Bali – A Tourist’s Paradise Island

By Jay Hettiarachchy, Nov. 2012

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali

Indonesia is an archipelago nation, made up of approximately 18,000 islands with just over 6,000 inhabited.

Bali is a province of Indonesia. It is one of Indonesia's 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island. It covers a few small neighboring islands as well as the isle of Bali. As seen above the island of Bali in the ocean resembles a fish swimming in the deep blue sea.

The island of Bali has a population of approximately 3.8 million; its land area is 5,632 km. approximately 90 % of its population follows Balinese Hinduism and the remainder of the population follows Islam, Christianity and Buddhism.

Bali is also the largest tourist destination in Indonesia and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including traditional and modern dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking, and music. A tourist haven for decades, Bali has seen a further surge in tourist numbers in recent years. Most tourists who come to Bali are Chinese, Japanese, Australians and Europeans. This is mainly because tourists could still enjoy the unpolluted beaches and live in reasonably good hotel rooms available at reasonably low rates throughout the year at the ever increasing number of luxury hotels constructed in Bali by foreign investors. Body massages are a lucrative and growing business in Bali.

Currency in Bali is Rupiahs. The exchange rate at the time the author visited Bali Island was $1 = 9600 Rupiahs. A reasonably good hotel room costs approximately I million Rupiah (about $100 U.S. dollars). A cheese Burger costs around 45,000 Rupiahs. If your U.S dollar bank notes are old (issued before 2002, or are worn out by usage) you will receive lower exchange rates. If you exchange your foreign currency in Bali, make sure that you got the correct amount in local currency; do not allow the money changer to count the money again. This is when the converted money that you get falls short of the money that you counted correctly earlier. Remember, tourism is the most lucrative industry in Bali. After you convert your money at a roadside money exchange they promise to give better exchange rates for foreign currency than the banks, they make sure that they talk you into buying their merchandise including massage service that they sell at competitive prices. But always remember that you get what you pay for.

The most famous mode of transportation in Bali appears to be mopeds unlike in most other Asia countries where three wheelers inundate the roads. I found that three-wheelers are prohibited in Bali. I wish most other Asian countries follow that example.

Massaging tourists is a growing business in Bali. Most hotels have massaging SPAs and massage parlors. A massage costs around 400,000 Rupiahs and lasts for about 90 minutes. Along the roadside you will see most massaging girls who will politely encourage you for a body massage. The massaging girls talk their way through with the poor English vocabulary they have acquired over the years. They are not bashful at all to artfully lead you into a massage unless you know how to ignore them and walk away from them. They are on the roadside soliciting for massages from anyone who happens to be walking on the road from 9:00 am to late at nights.

The wealthy local Balinese people too who could afford a body massage employ private massagers mostly females who visit them in their hotel rooms or in their homes regularly. Massaging appears to be a traditional custom very much a part of the Balinese culture, like yoga more or less connected with the healing of the body and mind. Now it is being used as money making opportunity mainly offered in the luxury hotels to satisfy the needs of the tourist population.

Although the known origins of Balinese population could be traced back to as far back in history as 2000 B.C, today’s Balinese culture with a caste system very much similar to that of India, shows the predominance of Indian culture in Bali after the 1^st century A.D.

Following are some of the observations of the author about the Balinese people and their culture during his short stay in Kuta in Bali. Virtually thousands of hotels have been built in Bali and there are 161 listed in the Kuta Sea beach itself.  The Centro Mall/Discovery Mall facing the sea beach is one place where tourists gather in large numbers to bathe in the sea and walk on the clear sand. Boating, surfing and most other activities take place along the sea beach that spans miles and miles studded by beach hotels. 

The Centro shopping mall has a large number of shops carrying local Balinese apparel including Batiks, local hand crafts made out of wood, sea shells, metals and all kinds of Balinese souvenirs. Tourists spend lots of time shopping and collecting various Balinese hand crafts that they would want to take home. This is a common sight in the evenings – tourists gather in large numbers on the steps of Centro mall leading down to the sea beach and relax enjoying the scene of the sunset spanning the horizon. The sunset hour gives a glorious view of the sunset on sea water as seen in the photos given below.















Some hotels that border the sea beach have dining areas overlooking the sea beach (mostly a few yards away from the sea) where the guests could enjoy alcoholic drinks and all sorts of sea food preparations served right beside the sea beach.









Sea food is served in beach hotels in the evening right on the beach. The food is as good as it looks.



While in Whiz Hotel in Kuta Bali the author had a chance to read the ideas and opinions expressed by local writers in popular magazines that are circulated in Bali hotels. Apparently, the very same tourist industry that enhances the Balinese economy is hurting it as well. Nevertheless, Balinese people are unable to do anything about it either. The booming hotel industry is not only taking away the land available for farming from the farmers but also making the available land unsuitable for agricultural purposes by excessive usage of ground water; the excessive usage of ground water by thousands of hotels has resulted in salty water of the sea getting into the underground water table thereby affecting the crops grown in the coastal area. The farmers are therefore giving up farming for labor work to make a living.

