Zinara Rathnayake

Following a maritime disaster, Sri Lankans are cleaning their beaches, nurdle by nurdle.
On Sarakkuwa beach, 17 miles north of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, a group of women is sieving the golden sand, shovelful by shovelful. It’s 9 a.m., but the sun shines bright and the fringe of swaying coconut trees provides little respite. “It’s scorching hot,” says Anne Perera, wearing a long-sleeved blouse and a sun hat, with gloves on and her arms wrapped in an extra layer of sleeves. Sweat drips down ...

The distinctive aroma of this earthy herb is the backbone of so many recipes for good reason.
At my parents’ home in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, as at many others across South Asia, curry leaf trees grow in the backyard, suffusing the air with a slight earthiness. That scent only intensifies when the fresh leaves sizzle in coconut oil, an integral step in so much of our home cooking.
If you’ve long been using curry leaves, you know they bring a dish together, making it richer, more robust. A sprig...

Outside a tent in Haputale, 112 miles east of Sri Lanka’s largest city, Colombo, I sipped a cup of sugary tea, the morning sun warming my hands and feet. Mist blanketed the surrounding tea gardens. All was quiet except for the chattering of the birds, the faint hum of a nearby stream, and an occasional murmur from nearby hikers readying their packs for the day. I was at the Eco Lodge Haputale, a family-run campsite in the Haputale mountain range of Sri Lanka. Although the campsite also has a ...

Sri Lanka’s tourism industry came to a screeching halt in early 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced global borders to shut. The more than 400,000 people in Sri Lanka who work in the tourism industry were left in a lurch. Even after pandemic restrictions were lifted in late 2021, tourism, which contributed nearly 16% to the total foreign exchange earnings for Sri Lanka as recently as 2018, is still struggling to recover.

The collapse of the tourism sector has contributed to the island nation...

In Sri Lanka, Instagram has become a shop front for goods and services, including live seafood delivered fresh from the coast.
For the past 20 years, Manjula Fernando has had access to what he believes are the best quality crabs in Sri Lanka, which come from Batticaloa, a town almost 300 kilometers from the capital, Colombo. His family business, Lanka Ice Group of Companies, supplies ice to fishermen all along the country’s coastline, and, once a month, one of the company’s managers has packe...

It’s 2 in the afternoon and Dial Muktieh is rustling up a feast for her customers. River fish cooks in a bamboo hollow as charred skies bring scattered rains outside. A mother digs into a plate of native rice with tham – a condiment prepared with crabs found in the rice paddies, fermented fish, and prickly ash from the back garden – while a farmer rests on a low bench and sips a cup of tea with ja shulia, sticky rice cooked in a bottle gourd and served wrapped in a green leaf.
Welcome to Mei-...

The Veddas were traditionally forest dwellers, who foraged, hunted and lived in close-knit groups in caves in the dense jungles of Sri Lanka. But most people haven't heard of them.

"This is our cave," said the man. He was tall with curly, shoulder-length hair and his lower lip was caked red with the areca nut he was chewing. An orange sarong was tied around his waist and a small axe was slung over his left shoulder. He pointed at a dimly lit rock shelter guarded by swaying trees.

At an 18-acre coconut garden of Rockland Distilleries in Naththandiya, just north of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, Roy Jayalath begins his work early in the morning. Jayalath climbs tall, swaying coconut trees to collect the white, milky sap of their flowers. Balancing on two coir ropes, he walks across these tightropes from tree to tree until he collects enough sap to fill a pot.

Shirumeena Hussain FCCA, the first woman to become assistant auditor general in the Maldives, on committment and being a role model

A feature for +852 about Two Thousand Isles and local women doing amazing things in the Maldives.

Feature for Silkwinds, SilkAir's inflight magazine by Ink Global.

For centuries, indigenous groups in north-east India have crafted intricate bridges from living fig trees. Now this ancient skill is making its way to European cities.

The sari, a traditionally modest and 'feminine' garment, is being re-interpreted and re-energised by a new wave of fashion fans. Zinara Rathnayake meets some of them, and finds out why.

My mother grew up in a house of eight people in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka, 100km north-east of Colombo. During the island’s severe droughts in the 1970s, most of her family’s humble, home-cooked meals consisted of boiled jackfruit served in a clay pot with a handful of freshly grated coconut.

During my travels across mainland India, especially in small towns and villages in the north, I hardly saw any women-run shops or marketplaces. In a sit-down eatery in Uttar Pradesh, I watched men make flatbreads and mash vegetables for curries while male customers gobbled them up. Between Kolkata and Gorakhpur, I sat sandwiched between men in passenger trains passing through the rural countryside. On most occasions, women were absent from public spaces.