A smile from Lanka
Jug Suraiya
The best gift we can bring back from a so-called ‘failed state’ is a
Smile. Visiting Sri Lanka I noticed a peculiar expression on the face of
almost all the people I saw: Sinhalese and Tamil, Buddhist and Hindu,
Christian and Muslim. It took me a while to figure out what this strange
expression was: it was a smile.
You don’t see too many smiles in public in India, not even in the
National Capital Region (NCR) where I live, and which is the pampered
Sarkari showcase of the country in terms of the civic amenities
available to citizens. And if you don’t see smiles in the privileged
precincts of the NCR where are you likely to see them? In the benighted
and government-forsaken boonies?
But in Lanka there were smiles and to spare. The immigration official
who welcomed us into the country with the traditional Ayubowan (May you
live long), did so with a smile. The driver who drove us to our hotel
did so with a smile. On the way, when the traffic stopped at red lights,
perfect strangers frequently exchanged smiles.
This puzzled me. What did all these people have to smile about? Did
they know something that I didn’t? I knew that, unlike India, Sri Lanka
couldn’t boast being the second fastest-growing economy in the world,
and an up-and-coming regional - if not yet global - superpower, nuclear
bells and whistles and all. I also knew that it was only three years ago
that the island nation - believed by many to be the original Garden of
Eden, complete with Adam’s preserved footprint on a peak named after him
- had emerged grievously wounded in body and spirit after a 30-year
civil war that had transformed an erstwhile tropical paradise into a
blood-drenched battleground.
The war was brought to a violent close three years ago, but peace
still remains an uphill task for Lanka. The US and its allies - as well
as India’s Tamil parties - accuse it of being a ‘failed state’, which
has yet to address the human rights violations that took place during
the long decades of brutal conflict.
After all that it’s been through - including the devastating tsunami
of 2004 - external bullying is the last thing that this gracious and
gallant country needs. So what were all these smiles about then? What
caused them?
One of the things might be that - despite those years of internal war
with its crippling social and economic consequences - Lanka can claim to
have the most creditable quality-of-life indices - in terms of primary
education, healthcare and public hygiene - in all of South Asia. Failed
state? Many places - including not a few in India - would be happy to
aspire to such a ‘failure’.
So which came first, the chicken or the egg? The Lankan quality of
life - interrupted but not destroyed by war - or the Lankan smile? Like
the Ayubowan greeting, the Lankan smile affirms an underlying social
contract, an acknow-ledgement that my well-being is inextricably linked
with your well-being, that the one necessarily must ensure the other in
order to exist itself.
In Lanka - in Colombo with its carefully preserved heritage buildings
and in the idyllic tea garden surroundings of Nuwara Eliya, unspoilt by
congestion and over-construction as Indian hill stations are - this
mutual regard and respect for others is evident everywhere. At zebra
crossings, vehicles give way to pedestrians without being forced to do
so by police presence. The roads and pavements are innocent of garbage
and pot-holes.
Can all this be the result of a small thing like a smile? Or is the
smile a result of all this? I don’t know. But I do know the best
souvenir that any visitor can bring back from Lanka.
It’s a unique gift, in that the more of it you give away, the more of
it you get to keep for yourself.
So here’s a memento from Lanka for you. For you to keep and pass on
to as many others as you want: Ayubowan. |