From the sky the island state of Sri Lanka is a tear-drop in the ocean, its several nations breathing softly besides the colossus of the Indian sub-continent.

As the plane comes in to land in Colombo, the red earth of this country reaches up with its fecund richness, and we are bathed in the green shade of a tropical landscape: undulating gentle hills, lush verdant forests, birds and bird-song trilling in the humid air.

Throughout my many journeys across the world, it is the subcontinent to which I constantly return, comforted by the familiarity, encouraged by the fact that difference seems to have been accommodated with such graciousness. In Colombo church bells ring out alongside the clear call of the azaan, while Buddhist monks pray besides the many coloured flags fluttering from the spires of silent stupas. Luxury BMW’s careen through orderly traffic, vying for space with Tata trucks, bikes, scooters, rickshaws and pedestrians. And old man carrying an umbrella crosses the road at an intersection; traffic stops until he makes it to the other side. An ambulance with sirens bleating is given way almost as if an invisible hand parted the ways much as Moses parted the Red Sea.

Across a temple wall an elephant is bathed, then fed with bales of fodder, his ears fanning the still air while his whip of a tail flicks at pests wishing to use it as a landing strip. Stray dogs loiter around tiny shop fronts, tails wagging, muzzles beaming, confident that they shall not be beaten or abused in a country where every living thing seems to have its own place in the larger scheme unfolding in a landscape blessed with enough to be shared with all. It seems no one can really go hungry in this country of 22 million people — there is enough growing in the red earth to satiate everyone, and plenty of fish in the endless sea.

Why is it, then, that Sri Lanka suffered almost three decades of civil war that claimed over 100,000 lives? The historical and political positioning of the Sinhalese community as “more Sri Lankan” as compared to the minority Tamils, cost that country in economic, environmental and human terms. Political and economic conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities was a problem of growing urgency in the years following independence. In the face of an expanding Sinhalese ethnic nationalism, Tamil groups initially expressed their grievances through legally constituted political channels, participating in parliamentary debate through the Tamil Congress and the Federal Party. In the early 1970s however, a number of events worked to create a new sense of alienation, especially among Tamil youths, and a new desire to seek redress through extralegal means. In 1970 the Ministry of Education introduced quotas for university admission that effectively reduced the number of places available for Tamil students. As a result, a contingent of young, educated Tamils was cut off from the traditional path to advancement and set loose on an economy ill-prepared to accommodate them.

The flight from the Rathmalana Airport to Iranamadu takes us over dense jungle. On the way to the airport I spot a tiny hamlet surrounded by mango and coconut trees, barefooted women carry water to their huts, and in a clearing a peacock dances, unwatched, undisturbed. I am on my way from Colombo to Kilinochchi, the centre of the arena of war between the ethnic separatist group, the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) and the Sri Lankan military. On Jan 2, 2009, this town was taken over by the military after a series of operations aimed at disbanding the administrative hub of the Tigers.

At Irinamadu, we are received by Brigadier Galagamaya who ushers us towards the buses which shall take us to the massive water reservoir which had been targeted by the Tamil Tigers during the war. We are told that inundation was a terror tactic, much as suicide bombing which became part of international consciousness with the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Suicide pilots would fly aircraft undetected by radar and bomb army positions in the dense forests, taking the forces by surprise and demoralising them.

For 26 years the Tamil Tigers fought for a separate homeland, a demand fuelled by discriminatory policies which disenfranchised the Tamil communities of the north and east of Sri Lanka. At the height of the war, 133,000 people were displaced from Kilinochi — the high intensity battle totally destroyed the town and the highway connecting it to Jaffna, just 60 kilometres to the north. As we stopped to meet the children at the Sencholai Orphanage I knew I had to learn a lot from this journey which resonated so much with the terrible violence which has killed over 40,000 people in my own country. I knew that there are many significant lessons to learn here, that it was still a long way to go before we got onto the winding road going north to Jaffna.