When I first went this way it was jungle. A jeep track to Tantrimale. Spent a night sleeping under the stars. We met only one person. A lonely man at Tantrimalai, said Nihal Fernando. From there we went onto the Mannar road. Walking all the way because there was not even a jeep track. We passed a lovely river with a rickety wooden bridge.

Several decades later when Nihal Fernando and the Studio Times team went back to Tantrimale there was a stony roadway. A woman with a baby in her arms hitched a ride in their vehicle. Fernando told her of the man he met several years ago. That man was my father, she said with a smile. The descendents of that sole resident of yore and many others now inhabit the region. The lovely river is still there. But not the rickety bridge. A concrete one has taken its place. Encamped beside the river is an Army Cantonement.