The majority of Balinese people are illiterate. They speak Balinese and one or more Indonesian languages. Only the people working in hotels and are in hotel management have a working knowledge of English to carry on the business activities with the tourist customers. Apparently most hotels are owned by foreign investors. The system works well because the few who are educated (mostly foreign business investors) could keep the illiterate, uneducated, and poor local people under their control. Most local Balinese people are god fearing Hindus and observe their religion very faithfully. The clever, shrewd and cunning educated business entrepreneurs take advantage of the illiterate poor and faithful people.

So long as the majority of the people are illiterate, poor and are gullible, the business entrepreneurs could manage and control them well. The rich minority gets richer by exploiting the poor people's labor. All the housekeeping, labor intensive jobs and the menial work is done by the poor local people who are competing to work for a pittance and part time. They are all given uniforms that they wear for work. They are trained to do the menial work and nothing else. They are only good at the labor work or housekeeping jobs or cooking and waiting on the hotel customers who are mostly holidaying tourists from China, Japan, Australia, European countries and the U.S. The people working at the receptionist desks have a working knowledge of English just enough to communicate with the foreign guests. The security staff also is capable of communicating in English.

Agriculture

Although tourism produces the GDP's largest output, agricultural sector of Bali economy is still the island’s biggest employer, most notably rice cultivation. Crops grown in smaller amounts include fruit, vegetables, Coffee and other cash crops.  

Interestingly, the traditional system of rice cultivation keeps the balance between the family, the community, animals and the environment all working in harmony. The photos given below clearly provide visual evidence of the harmonizing effect the agricultural system has on the people, animal, and the environment. Obviously, the farmers need to depend on bulls, cows, and buffaloes to plough these fields. They have to depend on one another to keep the water flowing to their fields thereby depending on one another for the irrigation system to work effectively.

Arabica Coffee is another famous product of Bali. Many coffee farmers in Kintamani are members of a traditional farming system called Subak Abian, which is based on the Hindu philosophy of "Tri Hita Karana”. According to this philosophy, the three causes of happiness are good relations with God, other people and the environment. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali).

Given below are photos of a typical coffee production facility in Bali:

Bali is also famous for its artisans who produce a vast array of handicrafts, including batik and ikat cloth and clothing, wooden carvings, stone carvings, painted art and silverware. Notably, individual villages typically adopt a single product, such as wind chimes or wooden furniture. While the production of stone images of Hindu gods is done by craftsmen in certain villages other villages specialize in wood work, pottery or metal work. As one travels along the roads, the landscape changes from one craft to another almost indicating that the villages are organized according to castes that specialize in certain crafts, similar to a feudal system at work in which the social mobility is not permitted by the social system.

Religion and religious beliefs of the Balinese People:

When Islam surpassed Hinduism in Java (16th century), Bali became the home of the Hindus. Unlike in most other islands of Indonesia where Muslims are the majority, about 93.18% of Bali's population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. With an estimated 20,000 puras (temples) and shrines, Bali is known as the "Island of a Thousand Puras", or "Island of the Gods.”

Balinese Hinduism is an amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshipped together with Buddhist heroes, the spirits of ancestors, indigenous agricultural deities and sacred places. Religion as it is practiced in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It pervades nearly every aspect of traditional life. Caste is observed, though less strictly than in India. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its own power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual. Ritualizing states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behavior. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali)

Given below are a few photographs of Balinese Hindu Temples and images of the gods worshiped by the Balinese people.

Krishna







Garuda, the vehicle of God Krishna





Monkey appears to be an animal considered sacred by Balinese. This association could very well be a connection of Ramayana mythology in the belief system of Balinese people.









Arts and crafts

Although not sophisticated or educated, Balinese people have a rich heritage of arts and crafts depicting a relaxed and peaceful life style that most Balinese people seem to enjoy. Although undermining their agricultural economy, the booming tourist industry seems to be keeping the average Balinese economically contented. At least a couple of Balinese people told me that they did not want to settle down in the U.S even though they had the opportunity to do so because they wanted to be with their family and enjoy Bali lifestyle.

The Balinese dancers reminded me of Hawaiian dancers to a certain extent. One difference was that the Balinese dancers typically wore headgear and masks unlike the Hawaiian dancers.

We had the opportunity of visiting a collector of Balinese arts and crafts who has his own museum of artifacts. Given below are the photos of some of the paintings and crafts of these arts enthusiasts collection.

Our Visit to the monkey Forest and some of my concluding thoughts on my visit to Bali (dvipa) as the Indians called it long ago when the Island was colonized by the Indian immigrants.

