Coming home to Colombo

It's almost one week since I landed in Colombo. It's been a long time since I visited, since I stayed here. Yet, this is a familiar place--one of my cities. 

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That sea. Tranquil--no doubt deceptively so. Everywhere. In so many shades of blue, that consort with as many different shades of red at twilight. Suddenly visible from the most unprepossessing street corner on Galle Road. 

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That light, harsh and gentle, at the same time. Or maybe it is harsh all the time, but my affection for this place and its people makes it seem gentle. Gentle in recollection, that must be.

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Those trees. Old trees. I still haven't been past Reid Avenue where my most favourite trees used to stand, and I hope the flowering trees in BMICH have not given way to parking or another building. 

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The narrow lanes that wind everywhere, like secret passages

between houses, whose trees hang over the walls, to catch the word on the street--or so it seems. Especially the bougainvillaea, so curious to know who's coming, who's going, who's saying what to whom about whom. Curiosity kills the cat but leaves the bougainvillaea flourishing, it seems!

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I'd forgotten how hilly Colombo is, especially suburban Colombo. Up, down, twist around, then down you go, then twist again and look, it's an uphill climb. I arrive with every intention of walking to work, remembering a more-or-less flat Colombo 4, but these hills are daunting. How will I climb Sigiriya?

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Of course, the Sigiriya staircase will have nothing like this monstrous vehicular traffic. I used to laugh that traffic jams in Colombo were caused by everyone leaving early to avoid the rush-hour (and school-bus time). But today, there are so many cars on the road that they spring up everywhere at all times. The hills are more daunting when you sit in their narrow lines, with single-file traffic crawling. It seems as if the car is moving slowly because the hill is hard to climb, and your faint-heart says, "I can't do it." 

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And the food. Okay, let's not write about the food. Except to say that it makes me very sad to know I will never again eat karavila in the many different ways that Lorna made it, nor her cashew curry, nor her kola kenda. 

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It's the people. Colombo has always felt like home to me because of the people I know here. And too many of them are gone. With each loss, this town feels a little less like the home it used to be. I become more of an outsider than they ever let me feel. 

Still, I am happy to be here. For now, this is still a homecoming.