The degradation is fast and furious not due to natural causes but wilfully man-made with scant regard for the consequences. While it is happening all over the country, the main focus seems to be the Maha Oya which falls into the sea north of Negombo, with prohibitions being violated with impunity.

Her family has lived here for five generations, and so for Mahrooza Lahir, life in the Galle Fort has its own particular cadence. Some things – the familiar narrow alleys that branch off at right angles, the small kopi kades where people gather, the imposing walls of the Fort itself – have barely changed, but in other ways the Fort is not the place it used to be. In just a week, the already popular Fort will become the crowded venue of the Galle Literary Festival 2011, its sleepy air disrupted by a flood of visitors from all over the world.