If humans evolved from the apes, there are yet some things that humans have to learn from the apes, mostly caring for each other and each other’s physical needs. Massaging industry in Bali seems to be very much a part of such trait that Balinese people have inherited from their ancestors.









The monkeys that we saw in Monkey Forest were very family oriented monkeys. They cared for their young ones and cared for their elders. They were not scared at all of the people around them. They were very friendly and wanted to play with the visitors. They welcomed us to the monkey forest as if we were their long lost buddies:















After visiting Bali and the monkey forest, the author is more convinced than ever that primitive man is the best man.

Eating with the mind – the key to a healthy family life.

Jayadeva Hettiarachchy·Thursday, March 15, 2018

Humans have an evolving relationship with food. This relationship demonstrates our cultural heritage. Unlike other animals, humans are selective about their food; they relish their food with their minds as much as their mouths, as they eat. Various cultures have historically developed their cultural attachments to food that is unique to those cultures. Unlike other omnivores, humans have their food cravings and aversions and a compulsive need to label food as good or bad, or hot or cold (as in many Asian cultures). As we all know Asian countries offer a wide variety of foods and food preparations. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Thai foods are different from North Indian, Pakistani, South Indian, and South Asian foods and food preparations. Middle Eastern countries have their own food types and food preparations. Similarly, there is a wide variety of food types and food preparations in European countries. People of United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Portugal have their own food habits, culinary preparations, and specialties. Eastern European countries, mainly Norway, Sweden and Denmark have their own food preparations. North and South Americas, Canada, and the famous tourist Islands surrounding Americas have their own unique local food as well as exotic foods that satisfy the palates of tourists. Russia, Australia and New Zealand have their own indigenous and cultural food affiliations as most other countries and cultures. Similarly, the type of food eaten and food preparations widely differ in different parts of Africa, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Yemen. In summary, all the countries that make up the world (195 -249 of them) have their own cultures, cultural heritages as well as unique food eating and food preparation methods.

Although communication among the people living in different countries of the world has improved after the advent of the Internet, the world is still the same good old world where people belonging to different countries, races, and cultures, speaking many different languages continue to live together , and at the same time apart preserving their own social, economic and cultural identities. Food eating habits of different people, the main focus of this paper, significantly contributes to their different cultural identity. Given below is an attempt to understand the way how food impacts our relationships in the “global village:”

It all happens from the time of birth of children into the world. One common thread that connects all humans, both men and women of the world to food begins at the very beginning of life. Humans like most other mammals possessed with mammary glands functional in females, feed their offspring with milk produced in their own body. This may perhaps explain as to why little children similar to baby animals have a strong attachment to and dependency on their mothers during their formative years of life. In some cultures, human babies are breastfed by their mothers until they are five to six years old whereas in the western world where baby food is a lucrative industry, some mothers breastfeed their babies only for about six to twelve months. The child psychologists believe that weaning babies from breast milk early make them more independent, especially when it comes to toilet training of young children. However, people belonging to different cultures have different customs and ideas regarding the type of food that breast feeding-mothers should eat. Some cultures, especially in Asia, have strict social customs and rules that mothers should follow regarding the type of food they should eat and avoid eating during the period in which they breastfeed their children.

In countries where food is scarce (this is a problem with most countries in the world), food plays a major role in family relations. Historically when humans were hunters, men did the hunting and women did the cooking of the food brought home by the men who protected them from all sorts of dangers. This is still the case to this day in some societies of the world where women and men have different roles to play in family and social life. In these societies, women were home makers, and the family members shared the food however little food they had. Most of the time the children went hungry in such families, and they did not have a variety of food to choose from. Most children growing up under such hardships lived a very hard life, and not every child was lucky enough to live long and grow up under such hardships and survive. But those who survived such hardships in life, just like those who did survive the great depression in the western world developed a totally different outlook towards life. Food seems to have had a strong binding on these people’s family life. They learned to conserve the very little food they had that they shared with every member of the family. Together they prayed holding their hands and blessed their food before they consumed it. Foods were not consumed alone and in isolation as some people choose to do in the present time. It was customary for all family members to gather and have their meals together. They also avoided eating and snacking in between. This is because food was rare and precious, and no one growing in such societies and cultures wasted any food.

Although food was scarce in these societies and cultures, visiting family members and guests were not only treated with respect but with home cooked meals. Rejecting the meals offered by the host was considered not only an insult but a rejection of the host/s who offered the meal. People belonging to certain cultures tend to take such acts very personally. Therefore, people who grew up in such societies and cultures make a careful decision who they want to have meals with and who they want to avoid having meals with. In countries like United States of America where people of different races and ethnicities are supposed to merge and melt together, people hardly realize that certain cultural traits die hard at least in the minds of immigrating families who are supposed to merge together in a happy melting pot.

