Heaven Serendib

If music is the food of love, it is also the soul of pageantry. Pomp and circumstance need stirring aural accompaniment to come alive, and nowhere does a period musical score vivify and enhance spectacle more impressively than in the riotous wonder of the Esala Perahera, the annual ten-day medieval pageant held in Sri Lanka’s hill capital, Kandy. Kandy’s Esala Perahera (literally “July-August Procession”) dates, in its present form, from the last quarter of the 18th century, when it expressed royal homage to the Sacred Tooth Relic of Lord Buddha, enshrined in the temple known as the Dalada Maligawa, and to the four guardian deities of Sri Lanka: Katha, Vishnu, Kataragama and Pattini. Yet the Sri Lankan people have celebrated pageants to honour the Sacred Tooth Relic, the palladium safeguarding the nation, ever since it was brought to the island in the 4th century A.D. With its five processions — one each from the Dalada Maligawa and the four deistic temples — the Kandy Peraher...

"What is that smell?" this is the phrase that usually heralds the arrival of the king of South Asian fruits, the majestic durian. Its creamy flesh subtly calls to mind the flavor of almonds, sherry, custard and ice cream - but it is all-pervasive odour has all the delicacy of soiled socks, spoiled cheese and methylated spirits. The durian's in-your-face and up-your-nose presence has led to it being banned in many public places in Southeast Asia, for the olfactory well-being and mental health of innocent passers-by. The appearance of the durian is almost as alarming as its stink. Its skin is covered with pyramidal spikes that make it look like a medieval weapon. Khaki-green in color, it could almost be a bionic grenade.  Nature's warning? If so, connoisseurs of the fruit pay it no heed. They unanimously agree that getting to know the durian is worth the ordeal of getting close to it. It is manna from heaven, they say, the nectar of the gods. They add that, as ...