Elephant Complex

Travels in Sri Lanka

“Brilliant.” —The Daily Telegraph
 
No one sees the world quite like John Gimlette. In Elephant Complex, he ventures into Sri Lanka, a country only now emerging from twenty-six years of civil war. Beginning in the exuberant capital, Colombo, Gimlette ventures out in all directions: to the dry zones where the island’s 5,800 wild elephants congregate around ancient reservoirs; through cinnamon country with its Portuguese forts; to the “Bible Belt” of Buddhism; then up into Kandy, the country’s eccentric, aristocratic Shangri-la. In the course of his journey, Gimlette meets farmers, war heroes, cricketers, terrorists, a former president, survivors of great massacres—and perhaps some of their perpetrators. That’s to say nothing of the island’s beguiling fauna: elephants, crocodiles, snakes, storks, and the greatest concentration of leopards on Earth. Here is a land of beauty and devastation, a place at once heavenly and hellish—all brought to vibrant, fascinating life here on the page.
This journey begins with a bus ride. A few minutes from my house in south-west London is a large and yet barely visible community of Sri Lankans, in Tooting. They’re all Tamils, mostly refugees and mostly from a single town, Velvettithurai. Nobody knows exactly how many there are, although the usual figure is eight thousand. Whatever the number, there are now more Sri Lankans in Tooting than there were ever Britons in Ceylon (even in 1911, at the height of the empire,the British population numbered only six thousand). But Tooting, of course, is only part of the picture. Across the country, there are 110,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, with twenty-two temples in London alone.

For years, I’ve been intrigued by my Tamil neighbours. Perhaps it’s their seclusion that’s fascinated me. They demand little of the outside world; they have their own shops, their own after-school academies,their own charities, their own leaders and their own cafés (where lunch still costs four pounds). There are also Tamil newspapers and a special Tamil Yellow Pages, which offers a curious glimpse of another London: coy, jewelled and Asian.

The Tamils (or, strictly speaking, the Tamilians) even have their own internal crime wave, vicious gangs with names like “The Jaffna Boys” or “The Tamil Posse,” who go at each other with knives, Tasers and samurai swords. In one year alone (2005), sixteen Tamils died at the hands of their own. London hardly seems to notice.

As Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983–2009) drew to a close, I decided toexplore this shy community further, and to begin with the temple. Tamil friends from elsewhere had plenty of advice about what I mustdo (I mustn’t wear any leather, and I mustn’t eat any beef for two days before), but none of them would come with me, and nor would they ever allow themselves to be named or quoted in anything I ever wrote. That, of course, made me more curious than ever.

I made several visits. From the outside, the Sri Muthumari Amman Temple still looked like a little department store. Its tiled art-deco façade—now cracked and grimy like old eggshell—had previously housed the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. But once over the threshold, a new world appeared, which I always assumed was SriLanka. My eyes would prickle with incense, and the air was greasy with the smoke of coconut lamps. Upstairs, there were twelve deitiesarranged around the old shop floor, and the walls (once a delicate Bakelitegreen) were darkened with soot. The gods, all made of silver and bronze, were tended by twelve priests, each half-naked with hair down to the waist. It would have been easy to forget where I was, except for the odd London bus, glimpsed through the vapours.

I was always the only white face amidst the crowds. The older menoften offered me snippets of information, perhaps as a way of gaugingmy intentions. “Our deities weigh six hundred and fifty kilogramseach,” they’d say, or, “Five hundred people worship here every day.”

From time to time, the most important deity, the goddess Mari Amman, would be ritually bathed in gallons of milk, rosewater and orange juice, before being dressed again in a fresh silk sari. Around her,the worshippers would prostrate themselves on the floor, and stuff her coffers with money. I’d never imagined such devotion in England, let alone a mile from home. On the notice board was a letter, asking everydevotee to give the temple ten thousand pounds.

There was also a shrine to the Tamil Tigers. It looked like a four poster bed, but with photographs and flowers. For many people around the world, the LTTE or “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” has been the most heartless, cold-blooded terrorist organisation mankind has ever known. But not here. In this temple, the pictures staring back were of martyrs: a boy who’d died in a hunger strike; pretty girls in that distinctive tiger-striped camouflage. “And these ones,” one of the worshippers told me, “were poisoned, with nerve gas.”
"It is hard to think of a more astute and sympathetic companion for a journey around the island and into Sri Lanka’s episodic bouts of madness. . . . He writes beautifully, all freshness and verve. And he is also very funny. . . . Mr. Gimlette is as astute as ever, and lyrical." --The Wall Street Journal

"Gimlette brings a brisk barrister-like inquisition to proceedings, allied with amiable good humour and a searching interest in the history of peoples and places. . . . Gimlette has assembled a splendidly eclectic cast of characters to illuminate this complicated nation . . . Rich in humour, full of insight and humanity, Elephant Complex is a very fine tribute to this enigmatic island nation." --The Spectator (UK)

"An intrepid journey to the famously reclusive island unearths a paradise amid trauma and obfuscation. . . . An exuberant, eye-opening travel quest." --Kirkus

"Gorgeous evocations of landscapes, sharp-eyed thumbnails of characters and eccentrics, and an endless font of amusing anecdotes drawn from [Gimlette's] own picaresque adventures and from the follies of royals and imperialists. . . . Gimlette’s blend of dry wit, entertaining reportage, and perceptive insights makes for another tour de force of travel writing and history, lushly green but edged in darkness." --Publishers Weekly
© Nick Moore
JOHN GIMLETTE has won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize and the Wanderlust Travel Writing Award, and he contributes regularly to The Times (London), The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, and Condé Nast Traveller. When not traveling, he practices law in London. View titles by John Gimlette

