"When we was fab"

WE were fab such a long time ago that most of us in this beautiful, Asian splendour, fertile and rich in diversity, emitting an overall colour of a deep green and glowing golden beaches, have long forgotten “When We Was Fab”.

- By Faraz Shauketaly

There was a time in the late 1960s when travel was easy and cheap, probably long and arduous. The fun I presume was so great that the length and the arduousness possibly never mattered. The Mainline from Colombo to Badulla rattled its way into the hills complete with the fumes of the coals mixed with the heat of the day cooled by the wind generated by the noisy train. It snaked upwards quite literally full to the brim and arrived in the dusk. Waiting buses and a solitary car would whisk us away from the station thereafter.

Every April or thereabouts we were off to the cooler climes of the hill country. A time to cool off, be freer than we would have been in greater Colombo. Time to visit our annual-visit-list relatives all smiling and welcoming us all to share whatever was available. Even through the rationing period. Nostalgic, yes perhaps.

But a time indeed, to reflect on When We Was Fab.

We was so fab that the visiting Lee Kuan Yew wanted to emulate us, the Ceylonese now turned the Lankan lions.

An island of happiness and peace

So what happened to our beautiful island? An island of happiness and peace until some of us returned from the West having been exposed to the ways, manners and dress sense of the white man or simply the West.

Intoxicating it must have been for we had all sorts return to our island paradise.