Sri Lanka, April 11 -- It had been our cherished dream to visit Dambana, the ancestral Adivasi village. We had spent years looking forward to it and finally it took months to plan the trip. Dambana was not a disappointment, but there was something different for us in the trip as well.

Long before we reached Dambana, our minds were made up on what we wanted to do there - to document the daily life of the fast-vanishing indigenous people of our land. However, as we drove along the A-26 Mahiyangana-Padiyatalawa Road on one sunny morning, we were struck with the idea of visiting the ancient forest hermitage called Mawaragala, which lies on the slope of a rocky mountain in Dambana. There we were at the Mawaragala forest hermitage, 15 kilometr...