All they’ve ever known is a country at war. They’ve grown up with bomb blasts and terror attacks, death and destruction in the shadow of a 27-year long civil war. For Sri Lanka’s youth, the 62nd Independence Day which was marked on February 4, was thus especially significant for it was their first Independence Day free from war.

It’s a clear day and gazing at the azure sky, Mohammed Hanif bluntly confesses that he hadn’t been good at potato farming, the family business which he went back to when he was unsure about making it as a journalist.