I was in Sri Lanka recently. I looked forward to the trip with some trepidation. Reading about the troubled times there, I wondered if it was safe. That should be a good enough reason to enjoy it thoroughly, said a friend. But my fears were unnecessary. Except for no entry zones in high security areas, and check points where soldiers verified one's identity (which was exasperating after a while), my colleague and I came back with good memories.
I love Nature. If I am put amidst a few trees and there is some grass growing under them, I consider myself blessed. I can then let the brook gurgle and the wind blow in my mind. Colombo provided me all of it. I loved the place. There were wide expanses of green, and the ocean too. For someone who had taken a trip from the concrete jungles of Mumbai, any place that has Nature in abundance is a sight to go raptures about! The only hitch was that I was there on work and did not have much time to sit and enjoy the sights.
The area where we stayed was abuzz with gun toting soldiers as the government buildings were nearby. Since we did not know the local language, Sinhalese, we tried asking for instructions in English, much to the dismay of the soldiers. Even the tuk tuk -- rickshaw – drivers that we hired could not speak English.
On the first day of our working day, my colleague and I had to meet an official in the government building. The place was just 15 minutes walking distance from our hotel. We asked the soldiers, since we could not see any civilians, for directions. They shooed us off. My colleague said, perhaps we were speaking a bit too quick. So we took turns to speak slowly to another soldier and asked for directions again. We received a blank look in response and were shooed off again.
We began the exercise all over again with another soldier. “Can you please help us get there? We are running out of time.” The soldier looked back with a blank expression. We named the building and I asked, “Is the building we are looking for to the Right or Left?” waving my arms in both directions for added measure. He nodded and said, `Left’. I looked at my colleague triumphantly and said, “See? He understood.”
My colleague nodded and we hurriedly crossed the road and walked a little distance and then found we had hit another no-walking zone with soldiers asking us to move back. I asked again, “The way to this building -- is it Left or Right?” “Right”, said the soldier. We walked straight and turned right only to be met with another soldier barring the way. My harried colleague told the soldier, “A soldier there told us Right and so we are here. We have to go to X building. Is it Right or Left?” He replied ‘Left’. Then it dawned on us that the soldiers were echoing our last spoken word!
When we managed to reach the building, the official had left for another meeting and we had to stay put for a long while. Only if the soldiers understood or spoke English!
Tooth Temple
On Sunday, with all offices closed, we decided to go to Kandy. The Tooth Temple was our main attraction. We reached the venue and as is wont with monuments and places of interest, guides swarmed around. “Better to hire a guide and finish the tour quickly or we will be stranded here for long,” said my colleague.
We hired a guide who said, "I speak English". He quoted a sum and we haggled and settled for Rs 200. We hardly walked a few metres, when he asked, “You Indian?” “Yes,” we said. We entered the temple building and he said, “You having anything to ask, I saying, ok?” All this in a tearing hurry and we did not quite get what he was saying. So we asked again. He repeated himself. My colleague grumbled in Hindi, “What is this guy saying for the Rs 200 we are giving him!” I quickly nodded at the guide for I was eager to hear about the temple.
“You know Buddha?” he began. By then my colleague was spewing expletives in Hindi. I controlled my laughter. It was hilarious for we had said we were Indians. Buddha is not unknown to any of us in India.
The guide cautioned us about taking pictures inside the temple. “When I say photo, you take no.” We nodded. We realised later that every sentence for most Sri Lankans ends with the rhetoric no.
We went up the steps of the ancient temple. We would not be left alone, of course. The guide continued with his story. He said some long sentences, which sounded gibberish to us. The only thing we understood was, “Hema Mala coming. King Ashoka, you no.” My colleague said, in Hindi of course, "This guy is telling us some Hindi film story now. Look at him naming Hema Malini and not getting her name right as well."
I told the guide, “We know King Ashoka. Who is Hema Mala?” That was my undoing. “Hema Mala don't know? Oh, I tell you. Hema Mala and Dhantha princess.” And then some more long winding sentences, which were definitely not in English. At least not the English we were familiar with. We rued our decision to hire this `English speaking' guide. I thought to myself, serves me right for not doing a Google on the temple before leaving for Lanka.
The evening prayers were being said in the temple and we stood in the queue waiting to go up the sanctum sanctorum. The guide said, “Prayers for god. Line stop. You wait. Any doubts, ask me.” I bent down to pick an imaginary thing to stop myself from laughing aloud. My colleague was visibly seething.
We said our prayers, and then went to the first floor of the temple building to see the various Buddhas there – Japanese, Thai, Indonesian, Indian. It was then that my colleague and I saw the pictures on the walls. The story of the Tooth relic was there in pictures and words!
The guide saw us looking at the pictures and said, “Any doubt, ask me. I tell.” Right! He was just the guy to clear our doubts!! We had paid him Rs 200 to be told `You know Buddha.. Hema Mala don't know?’ without telling us the entire story. Perhaps he did. But we could not understand anything of it. My colleague said, “Only if he had brought us here first.” But how could he do that – he had to fleece us off some money, no!
