She felt her heart beat faster as she dared to hope for a time and a place outside this island. The winters were sunny in Australia, and it was the same sun that warmed them all. She wondered what real lambswool smelled like. She tried to remember what Smrithi smelled like. She felt her child’s hand in hers when she helped her across the railway tracks to the Wellawatte beach, that last time.

She started a conversation she had rehearsed in her mind a thousand times. It terrified and exhilarated her. She gripped the edge of the table and closed her eyes. She could see the smile, hear the voice, almost touch the face. She would tell Smrithi. They both would. Smrithi would understand, eventually.

But first, she would call Suren’s brother. She took a deep breath. The air in Colombo was heavy this time of year, humidity settled on them all like a shroud. The monsoon was coming.

GRAVITATION

Extracted and summarised from the Mahabharata, 10th Century BC Hindu epic by Sage Vyasa

Vyasa, realising that he was coming to the end of his earthly life, decided to preserve the Mahabharata in writing, so that future generations would remember the Great War that shaped their destiny. He asked Ganesha, the Elephant God, to be his scribe, but he gave him two conditions. Ganesha must not stop writing once Vyasa began the story, and Ganesha must understand everything that he was writing. Ganesha agreed to the old sage’s conditions, but gave Vyasa one of his own. He declared that once Vyasa began his story, he must not stop telling it; he must narrate continuously until the very end. Narrator and scribe thus agreed on the terms, and Ganesha broke off one of his tusks, which he used as a divine pen. Vyasa sat down and began …

CHAPTER 21

Sydney, 2009

Rajan rarely left the house, but Siva had been elected President of the Rotary Club.

‘I’m the first Sri Lankan Tamil president of our chapter,’ he said proudly.

Rajan had avoided Rotary meetings for twenty-five years, but he reluctantly agreed to attend this dinner for his son-in-law’s sake.

The event was at the Concord Community Centre. He quickly realised he was overdressed in his pressed trousers, long-sleeved Marks & Spencer shirt and Brylcreemed hair. Most of the other men were in polo shirts and shorts or slacks. Everyone wore statement watches and drove statement cars. He wondered what statement the sartorial incongruity was making.

He had expected the audience to be homogeneous, similar to the sophisticated gentlemen’s clubs of Colombo 7. He had managed to avoid those clubs as well. The Concord Community Centre was filled with the biriyani mix of the local community: white people, Italians, Chinese, Koreans and Sri Lankan Tamils. There must have been others; the Rotary had evolved from an elite philanthropic club to a genuine community society.