A Tale of Two Cities

The New Year began with a bang.

Shortly before the new decade was to begin I left my flat and joined the throngs on the stairwell. Something unusual was happening. It was 11.50 p.m. and Londoners were leaving their homes en masse to head to the Thames. The scene echoed a ropey science-fiction movie as crowds possessed by some unseen, alien force moved in one direction to the river. Us lemmings gathered on the banks and waited for the signal. People started to chant.

“Five, four, three, two, one!”

The new year had begun. It must have done for the fireworks were popping along the lengths of the river in haphazard, beautiful excess. People celebrated by igniting shop-bought sparklers and boozy renditions of Auld Lang’s Syne were heard in asynchronous chorus all along the riverbank.

When the firework displays had died away it was back to bed and the next day dawned grey and sober. Normal service had been resumed. This January depression lasted for two weeks before I crossed the cloud barrier in an Airbus A350 and left London beneath, heading for the warmer climes of Sri Lanka instead.

Sri Lanka, the homeland of my parents, is a country familiar to me but each time I touch down from the aircraft I am astonished at the difference. As soon as the plane doors open the heat blasts in a way inconceivable when in Europe. It is a moist, baking heat that feels as muggy as the inside of a lung. There is little respite from sticking one’s tongue out as dog’s do to cool off. The temperature is equivocal.

That tropical signifier, palm trees, line the edges of the runway and the tarmac shimmers with a heat haze mirage. Even on the hottest days in London the weather cannot compare. Heat and humidity are the way of life in Sri Lanka, the land revolves around this fact. The day starts early. As the sun rises, so do the people, capitalising on the few hours of respite when the temperature is in the mid-twenties. Then as the country wakes up the inevitable traffic starts to build.

Woe betide if you travel through Colombo during working hours. Even if you do nip along the new Expressway from the airport to the city in 20 minutes, the subsequent traffic will ground you. Congestion is an issue familiar to many capital cities, not least London, but in Colombo it is truly in another league.

Take, for comparison, buses. In London the red double-deckers are the patriarchs of the public transport system. The London General Omnibus Company was in service long before the Underground came along and whilst no longer as iconic as in the days of the old Routemaster, most people usually give way to the lumbering vehicle as it pulls out. In Sri Lanka, however, buses are a law unto themselves. These bright-blue beasts scream past the lower lying vehicles with an ear-splitting horn, the sound of which must surely be the recorded trumpet of a charging bull elephant. The other traffic is similarly as lawless, straddling lanes and merging without indication. Scurrying into any remaining space are a swarm of tuk-tuks, their tripod wheels and black canvas rooves making them look like opportunistic beetles from afar.

But for all the petrol fumes the traffic chaos is in keeping with the essence of a capital city. Chaos equals energy, energy equals excitement and Colombo thrums with all of the above. Incredible though it sounds, Colombo is more vibrant than London. With fewer planning restrictions in place the city develops without constraint, with jumbled shacks clustering next to new high-rise skyscrapers. Aided by tropical rain, plants flourish despite the rampant urbanisation and the city is always illuminated, either by the dazzling sun in the day or the prolific neon of the night.

As in London, the bustle can be wearing but respite can also be found in Colombo. Instead of a murky brown river, the blue-grey Indian Ocean provides a source of soothing contemplation as it stretches out forming the western boundary of Colombo. On weekends people fly kites on the beachside promenade known as Galle Face Green and amass there on national days of celebration. I wonder whether next New Year’s Eve I too will join the crowds in Colombo as they walk to the water?

For the time being, however, I shall have to content myself with the Thames. Small, strange twists of fate brought me to the banks of this river in London but I cherish the thought that I will always have another capital city to call my home.