About

“Brilliant.” —The Daily Telegraph
 
No one sees the world quite like John Gimlette. In Elephant Complex, he ventures into Sri Lanka, a country only now emerging from twenty-six years of civil war. Beginning in the exuberant capital, Colombo, Gimlette ventures out in all directions: to the dry zones where the island’s 5,800 wild elephants congregate around ancient reservoirs; through cinnamon country with its Portuguese forts; to the “Bible Belt” of Buddhism; then up into Kandy, the country’s eccentric, aristocratic Shangri-la. In the course of his journey, Gimlette meets farmers, war heroes, cricketers, terrorists, a former president, survivors of great massacres—and perhaps some of their perpetrators. That’s to say nothing of the island’s beguiling fauna: elephants, crocodiles, snakes, storks, and the greatest concentration of leopards on Earth. Here is a land of beauty and devastation, a place at once heavenly and hellish—all brought to vibrant, fascinating life here on the page.

Excerpt

This journey begins with a bus ride. A few minutes from my house in south-west London is a large and yet barely visible community of Sri Lankans, in Tooting. They’re all Tamils, mostly refugees and mostly from a single town, Velvettithurai. Nobody knows exactly how many there are, although the usual figure is eight thousand. Whatever the number, there are now more Sri Lankans in Tooting than there were ever Britons in Ceylon (even in 1911, at the height of the empire,the British population numbered only six thousand). But Tooting, of course, is only part of the picture. Across the country, there are 110,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, with twenty-two temples in London alone.

For years, I’ve been intrigued by my Tamil neighbours. Perhaps it’s their seclusion that’s fascinated me. They demand little of the outside world; they have their own shops, their own after-school academies,their own charities, their own leaders and their own cafés (where lunch still costs four pounds). There are also Tamil newspapers and a special Tamil Yellow Pages, which offers a curious glimpse of another London: coy, jewelled and Asian.

The Tamils (or, strictly speaking, the Tamilians) even have their own internal crime wave, vicious gangs with names like “The Jaffna Boys” or “The Tamil Posse,” who go at each other with knives, Tasers and samurai swords. In one year alone (2005), sixteen Tamils died at the hands of their own. London hardly seems to notice.

As Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983–2009) drew to a close, I decided toexplore this shy community further, and to begin with the temple. Tamil friends from elsewhere had plenty of advice about what I mustdo (I mustn’t wear any leather, and I mustn’t eat any beef for two days before), but none of them would come with me, and nor would they ever allow themselves to be named or quoted in anything I ever wrote. That, of course, made me more curious than ever.

I made several visits. From the outside, the Sri Muthumari Amman Temple still looked like a little department store. Its tiled art-deco façade—now cracked and grimy like old eggshell—had previously housed the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. But once over the threshold, a new world appeared, which I always assumed was SriLanka. My eyes would prickle with incense, and the air was greasy with the smoke of coconut lamps. Upstairs, there were twelve deitiesarranged around the old shop floor, and the walls (once a delicate Bakelitegreen) were darkened with soot. The gods, all made of silver and bronze, were tended by twelve priests, each half-naked with hair down to the waist. It would have been easy to forget where I was, except for the odd London bus, glimpsed through the vapours.

I was always the only white face amidst the crowds. The older menoften offered me snippets of information, perhaps as a way of gaugingmy intentions. “Our deities weigh six hundred and fifty kilogramseach,” they’d say, or, “Five hundred people worship here every day.”

From time to time, the most important deity, the goddess Mari Amman, would be ritually bathed in gallons of milk, rosewater and orange juice, before being dressed again in a fresh silk sari. Around her,the worshippers would prostrate themselves on the floor, and stuff her coffers with money. I’d never imagined such devotion in England, let alone a mile from home. On the notice board was a letter, asking everydevotee to give the temple ten thousand pounds.

There was also a shrine to the Tamil Tigers. It looked like a four poster bed, but with photographs and flowers. For many people around the world, the LTTE or “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” has been the most heartless, cold-blooded terrorist organisation mankind has ever known. But not here. In this temple, the pictures staring back were of martyrs: a boy who’d died in a hunger strike; pretty girls in that distinctive tiger-striped camouflage. “And these ones,” one of the worshippers told me, “were poisoned, with nerve gas.”

Reviews

"It is hard to think of a more astute and sympathetic companion for a journey around the island and into Sri Lanka’s episodic bouts of madness. . . . He writes beautifully, all freshness and verve. And he is also very funny. . . . Mr. Gimlette is as astute as ever, and lyrical." --The Wall Street Journal

"Gimlette brings a brisk barrister-like inquisition to proceedings, allied with amiable good humour and a searching interest in the history of peoples and places. . . . Gimlette has assembled a splendidly eclectic cast of characters to illuminate this complicated nation . . . Rich in humour, full of insight and humanity, Elephant Complex is a very fine tribute to this enigmatic island nation." --The Spectator (UK)

"An intrepid journey to the famously reclusive island unearths a paradise amid trauma and obfuscation. . . . An exuberant, eye-opening travel quest." --Kirkus

"Gorgeous evocations of landscapes, sharp-eyed thumbnails of characters and eccentrics, and an endless font of amusing anecdotes drawn from [Gimlette's] own picaresque adventures and from the follies of royals and imperialists. . . . Gimlette’s blend of dry wit, entertaining reportage, and perceptive insights makes for another tour de force of travel writing and history, lushly green but edged in darkness." --Publishers Weekly

Author

© Nick Moore
JOHN GIMLETTE has won the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize and the Wanderlust Travel Writing Award, and he contributes regularly to The Times (London), The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, and Condé Nast Traveller. When not traveling, he practices law in London. View titles by John Gimlette