Off beaten track

This is the text of an article I wrote for India Today Online on 19 May 2009, shortly after the death of Prabhakaran and the bitter culmination of the battle between the Sri Lankan Army and the LTTE. The end has arrived. The LTTE appears to have been annihilated. At least temporarily. But could a phoenix arise from the ashes? This is a distinct possibility should the Sri Lankan Government not address the aspirations of the Sri Lankan Tamil people, a fundamental cause of the struggle. Having been the Brigade Major of an infantry brigade of the IPKF in Sri Lanka from 1988 to 1990 I had a ring side seat to some of the most severe fighting seen at that time.  I operated in and around Mullaitivu, which, as events have shown, has always been the hotbed of the LTTE and their reaction to military operations here have always been very severe.   Due to my personal involvement then, I have since closely followed events in this civil war and what follows are my personal observations on wh...

I wrote this essay five years ago based on my memories of a very significant period of my military life. In 1987 the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was deployed in Sri Lanka to underwrite the Sri Lanka Accord signed in July that year. But the situation quickly spiralled out of control, and by October the Indian Army and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was locked in what would be a three-year armed conflict. Up to 80,000 Indian troops served on the island, but despite relatively large numbers of casualties and the importance of the conflict in the region, the episode remained an undeclared war and has been treated as a postscript to Indian military history. Killed or wounded soldiers were seldom given their due, but those who fought there will not forget. A serviceman remembers the trenches of that war. Coming in over Mullaitivu Town in a helicopter. The approach was usually over water to avoid ground fire.  It was a beautiful beach, with the seabed dropping deep v...

Came across an interesting Tumblr site geared towards documenting the excesses in our parks and wild places, click here to see photos and also submit. There's been a lot of issues recently with idiotic jeep drivers in Yala injuring passengers and killing animals including leopards while speeding. You can visit Sri Lankan Wildlife on facebook to see some interesting discussions. The bottom line is that we who visit are those who are responsible for this. I personally was guilty and will be posting about this shortly as well. What can YOU do? 1) Ask your jeep driver to switch of their phone and not to speed. 2) Keep in mind the closing time for the park and ask your driver to make sure he is near the exit as the safari ends so he does not have to speed to get out of the park. 3) Keep in mind that a photograph is just a photograph and a leopard does not sum up Yala National Park, 4) Ask your friends to the same. 5) Take photographs of anything that is not being done correctly in the...

It was a Wilpattu trip after almost a year�s absence in the park and a quite uncharacteristically late entrance into the park after a 3.30am arrival to Aanawila the night before. With the late entry and an experienced and super jeep driver (Nishantha: 0724125078) we were assigned a less experienced tracker, Saman who clambered in clutching some paperwork. It was a bit of a surprise to find out that he was a member of the Civil Defense Force, what is thought to be one of the poorest trained and least popular sections of the armed forces in Sri Lanka. Someone had put it fairly accurately to me some time ago, that (rightly or wrongly) the general impression is that the CDF is a bunch of village thugs with guns. Saman however was completely different from what I expected, very nice and eager. The documents he was clutching as he got into the vehicle turned out to be a bird guide book. As I identified a blue-faced malkoha and a racquet-tailed drongo, he sheepishly admitted that he wasn�t th...

Have you noticed the litter around our beautiful homeland while you travel here? The plastic bags flapping on trees and floating in the wevas? Come join us at Clean Up Sri Lanka and help us spread the word on how to stop this: NO to Litter NO to Plastic Bags (Please use Reusable bags) NO to Plastic water bottles Clean up a mess if you see one! Clean Up Sri Lanka Promote Your Page Too Our Kick off event is at Independence Square on Saturday 25th from 8.30am to 6.30pm. Come down and see how you can help keep our country beautiful.

Did you do it! Everybody who has spent time in the rural parts of Sri Lanka is accustomed to the Red-Wattled Lapwing�s accusatory call which you can hear at all times of the day and even night. Of course the rather bewildered juvenile Brahminy Kite still looked a bit taken aback as the screaming Lapwing couple thundered in as he sat somnambulant on a branch by the tank we had parked at. We hadn�t seen any of the drama that had unfolded before. Perhaps the innocent look the Kite had on was a ruse and he had been busted trying to raid the Lapwing�s nest a few moments ago. But the Lapwings certainly were giving it to the Kite, dive-bombing him fearlessly. The Kite responded with his best Kung Fu moves before eventually deciding discretion was the better part of valour and departing post haste.