Culinary preferences tell us a good deal about human culture. The ancestors of most immigrants to the United States traveled from Europe, Africa, and Asia brought their favorite plants, foods and culinary practices along with them. Ethnic food markets where various tropical and subtropical plants and foods are available attract not only the ethnic communities living in the surrounding areas but also others who are willing to pay a higher price for healthy food. Most cities in the U.S. have Hispanic, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese communities living together recreating their traditional cultures in their new settlements. The traditional food that they are used to eating and their culinary practices seem to deeply bind the members of these communities together even after they had lived away from their original native lands for generations. The same is true of the German, Finnish and Norwegian people who populated the northwestern parts of the United States. They love to prepare and eat Lutefisk even to this day.

One important reason for these ethnic communities to continue to use the same food is the health value that they attribute to the food that they eat. Another reason is the taste that they are used to that has a way of satisfying not only their palates but their minds as they eat the type of food that they ate during the time when they grew up in their native lands. Most people who grew up in the east and Middle Eastern countries relish eating spicy foods. They take as much time to prepare their food as much as they take to enjoy eating the food with family friends or whomever they choose to eat their food with. Many of their recipes contain a variety of different spices. Asian countries are well known from the earliest historical times for producing various spices that attracted early merchants who used silk routes for international trade. Later during the16th century Portuguese merchants went in search of spices and Christians in the Orient. The Dutch, British, and French invaders followed suit and build empires colonizing these spice producing countries during the 17th- 19th centuries. Ayurvedic medicine that focused on prevention of diseases emphasized the importance of plant material and food as medicine. To this day some of the herbal medicines of the orient are sold in the western world.

There is a remarkable contrast however of food production, culinary practices, and food consumption in the developed world. These practices and food habits are one of the factors that seem to contribute to weakening of the family ties of the people who live in the developed fast moving world where fast food and restaurants have successfully replaced home cooking. In many homes of the developed world today there is no such thing as food preparation. It is a matter of heating up frozen food taken out of a freezer and microwaving it. Most adults do it and most children do it. In many homes family members do not get together or wait for all family members to gather to have meals together. Many of them including the children eat on the run in a hurry. Fast food restaurants are open on seven days and 24 hours. Food plays no role in family life at all. Most children or adults for that matter do not have any idea how to cook a traditional meal from scratch. Children have their lunch at school and working parents have their lunch in cafeterias and restaurants.

Although some fast food restaurants are concerned about the health issues related to the food that they sell, the responsibility of health relating to food is passed to the consumer. If consumers want to eat supersized version of meals or drinks, it is their responsibility and they cannot sue the restaurant owner for their own behavior. Sadly, some of the food containing fat sold in these fast food and other restaurants is tasty, and some of the drinks are addictive. What many people do not realize however is that fast food industry and restaurants have effectively competed with families and family oriented life style and won the race by taking away food and food preparation from the family that was a very strong thread that used to bind family members together.

References:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/ajob-thf041514.php http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674055728 http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13790-4/food-is-culture

My visit to Sri Lanka in 2015

Sri Lanka - Challenges of the New Generation
Jayadeva Hettiarachchy, September, 2015

Arrival:

Ceylon was the country that I left in 1980 and Sri Lanka is the new name of the country I visited recently. What is there in a name I reminisced as I arrived just after general election in the country on 27^th of September 2015 that had resulted in the overthrow of the previous ruling party by a new set of rulers? Since I had some local Sri Lankan rupees to spend during my stay in the country, I thought of utilizing my local money for my expenses rather than using US dollars. But I found that a dollar exchanged for 138 rupees, a significant jump of 23 Sri Lankan rupees from year 2012 when the exchange rate was only 115 rupees for a US dollar. I expected the country to be economically doing better after the end of the civil war; unfortunately US dollar appeared to be more stable than the Sri Lankan rupee at least in Sri Lanka. In my opinion, the economical challenges of the new generation of Sri Lanka appeared to rise above more than any other challenges. This, I thought, should be the number one important challenge of the new generation of Sri Lanka.

Wedding Drums:

Although it was a Sunday night that I landed in Sri Lanka and travelled from the airport to the hotel, the roads were severely crowded and jam-packed with vehicles. At the hotel where I stayed preparations were taking place for a wedding that was to take place on the following day. The hotel was crowded with relatives of the bride and the groom who had come to attend the wedding ceremony from all parts of the country. Although the country seems to be economically plummeting, economic problems seemed to have no bearing on the ongoing social and cultural activities. Marriage being the most important event in life, young men and women expect to have a grand wedding ceremony attended by hundreds of relatives and friends. They need to spend lots of money that they may not have, and those who attend those weddings too have to appear at their best attires whether they could afford such expenses or not. It goes without saying that the whole purpose of such grand weddings is to have a whole lot of fun and nothing but fun.

