08Feb10- 2315hrs local time (SL)

It has been sometime since I have been on a Sri Lankan aircraft .  7 long hours  and an fascinating conversation with the young man in the adjoining seat (a deportee)  later, here I am.  On the tarmac,  famously touched by MR .
I ponder about that image and the sentiments  that sprang from there onwards  .

The welcome to serendib has been both familiar and alien.  A few moments ago the iron bird has hovered from Kandy to Colombo . The twinklings in the inky black still makes me wonder about the stories behind them. 
May be somebody’s house with only a porch light on.
A young girl studying late in to the night. Her mother closing up the kitchen before she retires for the day.
May be a lad doing the night shift guard duty , in front of a factory , reading a letter from his sweetheart in the village.
Stories.

But now running down the tarmac , I notice the change of the familiar ( haunting) sight ,  MIG jets perched  at the far end.  The recognizable, and annoying , Nokia start up tone  seem to be invading the whole sound space .  That’s a new thing.

Past Seeduwa the balmy air whiffing past me, the scent  of Colombo night seem to surround me . Of Spices , Salt and  relief . 

Half lit by a street lamp I notice a fading bill board.

“Beware , Bombs have no mercy”  it reads

That was another life time ago, yet it was just yesterday.