Advertise on podcast: The Sri Lanka Podcast: Island Stories

Is there really a tree that can still the universe?  And if so, where in Sri Lanka might you find it?

Rich, salty, earthy, savoury, sharp – gorgonzola is not a cheese common to Sri Lanka, and yet its mere anticipation calls to mind on the island the seven stages of living.  And of them all,  how can you ever manage to make the last, last?

What is it about planting modest herbs that can keep the busy world at bay in Sri Lanka?

What choices might Sri Lanka make to fortify its heart?  And what choices were made long ago?

Does the future have a past in Colombo?

Rescuing the nation from civil war and chaos, how was it that the returning Lankbranaka dynasty would then preside over the kingdom’s utter devastation, the like of which the island had never before endured?

What might make you scream loudest in the lonesome depths of a long Sri Lankan night?

How can a mysterious Arthurian heroine, remembered by a Victorian stay-at-home, ever bring Sri Lanka to mind?

How can a simple shower in Sri Lanka lead to a hunt for animal truths, one leech at a time?

Despite all temptations, Sri Lanka has never been very good at merely waiting for the end of the world.  But why is that, and what does it have to do with barbarians and a Hollywood monk?

How the obvious is almost never true – at least on the surface in Sri Lanka.

Like the cavalry of old, they raced on to rescue a stricken kingdom from itself.  But what did the Lambakanna dynasty really achieve – and why were they overthrown?

In Sri Lanka, grief is as public as traffic lights, but does it help to believe in impossible things?

No other thing, except perhaps Buddhism itself, water technology or Sri Lanka’s island status, has had so marked an impact on the country as cinnamon.  But what did Michael Ondaatje have to say about it that will set you free?

Sri Lanka, like ancient Rome, has strict - albeit invisible - notions of caste and class. And class, not being exclusively human, is no less apparent within its smaller mammalian world – its rodents, and rodent-like cousins: its rats, shrews, gerbils, mice, and squirrels.