Traditional simple wedding ceremonies celebrated between families at home during my days in Sri Lanka inviting relatives and friends for a wedding ceremony conducted at home mostly in villages appear to have been altogether replaced by wedding ceremonies similar to “destination weddings” that take place in the developed world mostly among immigrants. Those grand weddings still tend to draw large number of people living in distant parts of the country. The attendees to these weddings unfortunately cannot walk to the weddings (like in the good old days of my time in Sri Lanka) or by three wheelers the most popular mode of transportation. They need to have their own cars or rentals for their transportation needs, hotel rooms reserved and paid for by them before they attend those weddings. In the hotel we stayed there were several such weddings happening almost on a weekly basis. Whether these pompous wedding ceremonies are an absolute necessity in a country that is economically going downhill, was a question that kept popping in my mind whenever I heard those loud wedding drums in the hotel where I stayed, and on the heavily crowded roads packed with vehicles not moving at all for several hours consuming petroleum that the country pays in foreign exchange with a negative foreign exchange balance. For me as an observer, it looked like a mindless activity. The young man and woman and the respective families could have had a much happier marriage ceremony in their hometowns away from the crowded city and hotel rooms without having to spend all that money which could have been used more productively. This is perhaps another challenge that most young Sri Lankans of the upcoming generation need to think about -- this in a way is one way of thinking "out-of-the-box".

Three-wheelers:

Although they are the most dangerous transportation methods, we had no choice but to use the three-wheelers to visit places within Colombo city during our first few days of stay in Colombo. This is because regular four-wheel-rentals or taxis are not efficient on the heavily congested roads while the three-wheelers could weave between other vehicles and lanes quickly and swiftly and take us to places without having to spend enormous amounts of time on commuting to places. Time and punctuality are important contributory factors for economic progress of any country, Sri Lanka included. Besides, we did not have all that time in our busy schedule to spend on the roads idling in the hot sun in traffic jams. One complaint most people that I talked to had was that they find it very difficult to travel even a few kilometers without spending sometimes hours in traffic jams in congested roads. I experienced it myself on the heavily congested roads in the morning when I had to spend at least a couple of hours to get out of Colombo on my way to Kandy. One person mentioned that he has been unable to visit his sick mother who lives only a few kilometers away from where he lives because of the time he has to spend on the congested road to see her.

Sri Lanka had 929,495 three wheelers registered by the end of 2014, according to data from the department of motor vehicles.  In July of 2015, 73,838 three wheelers have been registered thereby showing over one million three wheelers; evidently, three wheelers have become an important part of public transport network, during the night when buses stop operating (source: http://www.economynext.com/Sri_Lanka_three_wheeler_population_tops_one_million-3-2814-6.html).

Three wheelers also have provided a significant employment opportunity to over one million people of Sri Lanka; owning three-wheelers seems to be rapidly growing as an inexpensive way of owning a vehicle by the people who cannot afford to own regular automobiles. As a result, there are three wheelers that are metered taxis and three wheelers owned by people for day-to-day travel plus doing part-time taxi business. Unfortunately, although one million three wheelers provide employment opportunities to one million people, they also contribute significantly to slowing down the transportation system of the major cities as well as major highways of the country. Incidents of daily three-wheeler accidents make them to be one of the most dangerous means of transportation. There appears to be no planning in process to disallow three-wheeler transportation in major highways or any attempt to set minimum and maximum speed limits on highways with the result that the highways have become the slowest and most inefficient mode of transportation in the country.

There is no doubt that three wheelers have come to stay in Sri Lanka as a major source of public and private transportation needs. The chances are that the number of three wheelers imported from India to Sri Lanka will keep soaring in the future. The major problem however as I saw it is not the soaring numbers of three wheelers jamming the roads all over the country, but as to how they should be managed in such a way that they do not clog the highways and byways wasting valuable time and petroleum that consumes a large part of the foreign exchange of the country. The most efficient use of the available network of roads in the country by the growing number of vehicles including the three-wheelers is undoubtedly a top priority of the transportation system planning that should facilitate efficient and timely movement allowing no time to waste on the highways. This is another important challenge for the new generation of Sri Lanka. Without laying the foundation of an efficient transportation system all attempts to improve the overall economy of the country may not be productive. As I see, a systematic planning process for improving the road network system of the country that restrict the three-wheelers to certain roads and unclog the highways connecting major cities is of utmost importance and a top priority to improve the country’s economy and tourism as a sustainable industry.

Agri- Business:

My travel in the central and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka was undoubtedly a delightful experience. The evergreen landscape constantly reminded me of Philippines and Bali (Indonesia) or the geography and climate of Honduras of Central America. The rich soil with coconut plantations made me think that  Sri Lankans could do much better economically by utilizing the rich soil for cultivating more coconut trees in the vast areas of land currently underutilized and/or occupied by the jungle. This vast waste land provides an excellent opportunity for commercial enterprises to make long-term investments on large coconut cultivations to meet the production needs of desiccated coconuts as well as other coconut by-products for export purposes. These waste lands reminded me of the vast stretches of land in Kansas State, U.S.A advertised for the taking as "free land." Government could be leasing such land for productive use by private enterprises willing to invest time and energy with a vision for the future.

