Sleepless in Sri Lanka

Some of you must be wondering where I have been all this while. There have been no updates on my book, either. Well, friends, I was in Sri Lanka, trying to get into the war zone.

Reporting in post-Prabhakaran Sri Lanka is very difficult. There is an iron-curtain on media reporting -- so much so that the government has threatened to prosecute journalists who try to report from the northern region.

But, of course, your reporter managed it somehow. At least partially.

I will be soon sharing with you two heart-wrenching stories: one of a 17-year-old boy who was inducted into the suicide sqaud of the LTTE at the age of ten. The other is of a woman, an English teacher, who was sent by the LTTE on a counter-offensive against the Sri Lankan army. Two of her comrades blew themselves off by holding handgrenades in front of their chests. She survived to tell her tale.

Meanwhile, here are few pictures from Sri Lanka.


(A man holding a fish outside Colombo)
(Outside a barber's shop near Colombo)
(An emotional Sri Lankan President embracing his brother, defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa)
(An army armed personnel carrier near the war zone in Vavuniya, northern Sri Lanka)
(A picturesque Lagoon near Trincomalee, the former bastion of LTTE)
(View near Candy, Sri Lanka)
(Your reporter inside Trincomalee. No reporter has been able to reach here for weeks now)