New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- Colombo is beautiful, like a sane, disciplined version of Thiruvananthapuram or Bengaluru. Heritage structures sit elegantly beside contemporary buildings in peaceful self-assured coexistence. The traffic is polite; cars keep a safe quarantine line of distance from one another. It is tropical and familiar yet its non-chaos is strangely foreign. It could be India but the city is so orderly and courteous that it doesn't feel like our country-in a bad, good and sad way.

For years I'd wanted to visit Number 11, architect Geoffrey Bawa's home in the Sri Lankan capital, and Lunuganga, his estate in Bentota. Very recently, I made the pilgrimage.

Perusing images of his spaces in books, I always focused on the way he put th...