Lanka - A Peep

Question: There are only 3 countries where Buddhism is the official religion. Two of them are Cambodia and Bhutan. Which is the third?

Ans: Sri Lanka.

Well, I wouldn't have answered this question correctly until a few weeks ago. I was under the impression that our neighbors are just like us - officially - and pretending to be - "secular". But now, I would say, they are more honest. And Sri Lanka is also open-minded enough to bring out multiple postage stamps in honor of Mahatma Gandhi - and at least one of Sri Narayana Guru, a figure so inadequately acknowledged by India minus Kerala. And I am yet to see any Lankan commemmorated in any official manner by India.

My knowledge of Sinhala was limited to a passing familiarity with the Sri Lankan national anthem until the 'Ma' song went viral last year. The only writers I have known to have had any connection with Sril Lanka are Michael Ondatje (partial Lankan ancestry), Pablo Neruda (he spent some time on the island and had some interesting 'encounters' as narrated in his autobio) and Arthur C Clarke (who settled there for many more interesting experiences of a somwhat different flavor). And I remember hearing that Sri Lanka treats elephants way better than Kerala. That plus a solitary Malayalam article by N V Krishna Varier sum up all I knew about the island.

The first thing one sees in the Transit Section of the Colombo Airport is this big idol of Buddha. And there is at least one more similarly big idol hereabouts.

And there are clear instructions put up as to the correct behavior in the Master's presence.

I saw an Ayurveda parlour too out there - but I wasn't surprised, having read about Sri Lankan contributions to Ayurveda in the aforementioned article by N V Krishna Variyar.

Buddhist devotion pervades the airport - and most emphatically in posters such as this:

It is interesting to see Brahma pay obeisance to the Master (left extreme panel) - I recall Indra worshipping Buddha on a Sanchi stupa frieze but not Brahma. Maybe elsewhere on the island, one would get to see Siva and Vishnu too worshipping Buddha.

Sri Lankans seem to treat ascetics with great reverence - am reminded of the Indian practices of addressing monks as "Maharaj!" and touching the feet of any monk one sees (and just now I saw that the Bhikshu who assassinated SWRD Bandaranaike, the eponym of the Colombo airport, pulled the trigger on the leader when the latter bowed before him in the customary gesture of salutation). I didn't see any live monk but saw this cluster of very plush sofas set aside for "the clergy" (not actually aside but in the middle of the hall):

No discussion on the Air Lanka experience would be complete without a mention of the Air Hostesses, quite a lot of them look very good (let me quote a phrase from Vimal here: "eye Kandy") and their visual charm is considerably enhanced by the way they tie their sarees. But it isn't entirely about the attire; just a few days previously, I had been specially 'prepared' by an encounter with this remarkable object:

That was a millennium old bronze Tara image from Sri Lanka, now in the British Museum. Apparently, this votive statue once stood in the inner sanctuary of a Lankan vihara, far from the vulnerable eyes of laity and the object of special worship by (!) monks; a century and a bit ago, when it reached Old Blighty, Victorian prudery took exception to the statue being put up on display!

Of course, Lanka is not all Sinhala. Tamil is official, features in every serious Sarkari board and is heard all over the airport. But, despite long years spent in Chennai, I couldn't comprehend a very sizeable fraction of it. Even the official, written Tamil shows variations from its Desi form; for example, the word for toilet is not given as 'kazhippidam' (literal meaning "excretion place") but as 'malachalakoodam' (literally meaning, to my knowledge, "heap of shit and pus"). Curiously, every single component in this horrible Lankan concoction derives from Sanskrit and not proto-Dravidian; whatever, lets leave the poop and get back to the rest of the 'peep'!

Let me add a pair of Kochi images to bookend this Lankan record.

A single vanishing point perspective of the departure section of the Kochi airport. The smooth and translucent floor brings to mind the ‘sthalajalabhramam’ (confusion as to whether one is stepping on hard tiled floor or a sheet of water) that Duryodhana experienced at the Pandavas’ brand new palace.

And another part of the same airport – with two vanishing points.

Up above, I tipped my hat to Sri Lanka for honouring Narayana Guru with a postage stamp. Here is how the seer/social reformer has been honoured by a spanking new structure in Tripunithura, Kochi.

There is a life size plus gleaming metallic statue of Guru lurking in there – within that glass box - sadly lost among those rearing chimeras and other similarly showy clutter. ,