I hesitated for some days before I could conjure up the courage to call Parakrama Niriella, a director I have admired and respected from the day I saw Varenthu as a teenager in the Sarachchandra Open Air Theatre.

Eclipses have fascinated and frightened humans through recorded history. The oldest solar eclipse observation is a Chinese record dated 709 BC. In the modern age when the Internet and TV can bring events to your home, you may wonder why some eclipse-chasers travel round the world to see an Eclipse of the Sun.