South Asian Avant-Garde

Sep 20, 2024 | saaganthology.com | Jeevan Ravindran

“Let’s say a small child of around five years old is sick,” says Subramaniam Maheswarie, a 47-year-old tea plucker from Bogawantalawa in the Nuwara Eliya district of Sri Lanka’s Central Province. “We have to look after it and give it medicine.”The sick child Maheswarie is referring to is Sri Lanka: a nation on the slow road to recovery from a devastating economic crisis that led to shortages of food and fuel, and saw costs of living soar.