So free in Serendib

What I do know is that my time in Sri Lanka (three months to date) has taught me more about it than I've ever previously had cause to consider.

In letters, articles and e-mails during my first few weeks here I joked that arriving in Sri Lanka unprepared for the onslaught of constant culture-shock and solo expeditions into the unknown was like 'an intensive assertiveness training field-trip'. And I think I'm finally reaping the rewards of that training - thanks to this serendipitous land.

A lot of people seem to equate freedom with money, especially where a lack of it affects people's lives as significantly as it does here in Sri Lanka. For a relatively wealthy westerner (albeit reliant on a local wage) it might sound crass to say that this hasn't been the case for me, but money, lack of it or otherwise has had little to do with the sensation I'm referring to. More likely to inspire it in fact are the daily experiences of witnessing life in its rawest, most accessible form that have come to characterise my life in Sri Lanka. Visiting friends from England have recently reaffirmed this bringing their own uninitiated ways and wide-eyed perspective and reminding me of my (slightly more fine-tuned now!) own.

From my comparative conversations with tourists/holiday makers (this was my fourth trip out to spend an hour or so in the airport's arrivals area) and locals, I have come to realise that the common perception that Lankans have of the 'outsiders' image of Sri Lanka is far from exact. That the country is 'war torn, a spoiled idyll, dangerous' is not surprisingly a million miles away from most tourists' minds when they visit. 

A far more popular image is still the traditional honeymoon isle, vibrant cultural colour, beautiful beaches and unspoilt scenery. Despite the world news reports that suggest otherwise, the romanticism of the 'teardrop in the Indian Ocean' is still the more popular perception of Sri Lanka by far. The latter might be a little over-idealised, and the former might hold more truth than most holiday-makers would like to, or indeed ever believe (which just exemplifies the egocentricity of 'world news' elsewhere). The effect however - like the magical eye that tourists cast across the 'quaint villages' and Enid Blyton/Agatha Christie-like landscapes that otherwise appear 'average' to me back in England, is one that can be infectious to even the most jaded, over-accustomed view.

In fact I've noticed that many of the holiday-makers et al are more likely to note things like beggars with too few limbs, many mouths to feed, old people bent double due to lifelong work and other such examples of 'reality' as the only blot on their idealistic landscape. This is where the 'regular tourist' and I have to agree to differ. For me it is this intimacy with the 'raw-edged' nature of our existence, the sense of humanity and its both brazenly temporal and essentially ephemeral qualities that make experiencing it fully, all the more necessary. 

I have witnessed many examples of the way that death and drama are quite literally 'closer to home' in Sri Lanka than on the sanitised streets back home, where such fears are kept behind closed doors. As are loss and suffering and their unavoidable counterparts, life and joy. Death, growth and change, it's a familiar cycle to us all and one that has so far characterised my stay in Sri Lanka in a number of ways. From the tears in the Manchester airport departures' lounge to the dog, one of many that fall victim to traffic, hit by the van on the way to collect our friends. 

It has also, I'm certain, promoted this sense of 'living for the moment' as opposed to 'putting off until tomorrow'. There is less time to pontificate over the meaning of life when you're so busy experiencing it, or as one of life's great 'thinkers' once put it 'when you are free, being is doing and doing is being - either way you cast little shadow to hide in'.

One thing is certain, in Sri Lanka I have far more of a 'sense of self' in a world unbound by other people's constructs. I realise that this might sound a little contradictory, aware as I am as the next inside/outsider of the many binding traditions, ideals and etiquette of Lankan society (and of Victorian Britain's hand in all of this). But for me it's the effect of stepping outside these traditions and looking in with an alternative eye that has been such a revelation. 

As an 'introductory' meditation pupil, I am already aware of the powers of 'noticing' my own thought mind, rather than allowing it to take its own wild path. Viewing with a non-judgmental eye to gain a less critical, more open understanding perspective. This analogy between travel and meditation is aided by the slow-paced yet equally action-packed (life, however slow continues to hit me directly in the face daily, here) moment-by-moment lifestyle Sri Lanka seems to encourage.

It seems I could point to various different things to explain this sense of liberation I have; my fresh perspective (still clinging on steadfastly after three months in the place I now refer to as 'home'). The simpler, less artificially refined and more relaxed 'real' way of life, the bombardment of new experience or even escape from a 'day to day' dull ache of familiar routine/environment. But I'm not sure any or even all of them suffice. What I am sure of is that a sense of 'freedom', dictionary definitions aside, is certainly something I've come to feel closer to in Sri Lanka than ever before. Serendipity indeed.

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