By Razeen Sally : www.thebottomline.lk
To most outsiders Sri Lanka is a far-away tourist destination, a tropical paradise that has fallen into a vicious cycle of ethnic conflict. To me it is closer to home. It is where I grew up; and Colombo, the capital city, is my hometown. I think of Sri Lanka as a heaven-and-hell country, consumed by its own extremes and contradictions. These play out at today’s crossroads, with the seeming end of a 26-year military conflict.
Sri Lanka is one of the loveliest places on the planet, full of exuberant multicultural colour and with warm, welcoming people. It is green and fertile almost beyond imagination, and its natural endowments support an average standard of living that has long been the highest in South Asia (the Maldives aside). It has serendipitously beguiled visitors from Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta to Arthur C. Clarke.