Somaratne

In this fictional account based on the childhood memories of the author, the reader is taken on a captivating journey through the history of a poverty-stricken rural community in Sri Lanka and the villagers who lived there.

The author spent his early years helping in the rice paddies when he wasn’t at school, and clearly recalls the diverse natural systems that existed there: the freshwater crabs, water birds, croaking frogs, barb fishes and insects.

At night, he remembers hearing the howling of foxes and elephants trumpeting in the forest.

As time went on, the forests were cut down for chena (crop) cultivation, and the government introduced subsidised fertilizers and pesticides, ostensibly to improve rice and vegetable production, but also to attract the rural vote. The land and waterways were contaminated with heavy metals, biodiversity was systematically broken down and the wildlife vanished for good - even the earthworms disappeared. Thirty years later, the people began to suffer from chronic kidney damage on a mass scale, and they began to understand the damage that had been done - the heavy metals had not only poisoned the waterways and the land, but the people themselves. Subsequent generations of farmers also began to understand the importance of ecosystem conservation and ’circular farming systems’, as well as the need to elect educated, environmentally concerned people to represent them in the government.

This is story of someone who has witnessed environmental and human destruction and has lived to tell the tale.

It’s also the sharing of one old man’s wisdom.