Sri Lanka鈥檚 small world
Reporters on the Job: During my reporting in Sri Lanka, I met Odaya Ramiah, a union leader, in Hatton, a tea-growing area. (Read the Monitor's report on the ethnic divide in Sri Lanka here.)
After the interview at a community center, he invited me to his house for tea. On his bookshelf was a family photo, where he identified his daughter in law. 鈥淪he is also a journalist and is very famous in Sri Lanka,鈥� he said. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 her name?鈥� I asked. 鈥淪himali.鈥�
Then a light bulb went off in my head. Before I left Bangkok, where I live, my wife, a former Associated Press editor, had praised Shimali and told me to look her up. But I heard she鈥檇 moved to the US. And here I was chatting with her father-in-law.
