The trickle of people into the area quickly became a river with a powerful current of its own. More than fifty new villages were built from the ground up and given to local Tamils, Muslims, and even the indigenous tribespeople from the area. An equal number of Sinhalese people were also brought in from poorer provinces. These people had no ties to the land in the east. But they were given villages too, in the more fertile parts of the development near the headwaters.

Mohan had been awed by the audacity of the government to attempt such regeneration. Later, he just stopped talking to Nala about his work or his life in Gal Oya. There was nothing to say. He had believed that engineering could change people’s lives, but now he could see that the government was using engineering—using him—to change his country’s demography.

Mohan had once told her that he thought irrigation was beautiful. Beautiful. She laughed at him. He tried to explain it to her. ‘Bringing water to people is a gift, Nala. God has given us the knowledge and skill to manipulate water and make it grow things in places that couldn’t grow things for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. If we can irrigate, we can grow, then we can feed and we can live,’ he said.

Remembering his words, she swallowed hard against the tightness in her throat. She listened to the radio. Rajan looked at her but he didn’t need to speak. She said a prayer for her cousin-brother in Gal Oya, for the child inside her, and for the husband who never called her kunju. Her husband, who had known from the first news report that Mohan was in danger.

Rajan reached out to touch her, to hold on to her reassuring warmth, but she was already up, heading for the phone.

•

After the riots ended in Gal Oya, only government vehicles were allowed into the area. At Nala’s tearful insistence, Rajan called a colonel whom he had treated in Colombo for many years and reluctantly asked for a favour. The colonel got him a seat in an army van.

‘Do whatever you have to do, Rajan, please just help them,’ Nala begged. He held his wife and stroked her hair slowly as she cried goodbye. Ayah handed him a tiffin carrier of food for the long journey and two more for him to share with the soldiers he was travelling with. He nodded his thanks to Ayah. He pressed his lips to the top of his wife’s head briefly and placed his hand over her belly for a moment longer, but he couldn’t say a word.

On the trip to Gal Oya, the soldiers gratefully received their food and chatted among themselves. Occasionally they looked over at him, but they left him alone. They knew why he was coming and who had approved his seat.