Early Aviation Images

My friend Longoff has put together a wonderfully nostalgic collection of early Ceylonese aviation photographs and trivia on Picasa, which you can look at by clicking on the picture below. They include such gems as a Chance-Vought Corsair fighter-bomber being towed to its hardstanding by an elephant, pictures of old Air Ceylon timetables and in-flight menus and some fantastic images of the RAF base at China Bay, later inherited by the Sri Lanka Air Force, where the rotting carcass of a Fairey Fulmar used to greet Air Ceylon internal flights from Colombo at the end of the runway back in the 1960s.

Early aviation in Sri Lanka

The photo of a gang of indentured native labourers building the runway at Katukurunda aerodrome tells a less agreeable tale of Ceylon, but one that was always an inseparable part of the experience. Lest anyone think Sri Lanka superior to the land of my birth in even this sorry respect, let's not forget that, right now, gangs of Chinese convicts under the supervision of Chinese warders are hard at work in the South, building the government's vanity projects for it. Meanwhile, some surveys of youth unemployment in Sri Lanka put the figure as high as fifty percent. Yes, you read that right.

Call Someplace Paradise, Kiss it Goodbye

Once upon a time, there was a country called Ceylon. It was a quiet, rather sleepy place that did not covet greatness: a former British colony, a little backward in some ways, perhaps, but civilized and decent. Its climate was felicitous, its scenery of legendary beauty, its people known for their simplicity and friendliness to strangers.

The cultures and customs of Ceylon were fascinatingly polymorphous and its faiths multifarious, ecumencial and syncretistic, for many different races called the country home. Walking through the streets and bazaars of its capital, you might hear a half-dozen different languages spoken in the space of ten minutes, and see twice as many different styles of costume on the backs of passers-by. This multiplicity of races and faiths did not always live in amity, but life was largely peaceful for all that. Garden walls were low, gates were left open and front doors ajar. The children of all races played together in the streets.

Ceylon ceased to exist in 1972. It was superseded by a new country, Sri Lanka. Unlike Ceylon, Sri Lanka has not been mostly peaceful: it has been at war against sections of its own populace for nearly all its history. That history is a sorry account of expropriation, ethnic oppression and cleansing-by-stealth, war, revolt and separatism; its successive governments have been noted mainly for their violence, corruption, incompetence and malfeasance, their gradual erosion of the rights and opportunities of those whose lives were in their trust, and their reluctance to leave office when their time was up.

Like every other Ceylonese, I became a citizen of Sri Lanka on 22 May 1972. I am, I believe, a reasonably good citizen. I pay my taxes, obey the laws and do my civic duty as I see it. I am no revolutionary, neither do I think it possible to resurrect the past.

Yet I am not - and will never be - Sri Lankan in my heart. I am a Ceylonese for ever. The tourist brochures call Sri Lanka Paradise, but the real paradise was always Ceylon. The fate of my motherland bears out the the lesson the singer sang, long before he sang it:

Call someplace Paradise, kiss it goodbye.