A Summer of Sri Lanka is Heading Your Way
June round up, a prize winning novel, restaurant revamp and expansions and a gut punching documentary
June. It’s when summer finally started and I hit a big milestone.
My eldest child turned 18. I had to pause and reflect on that. As well as myself and my husband, there is another adult in the house.
It’s no mean feat bringing up children and getting them over the line to adulthood. I stopped and silently congratulated myself.
Kathy Lette, the Australian novelist, couldn't have put it better, ‘‘If you can get your kids to adulthood and they’re not voting Tory, doing drugs or collecting Nazi memorabilia, you deserve a medal’.
As we know, there are no medals for this achievement. Perhaps a hug and even maybe the odd, gruff 'thanks mum' when money is deposited in their account.
That aside, it looks like it going to be a glorious summer of Sri Lanka food and culture.
A prize-winning novel to add to my ‘to read pile’
Brotherless Night by VV Ganeshananthan has just won the Women’s Prize for Fiction. VV is an American Sri Lankan author, and this is her second novel, set in Sri Lanka, about sixteen-year-old Sashi, living in Jaffna who dreams of becoming a doctor. The Civil War erupts, and her brothers are swept away in the early days of the conflict.
VV has written for the Atlantic and the Washington Post, she’s a Harvard graduate and has a master's in journalism from Columbia. Her debut novel, Love Marriage, was longlisted for the Orange Prize.
If you want to find out more about VV Ganeshananthan and her books, tune into this brilliant podcast.
Restaurant revamp and expansions
Paradise Soho opened in 2019 and quickly earned a reputation for modern Sri Lankan cuisine pushing the boundaries of flavour. It was never the restaurant you went to if you wanted the comfort of home-style cooking.
It has now relaunched as Paradise 2.0, it retains its striking brutalist interior design that nods to the Sri Lankan architect, Georffrey Bawa and the Tropical Modernist movement.
Kolamba, which also opened in 2019, has expanded to a new site in Spitalfields, East London.
Kolamba East's menu is more akin to homestyle cooking and features dishes from the owners’ childhood and recipes from family and friends.
Colombo Kitchen in Worcester Park is known for good Sri Lankan food. They’ve now opened a second restaurant in Putney.
It’s exciting times for the Sri Lankan food scene and I’m looking forward to trying all three restaurants.
If you get there before me, let me know what you think.
Kolam Paris is coming to London
Late Sunday night, scrolling on Instagram I landed on this.
It looks like the guys behind Kolam Paris are having a residency in London at the Standard Hotel in Kings Cross on Saturday 13 July.
When I was last in Paris, I went out to meet them to shoot a photo story. Lahiru and Ravith are doing great things from their tiny 8-seater restaurant. They open at lunchtime and cater for events and they have very quickly become the darlings of the hip Parisian food scene.
A gut punch documentary
There are times when you see a film, art or a play that throws you a punch right in the gut.
And this is what the documentary, Anatomy of a Protest, by Kannan Arunasalam does.
The film grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me into the middle of the citizen uprising in Sri Lanka that resulted from the country’s economic crisis.
The film is part interviews with the key protagonists and mobile footage of protestors who were at the centre of the protests relaying events in real-time.
Some had given up jobs and apartments to join the protest about a crisis created by a series of successive problems: deficit, debt, terror attacks, COVID, a decimated tourism economy, fertiliser bans, raiding national reserves to pay debts - all contributed to shortages in fuel, food and medicines. Then rocketing prices, power cuts, and a heatwave.
This uprising was a phenomenon. It was leaderless, forming like an organic mass, a chemical reaction, and brought to life through mobile technology. Activists like Marisa de Silva spread the message, posting daily on social media.
Watching this unfold from the UK, I remember seeing the queues of people waiting in line for fuel, and the storming of the presidential residence, likened to the storming of the Bastille.
What I don’t recall were the youth camps at Galle Face, the Gota Go Gama protest village, and outside a luxury hotel - a community kitchen, a library, a medical centre, a university, and in the midst of this, a Sri Lankan Pride parade. People sat and wrote constitutions and demanded an end to discrimination and a better future for their country.
The film concluded with a panel discussion, which reflected on the aftermath and legacy of the protests:
A corrupt president was exiled to the Maldives then eventually crept back. His no better replacement was responsible for torture camps.
For the Tamils, those living in Jaffna, nothing has changed. They continue to live under the scrutiny of an army the size of Ukraine's.
A middle class shattered out of their bubble and woken up to what’s been going on around them and who are feeling the effects of a corrupt regime
Youth, who are not afraid to speak up and protest. They are the future to what we all hope will be a fair and equitable society.
When Anatomy of a Protest comes out.
Go see it.
And finally
Welcome to my new subscribers, a flurry of you have joined the Tooting Mama family. To those of you who dropped me an email to tell me a little more about yourself and your connections to Sri Lanka, thank you. I always love to hear from you.
Photo credit: ranjithangiah.photography
I always look forwards to reading your news letters. So interesting. Well done.
I love your passion for your home country, it's so refreshing and inspiring 💚. Congrats and belated birthday to your son! I'll definitely try to watch the documentary :))