Going out in a foreign country is always a great way to get to know local people and what ‘normal’ life means for them. But Colombo party scene is rather, well, let’s say reduced. Most areas of the town completely shut down at night and the streets are rather empty. Looking for a restaurant, let alone a bar becomes mission impossible after 8pm.
I was therefore dubious when one of my contacts invited me to join him and his friends for a night out in a club called Amuseum in the Galle Face Hotel (all the clubs are attached to hotels) and to this day, I still do not know what to make of that night.
Amuseum would not look awkward in London or Paris. Although very small it is decorated in a modern and rather funky fashion. All the usual spirits and cocktails can be bought at the bar, most of them imported from Europe or the US. The crowd dresses in the latest fashion, with girls wearing skirts so short it would make me feel embarrassed to wear one. The music was commercial but not bad and the atmosphere chilled out but wild enough to show everyone was having a lot of fun.
Once I put aside my feeling of discomfort due to the fact that I was the only blonde and pale skinned person in the room, I started talking with a few people around me. Most of the people knew each other from high school in Colombo and were now studying all over the world. They were rich kids on holiday, careless of what their country might be going through. To be fair some of them did have an opinion on the current events happening in Sri Lanka, but none really saw their country as the place they would later come back to. And who could blame them?
Sri Lanka offers very little for a young and bright person. The job prospects are slim and the industry not very diversified. Colombo “business centre” is merely composed of two towers, which were strangely given the name of ”world trade centre”, surrounded by half-finished low buildings that would not look fancy in the Bronx of New York. And although the partygoers admitted to me that it is nice to come back for the summer and party with all their friends, there is something claustrophobic about knowing everyone in each clubs you hang out.
Sri Lanka desperately needs its educated youth to stick around and help the re-building, and later on the development, of the country. In the past decades, the brain-drain that occurred because of the conflict deprived the country of some of its brightest mind, and although it is unlikely that the Diaspora will come back, Sri Lanka cannot afford to lose another generation to the sirens of the western world. The peace settlement depends on it, as only a stable and prosperous economy will give the Muslim, Sinhalese and Tamil communities the incentive to live together and keep jealousies and grief at bay. The government will have to work hard at it, but does it has the right arguments to keep those young and free minds on the island?
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