Sri Lanka, 20 January 2017
I’m sitting with my great friend Navin – a keen historian, linguist, thespian and wit – next to a monumental stone Buddha in the Sri Lankan hills. We’re contemplating how we got to this point, and where on earth we’re going.
Those of us lucky enough to be born in the decades after the Second World War sailed towards the new millennium with innocent, wide-eyed enthusiasm, taking it for granted that the waters ahead would be calm. Improvements in health, human rights and education, together with the decline in conflict and inequality, gave us cause for optimism. We placed our faith in the rule of law, and in diplomacy. Walls were tumbling and bridges were being built. It’s true that the dark clouds of climate change were rumbling in the distance, but the storm hadn’t yet broken.
But now we’re not so sure.
‘You’ve got to laugh,’ said Navin, breaking the silence.
‘Yes,’ I said, shrugging my shoulders and raising my palms to the air in surrender. ‘It’s frightening though, as if everything our parents and grandparents fought for is being undermined.’
I was already grappling with my own unresolved past and now, approaching my sixties and with the world so unsure of which direction it was taking, I was wondering how on earth to deal with the coming years. We could hear the rumble of bulldozers as they began their day’s work, ripping up the rich jungle nearby and transforming it into neat palm oil plantations. Then the words of that wise old Buddha broke into my thoughts.
‘To understand where you’re going to, you first have to understand where you’ve come from.’
‘I can’t just sit here and do nothing, Navin,’ I said, opening my laptop. ‘I need some sort of anchor, some certainties to grab hold of. I’m going to do some digging into my past.’ Navin was silent as I continued, warming to my theme. ‘I’m going to delve back, maybe by a century, to see how my family coped, while history tossed them on the wild seas of fortune.’
‘Wow, good luck,’ he chortled, before opening his own laptop.
‘I’ll give it a year,’ I whisper, somewhat startled by my conviction. ‘I like the symmetry of spending one year covering three generations over one hundred years.’ I’ve said it now. There’s no going back. My fingers hover over the keys. But where to begin?
‘I wonder what your father would have made of the world today?’ Navin asks.
I smile as I recall Dad’s slow, deep, twinkly, oh-so-English voice. The thought that so much of him is me and that his essence is spiralled through every inch of my being comforts me as I try to channel a little of his ease. I close my eyes and feel his warm chuckle enter my soul.