his own, that fill his head with information and trivia, other people’s adventures and excitement and desires.

In Sri Lanka ,when travelling, if you could not find the place you were looking for you would within minutes be surrounded by people, some just curious and others offering you assistance. You could be certain someone would volunteer to show you the way, and having done so, walk back. Offering him money for his trouble would be considered an insult.

While passing a village house you may be invited in. Your acceptance will be considered an honour and give the host happiness. You will be offered a drink, probably king-coconut water or freshly prepared fruit juice, or even a glass of ‘Kitul thelijja’ and they will try to entertain you perhaps by asking one of the young children to sing an old song of greeting. They will nod and shake their heads. Children look up to, respect and love their parents.

In Australia, psychologists sometimes talk about low self-esteem among young people. Such feelings are virtually unheard of among the young people in rural Sri Lanka. Of course they have all the same living problems as in other developing countries, but low self-esteem is not one of them. 

They remain with their innate dignity and compassionate Buddhist culture. But who knows what will happen to future generations, their sons and daughters, as they gradually come in contact with what we older generation ironically call developed world habits. Maybe we live in the West overdeveloped outwardly and underdeveloped inwardly. Perhaps, it is we who, for all our wealth, are living in poverty. 

How many years, living in these sophisticated cities – London, Sydney, Canberra – roasted during the summer, frozen during the winter, have I not walked those green fields, silent forests, and river valleys that were part of me? Innumerable times in dreams I have gone to my favourite childhood haunts in southern Sri Lanka. However, after 35 years commuting between Sri Lanka and Australia, I have worked out my compromises and have found my peace. I spend about six months in Australia and six months in Sri Lanka. I still spend much more of my time and thoughts in Sri Lanka, even when I am physically in Australia. Sri Lanka’s intensity is hard to shake off, even if I wanted to do so, which I don’t.