Thinking about a vision for the future, the highest ambition of most families during the time I lived in Sri Lanka was to make their boys and girls to be medical doctors, engineers or lawyers. Even the educational system promoted the same hierarchy by screening kids in 5th grade who did well in sciences from others who had no other choice but to do humanities. From those who were chosen to do sciences the students who did well in physical and biological sciences were selected to do medicine and engineering and dentistry. The rest had no other choice but to do general sciences like physics, botany, chemistry, zoology, veterinary science or agriculture. The wealthy parents sent their children to study law at the Law College in Colombo.  Only a few of the vast majority of students who had no other choice than to study arts and humanities competed successfully to be admitted to the one and only university of the country during my time, and their greatest ambition was to join the Civil Service (Ceylon Administrative Service), university teaching, or gain an executive position in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Those who could not achieve any of these ambitions after graduation from the university had to be satisfied with a teaching position in a remote school or a government clerical job with the result that most of the graduates of the university ended up being government employees. In a way, it was like most unemployed young people in Colombo becoming three-wheel operators of today. They just followed the example of others taking the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, many young people who could have done much better in life may have joined the government employments in which they stagnated during the prime of their life doing just repeat business, most of the time commuting hours on public transportation systems not necessarily liking or being passionate about what they did in life. It is a challenge that the new generation face today to break this mind set by taking risks that will pay back with dividends later in life. However, choosing such a life-style and work involves dedication, determination and a will to do hard work and accomplish goals. I saw a few agricultural enterprises like Hayleys in Biyagama, Alawwa, and Ampare http://hayleysagriculture.com/hjs/vision-mission.html and CIC Agri Businesses in Pelwehera http://www.cicagri.com/index.php?page_cat=home.

In both these places farming of crops are done scientifically with a vision employing and training hard working people who are willing to learn the business of agriculture from farming to processing/production. Both companies are privately owned profit making enterprises exporting Sri Lankan products contributing significantly to Sri Lanka's GDP and training Sri Lankan workers to be productive.  They do set an example for other entrepreneurs interested in doing business in Sri Lanka. Admittedly, Sri Lanka has promoted coconut industry by establishing a coconut research institute as well as a ministry of coconut development and Janatha estate development. A few private companies like Adamjee Lukmanjee & Sons Ltd had been scientifically growing coconuts on a large scale and processing coconuts and exporting processed coconut products to foreign countries since mid-19th century.Source(http://www.adamjeelukmanjee.com/about-us/our-journey.html) There are few other innovative companies processing coconut products for the global market researching on adding value to coconut products beyond traditional use.

Understandably, most people do not have the money to invest in starting up new businesses like a coconut plantation. They would rather find a government job which pays them a monthly salary. This is one reason as to why about three million Sri Lankans are living as expatriates all over the world. Undoubtedly they do contribute significantly to uplift the GDP by bringing in foreign exchange to Sri Lanka. Systematic investment on start-up family business by earnings of expatriates could be one way expatriates could build a nest egg back in Sri Lanka while working and earning living in a foreign country. Such an investment in a family business could pay dividends eventually if done systematically.

Tourism

I stayed in the eastern coast of Sri Lanka in Batticaloa for 5 days in a hotel that fit my travel budget. Although Batticaloa is the poorest area of Sri Lanka there are a large number of luxurious hotels overlooking the ocean in Batticaloa, Pasikuda and Kalkuda beaches that provide tourists with all comforts, exotic food and superb house-keeping facilities. Although flies and mosquitoes are not a problem inside the hotel rooms, they are plentiful in the open air, especially where food is served in open spaces. Hotels spray chemicals to keep the insects away especially if you complain about their presence inside your room. Most economical hotels do not have central air and heat for the entire hotel but only in a few rooms equipped with heating and cooling units fixed inside the rooms as well as hot water heating units fixed in the bathrooms for bathing.

