Torsten Kapeller, is a university student from Stuttgart, Germany. He traveled in the war-torn North and East of the island on a tsunami-reduction mission to provide tsunami warning sirens and telling many tales on his mission.
The tsunami sirens have been introduced from Germany and could be operated manually to warn the coastal villages up to a couple hundreds meters.
Torsten stated his mission to North was exhaustive. He frequented a beach front and was struck by the natural beauty of its shallow sea-bed. From his description, I guessed it was the “Saddi” seashore in the Kayts Islands.
Browsing Kayts Islands from the Jaffna Peninsula, crossing a mile-very long slim way had been a fascinating experience considering the fact that my faculty days. We could see the shallow sea on each sides of the way, which is an extension of the Palk Strait connecting the Gulf of Mannar and the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean.
We could normally see in the shallow seas, the sea-gulls, the Brahmin kites and other birds of distinct varieties busily fishing all the time. Some of the large Brahmin-kites used to relaxation on the major of fixed fishing nets almost everywhere in the sea. It was fascinating to see their get off from the nets and I was stunned in my early faculty days how large birds like them could uplift their bodies applying their wings.
When Torsten was sharing his working experience about his vacation to Kayts, my thoughts went again to the Dutch Sea Fort, which was designed by the Portuguese and then reconstructed by the Dutch in the sea off Kayts Islands.
The Portuguese not only built Forts in the island but also in other sections of Asia.
The Portuguese, Dutch, English, Danish, French even German and other European cultures and architecture closely influenced Asian art, lifestyle and architecture and my maternal ancestors’ residence in Kayts resembled that of a compact Dutch Fort with inside gardens and significant rectangular verandahs and corridors, which built me to marvel about the distinctive styles of architecture.
Torsten was telling about the relaxing weather of the Peninsula. As the Jaffna Peninsula sets a breeze from the Bay of Bengal and Indian sub-continent by its near proximity, there is an effect on the humidity, the climate and even on the monsoon technique.
