Every Sri Lankan, and almost every visitor to Sri Lanka, carries a longing for the place in some small form - hiraeth, the Welsh call it - wherever they go and whatever their background. It binds them however much the war and politics might try to divide them.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a deep, universal longing for one's homeland that transcends background and challenges.
Romesh Gunesekera's quote emphasizes the profound connection that individuals have with their homeland, Sri Lanka, regardless of their personal experiences or the political turmoil affecting it. The term 'hiraeth,' a Welsh word for a deep-seated homesickness, encapsulates this sentiment, suggesting that this longing creates a bond among the people, uniting them through their shared love and nostalgia for their home despite external conflicts.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of cultural heritage.
In the sense that writing is to retrieve the past and stop the passing of time, all writing is about loss. It's not nostalgia in the sense of yearning to bring back the past, but recognition of the erosion of things as you live.
The possible ranks higher than the actual.
A great country worthy of the name does not have any friends.
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
Try not to associate bodily defect with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason
Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition.
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