Tourism being one of the important GDP generators, it is one area that needs systematic and coordinated planning between the government and private companies catering for tourism. While the government owned and maintained tourist hotels have services that are far below the expectations of the average tourists, there is a need to keep the tourists satisfied and willing to come back and give good reviews of their stay in Sri Lanka. The privately owned hotels seem to be doing excellent advertizing promoting their facilities and services on the Internet. Nevertheless, today's tourists who are mostly retired professionals are very conscious about what they get out of the packages they buy. Some of them shop around for the best value for the price they pay. Bad reviews regarding bad services and bad food has a way of hurting tourist business anywhere in the world. Some reviews regarding poor service, bad food and dishonest tourist drivers catch the eye of most tourists. Responses given by the patrons to reviews are also an important aspect of maintaining a good image of the business by organizations that value their service. In most moderately priced hotels I stayed during this and my previous several visits to Sri Lanka, the service at the front desk was great but the food and the room service left much to be desired. In one rest house where I stayed there was only one waiter to serve all the guests who were waiting to have their dinner to be served on time. According to official reports, tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka exceeded 1.5 Million in 2014 and is expected to exceed 2.5 Million by 2016 (source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Sri_Lanka#Tourism_industry).
There is therefore certainly a need for Sri Lankan Tourist Board and the private companies to join hands in providing a quality service not only promoting the completive spirit among the tourist hotels to attract tourists but also those tourists to be satisfied with their experience of a fun vacation that Sri Lanka is capable of providing.

Concluding Thoughts:

Lastly, it goes without saying that the political stability of a country is of paramount importance to the economic and social growth of a country. Sri Lanka has had too many civil wars as well as political upheavals that present serious challenges to the new generation in the years to come. A genuine understanding of the evils of holocaust could be a starting point for a new beginning of the new generation. We may not be able to solve all human problems, but it is far better to learn to manage them than be mired in them.

Citta -- What a story..who borrowed from whom

Panduvasudeva had 10 sons and a daughter.The eldest son was Abhaya. The daughter was Citta. She was called Ummadacitta because she drove men insane by her good looks.  The soothsayers predicted that Citta's son will kill his nine uncles (except Abhaya) to become the king of Lanka. Therefore,  King Abhaya kept Citta in seclusion  in a chamber build on a pillar.  However, in spite of all the precautions taken to keep Citta from seeing men, she had a love affair with a first cousin and was pregnant. The royal family then decided to give Chitta in marriage to her lover but to kill the off spring if it happened to be a boy. The story as narrated by the author of Mahavamsa about Chittas son Pandukabhaya is  another fairy tale embellished by many such popular stories involving non-humans helping Citta's son to survive and fight and kill all his nine paternal uncles and gain the throne of Lanka. The detailed stories belong in the realm of folklore and are omitted in this write up.

According to Mahavamasa author, Pandukabhaya established the village boundaries over the whole island of Lanka ten years after his consecration. Pandukabhaya had two non-human associates Kalavela and Cittaraja who were visible in bodily form. He also had devils (yakkas) and non-humans (bhutas) as his close friends.  Pandukabhaya ruled for 70 years in Lanka living in Anuradhapura that he made the capital city of Lanka. Pandukabhaya was succeeded by his son Mutasiva and he reigned for 60 years in Anuradhapura. Mutasiva had ten sons and two daughters. The second son Devanampiyatissa became king after Mutasiva's death.

Analysis:
The prophesy of the soothsayers that Citta's son would kill all his uncles and their various attempts to kill him in his childhood are similar to the biblical narrative of infanticide by Herod the Great. While attempting to find out who borrowed these yarns from whom at what point in time could be a futile effort, it is prudent to discard these attempts to connect the dots of Sri Lankan history with no substantial supporting evidence, as they  are at least 800 years separated from the time they are supposed to have occurred from the time they were written by the author of the Great Chronicle. However, the great pains taken by the Mahavamsa author to narrate the lineage of the early rulers by these stories apparently show that successive waves of warriors and their kinsmen arrived and settled in the northern part of Lanka during the pre-historic times of Sri Lanka. The non-humans referred to as yakshas (devils), as shown earlier could be the tribal people who the warriors brought along with them for colonizing the newly found land of Lanka. The names of the humans as well as the devils mentioned in these stories clearly indicate a south Indian (Pandyan) connection Sri Lanka had during the time of colonization of Lanka by the Indian people.

Ravana -- The brahmarakshssa (cross between a brahmin and a devil)

The Villan Lankeshvara – Emperor of (Sri) Lanka Ravana
Written on August 17, 2013
By Jay Hettiarachchy

Ravana is portrayed as the “bad guy” and enemy of Rama who was the heir to the throne of Ayodya in North India (the good guy) in Ramayana  a classical epic believed to have been authored by Valmiki during the period approximately between 5^th and 4^thcentury B.C. in Northern India. Ravana, according to Ramayana is a Brahmarakshasa (of mixed birth between a Brahmin father and a Rakshasa mother) king of Lanka (Sri Lanka). Rama and Ravana are the central characters depicted in Ramayana.

Ramayana is not only a narrative of the “war” between Rama and Ravana, but also a war between North India and Lanka (Sri Lanka of today). According to Ramayana, Ravana kidnapped Rama’s wife Seeta, in retaliation of Rama and his brother Lakshmana for having cut off the nose of Ravana’s  sister Suparnakha who tried to seduce Rama when he was in exile. In the war that ensued in Lanka, Ravana was finally killed by Rama in battle and Seeta was rescued.

