Today is a Hindu holiday and tomorrow is a Poya (full moon) day so the streets of town are quite deserted. I have never been able to saunter across Duplication Road! Duplication Road in itself, is not so interesting so I went off on the little side roads with names like "Palm Grove" and "Inner Flower Lane" (sounds vaguely pornographic doesn't it?).
On Unity Place a gentleman approached me and asked what I photographing and I told him I was admiring all the old houses. Turns out he was also Canadian, having left Sri Lanka 30 years ago. He was Tamil but had been educated in all the British schools here. I got the feeling that he was of the "old boys" network that seems to be here in former British colonies. Anyway, as it is in Sri Lanka, you have the entire family history (all incredibly successful it seems) plus a few complaints about whatever country they've emigrated to within the first 5 minutes of meeting.
This story however wasn't your usual doctor/lawyer one. His son is Shyam Selvadurai, a well-known Canadian author who has written several books about the Sri Lankan experience, being gay, being in Canada, family and all that entails! I was totally blown away. This was not what I was expecting on my little sojourn! So it just goes to show you that you never know who you might meet out a walk.By the way, my pictures sucked.
No comments:
Post a Comment