Vesak, this year, turned out to be eerily quiet. Single strings of lights lined houses and government buildings. The wind fanned fallen leaves through empty streets.
Vesak in Sri Lanka is a national holiday, held every May to celebrate the birth, enlightenment and death of Buddha. During Vesak, Sri Lanka is usually full of tents offering free food to the masses. In Colombo there are lamps, multicoloured lanterns and religious installations. Though the holiday is a religious day, it is celebratory, and a chance for communities to socialise. This year, the mood was tainted by the Easter Sunday attacks, which had occurred just weeks previous.
A couple of days after Vesak, Sri Lanka's Muslim communities celebrated the end of Ramadan. Wattalapam, a coconut custard pudding made out of condensed milk, is a staple during this period. Usually, the dessert evokes happy memories in many Sri Lankans. This time it, too, evoked memories of a peaceful period that had been cut short by violence.
On Easter Sunday, several suicide bombers entered churches during service and luxury hotels during breakfast. They exploded bombs in rapid succession that killed 257 people and injured another 496. Victims included locals and international visitors.
Waves of sadness rippled through local communities that had been prepared to celebrate a decade of peace since the conclusion of the Civil War in 2009. Neighbourhoods in Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa experienced the deepest pain as families and friends perished in the blink of an eye. Pictures of mass funerals for victims in Negombo's St Sebastian Church are particularly heartbreaking.
While my family attended funerals on the morning of 22 April, I got ready to report on the crisis that unfolded throughout the country. I found it challenging to lay aside the intense pain I experienced and focus on my job. At night, memories of people's tears slipped into my dreams.
We visited Kochikade (or St Anthony's church), a church that my grandmother regularly prayed in. The area is usually busy, full of buses, cars and tuk tuks passing each other in rapid succession. Now, blue guards stood in a semi-circle in front of the church. An unsettling stillness pervaded the entire area, broken only by busy reporters hunting stories and photographers clicking cameras.
"Our freedom has been extinguished by the events of one morning. Anxiety and vigilance have become part of our daily routines once again."
We visited the house of Delicia Fernando, a local from Kotahena. She had