It was obviously breeding season for the buffalo as all over Bundala and Yala there were grappling males and females with newly minted young, fresh and gleaming. The Sri Lankan water buffalo, though not as formidable as the African version is still quite a large and bulky beast. Having stood a few meters away from a pissed off looking wild buffalo many moons ago, I can still attest to the raw fear that one feels when looking one of these creatures eye to eye, a fear that hasn�t been dulled by time. In the parks though the majority off the buff you see are the domestic creatures that have gone feral. Though by no means dainty, the truly massive and impressive specimens are the descendants of the true wild buffalo, Kulu-harak as these are euphemistically called in Sinhala. As to whether there are any genetically pure wild buff left in the wild is unlikely but you can see the flashes of the old, untamed beasts in some at Yala (for a rather fascinatin discussion on the wild vs. feral buf...

The jeep screeched to a halt as she materialized as if from nowhere. It had been a fruitless, dusty day in the park exacerbated by the fact that our only leopard sighting had been in the midst of a traffic jam that would have put Colombo to shame. As dusk descended over the dry wilderness we headed out of the park, jolting along as thoughts of a warm shower and the delicious bread at Tissa View occupied our thoughts. I think Sumudhu was the most surprised out of all of us as she materialized as we passed Diganwalla. Possibly close to a year old (but then I�m no expert in aging leopards) she sat there looking mildly affronted at our hasty stop. She stared at us for awhile before getting up, stretching lithely and heading down to the water to drink. At the water�s edge she put on what could only be described as a performance for us. Delicately, as though she didn�t want her pristine paws soiled by the mud she paced up and down and snarled at imagined threats in the water repeatedly unti...

As announcing sightings goes, Suren�s was a bit of a mix of anticlimax and irony, as a he turned towards us with a thoughtful expression on his face and announced he could have sworn he had just seen a tusker approaching through the bush as we whizzed past. Sumudhu and the tracker seemed a bit nonplussed by this casual announcement but we nonetheless backed up quickly to investigate. The heat hadn�t gotten to Suren�s head as he had indeed spotted a rather magnificent tusker coming towards the road. Silently one of the Kings of Yala emerged from the brush onto the road. Along with the leopard and bear, the tuskers of Yala are another iconic animal for the wildlife enthusiast. I was brought up on pictures, stories and very occasional sightings of the famous tuskers of the park such as the now dead (mostly from being killed for their ivory) behomeths such as Kublai Kahn and the Podi and Loku Pootuwas (cross-tuskers). This particular tusker was Gemunu, not a tusker with the most impressi...

Craaack! It was a disconcerting sound that echoed like a gunshot as the Defender 110 went over the pothole. The old jeep rattled to a stop, seemingly fatally wounded. Sumudhu turned to us and rather nonchalantly announced that the axle had broken. This seemed the worst possible news as our run of the park had just started and a broken axle seemed something that would require a tow out of the park. Sumudhu repairing the jeep Casually Sumudhu reached over for his phone and called Sugathe, his father, the wily old veteran jeep driver of Yala. Shortly afterwards, Sugathe came up in his Defender 110. And that�s when things became a bit surreal. Axle for repair; Sugathe, our guardian angel in heavy disguise leaves Casually, as if this was an everyday kind of repair, Sugathe passed Sumudhu a spare axle which was casually slotted in as if the jeep was made out of lego building blocks. The broken axle was placed in the back for repairs in Tissa, a quick wash of hands for Sumudhu and we were off...

Continued from here : Of course while we were getting the full tour of the park we were also on the trail of the elusive leopard, the endless family yarns about fabulous sightings egging us on. We kept an eye out in the brush and white sand around the villus to no avail. My eyes burned as the green brush and twisted trunks flashed by the jeep and I stared out for that flash of black and gold. We frustratingly missed two leopard sightings on the jeep track by mere seconds, probably scared off into the bush by our engine, leaving only their pugmarks imprinted on the fine sand. Pug marks in the sand The adrenaline did rush one more time when we approached a group of grey langurs that had gotten spooked by something. Some of the animals were crashing around in the trees while others craned their necks, staring at something off the road that was obviously of great interest to them. We spent a breathless, hot hour parked watching the langurs as they simultaneously kept a watch on whatever it...

 Continued from here : This being our first time in the park for all of us, we had opted for the complete tour and Chamara obliged very gladly. The Villus of course are a characteristic highlight of the park, T ala Villu, Kali Villu, Maila Villu, Walas Villu, the names rolled of Chamara�s tongue as we passed the golden grass and pure white sands of the small lakes.  Formed by water percolating through limestone rock to the surface, the villus are famed for their birdlife, though possibly due to the park being quite dry we didn�t see too many birds. One of the many Villus,I cannot recall which one; Wilpattu birdlife We didn�t see any of the legendary �villu elephants� either, long touted as being the biggest elephants in Sri Lanka. In fact on our whole trip our sightings of animals were few and far between, a Monitor Lizard on its way up the evolutionary ladder, a Barking Deer standing transfixed in the road before dashing off into the undergrowth, two Sambhur watching us wari...