Three Days in an Aqua:

Reflections on Friendship

- BY UDITHA DEVAPRIYA

It is when you get out of your car and into the heat that you start to encounter the northern province.

Despite it being 15 years after the end of the civil war, vast expanses of the region remain uncharted, undiscovered, and unexplored. Then as now, it remains an agrarian society, hot, dry, and harsh, rooted in the beliefs of its people.

I came here almost against my will. One and a half months ago I had met with an accident, a fairly deep cut on my Achilles’ Heel. I was immobilised for a month, and my leg was trapped in a cast. Though I thought I could get back to work after the cast came off, I was to spend the next two weeks in bed, barring the occasional visit to the physiotherapist. "You need to go out," someone told me. "You will not walk if you stay in one place."

It was when I began to feel frustrated that a group of friends organised a trip to the north. This was a radical suggestion, and for a while I opposed it. But after a day or two, against all rational thought, I felt I had nothing to lose. I had spent close to two months at home, and had become afraid of venturing out. Perhaps only a trip as long as this could set things right and exorcise my fears. Thus, though I found it hard to walk - I had to make do with a walking boot and an elbow crutch I enthusiastically said yes.

The prime mover behind the trip was my once-assistant and now-associate Uthpala. I wrote on Uthpala two years ago, and I noted that he had a knack for learning fast and evolving faster than his seniors. Two years later, I feel vindicated. It was on his account that the trip to the north ended up being planned.