Sanctuary in Clouds: What residential library of healing in Nuwara Eliya meant to me

A tribute to the book haven of writer Surya Vishwa in Hawaeliya in Nuwara Eliya

- BY SHALOM CHESKY

WHEN I think about the home in the mountains of Nuwara Eliya, the first thing that comes back to me is the feeling. Not a thought. Not a description. A feeling. The air was different there. Colder, sharper, cleaner. The kind of air that hits your lungs and makes you slow down, even if you came rushing in from somewhere else. I remember climbing up to the house and feeling like I was walking into a pocket of the world that the rest of the world had forgotten.

The silence there stays with me. It was not empty silence. It had weight. It felt alive. It came from the waterfall beneath the house, from the mist, from the trees, from the books and the art within, from the way everything settled into place, like it had been that way for centuries. Before I even walked inside, I already felt calmer. I already felt like whatever noise I had been carrying from my life did not belong there.

And then I entered the house.

I had never seen books like that. Not just the number of them, but the way they lived in the home. They were not lined up neatly like decorations. They were not arranged to impress anyone. They were part of the house the way stone is part of a mountain, the way they were obviously part of the soul of the writer who lived with them. They took up space like living beings. They created paths, corners, shadows, little pockets of colour. When I ran my hand along some of the shelves, I felt like I was touching a life story. I could feel years of searching, collecting, reading, thinking and healing in the way the books were placed. Not perfect, not rigid, but full of intention. The titles ranged from books about earth, heavens, of seekers, of ancient wisdom, of art and covering every genre one could think of.