Book Review | New Book Makes a Case for Visiting South Asia’s Most Beautiful Country

Kamalakaran’s extensive research and inclusion of all kinds of interesting snippets of information, showcase the multi-lingual writer’s deep affinity for the beautiful port city. From Mark Twain’s observations on a “peculiarly blessed land”, to Mahatma Gandhi’s prim remarks on alcohol in the home of coconut arrack, Kamalakaran presents the back stories, but also packages bits of each visitor's own archaic jottings in an accessible way.

All books on Sri Lanka invariably invoke my own 35-year-long association with that beautiful country: one riven by the blood and tears of civil war, landmines, gunrunners, riots, suicide bombs, the tsunami, terror attacks and economic hardship. Fortunately, Colombo Port of Call, a delicious, easy read containing happier tales from a long-gone era, didn't force me down that painful memory lane.

There are a few minor bugbears though.

Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), is incorrectly placed in the context of the “British Raj”. That term refers to British rule of India (and other erstwhile parts of it) alone. Ceylon was a Crown colony reporting directly to London, not to the Viceroys in Calcutta or Delhi. The East India Company briefly oversaw parts of Ceylon from Madras in the late 18th century, but that was 60 years before the Raj.

Like slow food, chronology would have lent a transitional feel to the book. Instead, it opens with a Siamese prince in 1896, jumps to Don Bradman in 1930, swings back to Andrew Carnegie in 1879, and darts forward to Emperor Hirohito in 1921.

Combining diary jottings by non-writers with the profound eloquence of a Twain or a Doyle too, leads to unevenness. A banal phrase like “an exquisite harbour”, shows up shabbily against Doyle’s water buffaloes wearing “the resigned air of a London landlady who has seen better days”. Having said that, even the great Chekhov could vapidly muster up ‘paradise’, at best, to describe Sri Lanka.

Finally, the repeated reference to Sri Lanka as “the island” is a tad too mignon.

Sri Lanka is bigger than Belgium and almost the size of Ireland (which is hardly referred to as an ‘island’). The South Asian nation may not be as affluent as either European country, but its culture is infinitely more complex. It also has the best social indicators and one of the highest literacy rates in the region. With an editorial excerpt dated 1840 in his foreword, the author himself describes Ceylon as a “place of immense importance”.

This is no mere ‘island’ that poet HW Longfellow’s ships “pass in the night”.

For anyone tracking the geopolitical churn in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka’s strategic location alone ensures that it was, is and will remain a dealmaker. (Or breaker).

The writer is a senior foreign correspondent and author of Sri Lanka: The New Country

Colombo: Port of Call

By Ajay Kamalakaran

Penguin Random House

pp. 312; Rs 599