Rama, the hero of the Ramayana, is one of most popular deities worshipped in the Hindu religion. Each year, many devout pilgrims trace his journey through India and Nepal, halting at each of the holy sites along the way. The poem is not seen as just a literary monument, but serves as an important component of Hinduism, and is held in such reverence that the mere reading or hearing of it, or certain passages of it, are believed by Hindus to free them from sin and bless the reader or listener. Rama's return to Ayodhya and his coronation are celebrated as "Diwali" also known as the Festival of Lights.

Ravana is described as having 10 heads and 20 arms and is vividly portrayed in Rajasthani painting of incidents of the Ramayana, flying away with Seeta, fighting with Rama, and sitting with his demon councilors (Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravana)

Ironically, the epic Ramayana is not as popular in Sri Lankan society as in India. On the contrary, Ranvana is as much worshiped as a popular deity in India as Rama and not as much or as enthusiastically in Sri Lanka. There are many popular places of worship of Ravana in India than in Sri Lanka. In the Buddhist variant of Ramayana, Dasaratha was the king of Benares (Varanasi) and not of Ayodhya. Nonetheless, there is an extensive tradition of oral story telling based on the Ramayana in Indonesia, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, and Maldives.

Analysis:

There is no historical evidence of a Lankeshvara Ravana (emperor Lankeshvara) who lived in (Sri) Lanka or usurped a wife of the heir to the throne of Ayodhya in North India although some attempts have been made by some people in Sri Lanka  to make believe the Ramayana story of a war that took place between a Rama and a Ravana. Moreover they believe that Rama was aided by a monkey king Hanuman who built a bridge between south India and (Sri) Lanka to bring an army of monkeys to fight with Ravana and kill him and save Seeta from captivity.

Such stories are prevalent in most primitive societies in which gullible people live and pass them down to the younger generations who continue to propagate them generation after generation.

The Second King of Sri Lanka

Sinhalese: The second king Panduvasudeva and his consecration.
Written on June 13, 2013
By Jay Hettiarachchy

According to the great chronicle of Sri Lanka, Vijaya, the first king of the Sinhalese people did not have a son to succeed him as the king of Lanka. Therefore he sent a letter to his brother Sumitta in Bengal in northeast India asking him to come and take over the kingdom of Lanka after his death. Before his brother could respond to the letter, Vijaya died and Lanka was without a king for one year. Vijaya’s brother was too old to accept the invitation of his brother to go to Lanka but wanted one of his three son's born from his wife from Madras to accept Viyaya’s invitation to take over the kingdom and rule Lanka. The third son Panduvasudeva accepted the invitation and went to Lanka and accepted the kingdom. 

When the time came for Panduvasudeva’s consecration his ministers wanted a maiden from the Sakya family of kings who had now migrated to another area of Ganges river basin due to the destruction of the original kingdom established by Sakyas from whom the Buddha descended.

According to this story, seven royal families in India wanted to marry this Sakya king’s daughter Bhaddakaccana because she was very beautiful. Her father was very fearful of displeasing any of the contenders. Therefore he sent her into the sea by ship proclaiming that whosoever rescued her could marry her. As the story goes, Bhddakaccana landed in Lanka with many other maidens in the guise of mendicants. She was consecrated as the queen of Panduvasudeva the second king of Lanka.
 

Analysis:

This episode is surrounded by many unbelievable sooth sayings and predictions. These were left out in our above summary as they do not have a place in history or reality. 

Surprisingly, Vijaya’s brother Sumitta too married a queen from Madras (Madda) and her third son's name was Panduvasudeva showing that he had a Pandyan (a south Indian clan of rulers) affiliation in the name given to him. The story is convoluted to such an extent that no historical facts regarding the real genealogy of the earliest Sinhalese kings could be squeezed out of the available story as it is recorded in the Mahavamsa about Panduvasudeva, his queen Bhaddakaccana and his consecration as well as most other predictions that were uttered by soothsayers before the events actually took place.

The only trace of information that may be gathered is the matrimonial relationship that may have taken place between south Indian royal families and the rulers of Lanka during the time of the writing of the great chronicle of Sri Lanka (Mahavamsa). The Mahavamsa author may have naturally recorded what was happening between the royal families in Lanka and South India in trying to reconstruct a history of an island about which no one had any clear idea or reliable evidence. However, the tradition continues on in Sri Lanka in the form of lullabies even to this day. Following is one I have heard during my child hood in Sri Lanka.

තව්සෙකුසේ ඇඳ පැලඳා
පඬුවස්දෙව් මහනිරිඳා
මාකඳුරින් ගොඩබටදා
මගුලක්විය ලක මුලුදා

එදා පටන් මෙසිරිලකේ
සම්මා සමබුදු මැණිකේ
දම් එළියෙන් අඳුර මැකේ
මිසදිටු විස කටු නොරැකේ