Trippin by the pool

Perched on the side of the hill, the British Garrison cemetery was a world removed from the feverish tempo at the Tooth Temple at Kandy. Flanked by woods on three sides, it dropped away on the fourth. As we stood listening to the wind, we sighted a young man tending to the shrubs and trimming the undergrowth. Seeing that we’d noticed him, he walked up and introduced himself as Herath, the part-time caretaker.

He didn’t look an inch of the caretaker that we were astonished to find he was. Dressed in a cream colored shirt and blue shorts, short scruffy hair falling aimlessly on his forehead - he could have been the illustrator of our pamphlet or a truant schoolboy.

Most of the time we travel, we don’t have a plan and make do with information we salvage as we make our way around. So to find ourselves in a colonial garrison outhouse in the middle of the woods, in a country we’d arrived in less than six hours ago, didn’t worry us.

Our outhouse companion though was decidedly excited.
For our young Sri Lankan friend, we’d evidently made his rainy afternoon. He could’ve carried on with his day, tending to the gravestones; possibly not meeting anyone till he got home. But the heavens opened up and here we were.

We sat around a dusty teak table. He had questions and stories. Where were we from, what did we do for a living, how did we land up at the cemetery? I cycle up here. My sister goes to college. I like hanging out at the town square in the evenings.

It was a conversation elementary and extraordinary - exhilaratingly unfettered by the trappings of language as we fumbled through English, Sinhalese and far more emotive nods and grins.

Cemeteries tell many stories and hide several more. We read gravestones of men, women and children who lived and died centuries ago, most of them very young. Cholera and malaria had claimed most of them. Engrossed, we didn’t notice the fat raindrops which had started falling. Herath suggested we take shelter in the outhouse, which in fact turned out to be a museum.
The rains went by in a conversation peppered with references to the notice boards and browned newspaper clippings.

Soon it was time for us to go. But not before Herath posed for a picture and wrote his address down on a slip of paper. Send me a copy of the photograph. And come again!

Sometimes, as I would like to suppose it all plays out, the most cherished of experiences take place for no apparent reason whatsoever.