They gathered under a scorching sun, in the hottest March recorded, at the Kilinochchi town park where the regional Women’s Day celebration was being held. Sitting outdoors in the intense heat took on a form of diligence true to martyrs. There were nearly three hundred women gathered there; almost all of them had lost someone to the civil war that ended fifteen years ago.
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Updated: Apr 3
Kuanna noticed the sixth body for the week being taken to the jungle in a funeral parade. A group of nine or ten followed the four who were carrying the corpse wrapped in cloth, singing their funeral song. Six deaths in a week; this was unusual. Kuanna resisted the urge to speak to the funeral party. After all, her tribe disowned her nine years ago for bringing misfortune to the village with the warring man that she chose to love. She had vowed to never return to the people who killed him.
So, she sat watching the road from the village into the jungle, long after the funeral party had disappeared. Their mournful song trailed off into the wilderness. Why she couldn’t leave the earshot of her village—her despicable, arrogant tribe’s village—she could never tell. Every time she tried to leave, a stubborn and unreasoned voice convinced her not to. “They will come to you”, it said.
The next day, a seventh funeral party came, singing and weeping as they carried their dead.
The next day, a seventh funeral party came, singing and weeping as they carried their dead.
Then followed the eighth, the ninth, and soon, the thirty-eighth within twelve days.
Kuanna boiled a broth of turmeric, ginger and sirimani roots and poured it into her largest dried gourd bottle. She packed the near-broken one of her knives and the older one of her only two rags; she knew that she wouldn’t be able to recover them from what she was setting out to do. Then, she waited for the thirty-ninth body. It came soon. As soon as the mourners left, singing their dreadful song, Kuanna walked over to the cemetery. She crouched near the body; it was a young girl. Her skin still held a trace of warmth to Kuanna’s touch. She had only died in the last few hours, Kuanna understood. The village must be sinking into panic now; they’re abandoning the dead and rushing the rituals. Kuanna took her old blade and dug it into the girl’s body and drew a smooth line from the throat to the groin. The line swelled in red as blood started oozing out. Kuanna began to examine the corpse, prodding its interiors with her knife.
By the time Kuanna had reached the water stream, jackals had descended on the body. She heard their fervent fight for flesh in the distance. As if affected by the jackal’s urgency too, Kuanna set out to clean herself in a frenzy. That stench in the dead girl’s lungs…it wasn’t ordinary, Kuanna knew.
She poured the root boil from the gourd bottle into her palm and hurriedly rubbed it inside her nose. Then, she poured some into her mouth, gargled it in the throat and spat it out. She poured the remainder over herself and rubbed every inch of her body with it before immersing in the stream.
Kuanna lay down on her mat and gazed at the sky through the torn thatch of the roof. The cobra that dwelled with her—Naga—slithered across the floor and curled up near her neck where warmth was gathering. Kuanna still remembered the stench from the dead girl’s lungs. It was putrid and had metallic tones to it. An element was deeply corrupted. What was it? She wondered.
That night, Kuanna dreamt of herself standing over the Earth. Its brown skin split open in a clean line that swelled with liquid red from the inside. From within it, came a flame; a red, orange and gold flame. It rose slowly into the air and halted in level with Kuanna’s eyes. Amidst the flame was water—rapidly swirling in a spiral.
Kuanna peeled the jungle to find wakapitha berries. She finally spotted the flame-red berries on a tree adjoining the hill. She broke open one of the berries—inside, its bright red exterior faded into orange, circling the golden yellow seeds at its heart arranged in a neat spiral. Kuanna tied a long strip of rag around her waist, and formed a pocket between its folds; then, she started climbing the knotty bark of the wakapitha to collect more.
Kuanna placed the ground pack of medicine, tightly packed in banana leaf, in front of Naga’s face and laid down next to the cobra. She gazed into Naga’s eyes. In Kuanna’s mind’s eye, she could see the village clearly; the footpath from the jungle would get wider as it inched closer to the village. It was distinctly marked from where the road bringing carriages would meet the footpath. Beyond that, where the water wells were, there would always be women and men with pots. Nowadays, with death so thick in the air, their speech would be hurried and whispered. Some would look terrified, and others would be already broken.
In the next few days, the villagers experienced something strange. A white cobra would slither near the well, drop off small packages wrapped in leaf, and slither back into the jungle. On the first two days, no one touched the package. On the third day, a man prodded it with a stick and unravelled the leaf. Other villages looked on; they gave him mixed instructions shouting from all directions. He shushed them and dug the end of his stick into the contents of the leafy package. Then he raised the stick to his nose as excited voices cried caution around him.
The eighth time that Naga returned from the village, Kuanna noticed that she was fed. The shape of three quail eggs in Naga’s belly was easily recognizable. The streak of white on her pink tongue meant milk.
They have finally understood the medicine.
The processions of bodies eventually ceased, save the occasional. Kuanna watched the stars change patterns through the broken thatching of her roof.
One night, she dreamt of a line of black ants swarming near her feet as she slept. They swarmed at her feet, spilling out of her jungle hut, beyond the jungle and teeming along the footpath from the village.
The next day, when Kuanna returned from the stream with her pot of water, there was a reed salver left in front of her jungle hut. It held fruits, betel leaves, a small bowl of rice cooked with coconut milk, plums, and nuts and six yards of crisp cotton folded neatly.
An offering.
Kuanna’s story was written based on the historical character Kuwēni (also known as Kuanna) linked with the legends connected to the origin of Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka. Click here to read more and to sample this as a spoken story.
Updated: Jan 12
Sometimes, businesses find themselves in dangerous waters when trying to engage their audience through emotionally charged popular narratives. Often enough, we see businesses initiating or tagging onto sensitive conversations involving race, politics, skin colour and gender; some nail it, others damage their brand catastrophically, and most end up making their conversations seem unauthentic. Remember how the race to position themselves with the Black Lives Matter movement came out for most brands? Those who didn’t filter the narrative through their own brand personality, or present it through their true views and ideas, had their audiences disengaged, and sometimes even enraged. That awkward Pepsi ad, which only became famous as a tone-deaf disaster of a story, is probably the best example.
Engaging with popular narratives is a good thing to do; It shows that the brand is alive, current, listening and responding to the world that its consumers live in. But, not every brand can tag onto every narrative. It must be authentic; there must be history, connection or reason; And most importantly, it must be delivered right through the business’ persona, values, and tone of voice.
When we were helping the in-house team at Rithihi—one of Sri Lanka's most beloved saree boutiques—to identify its brand voice and story styles, it became important to demonstrate how to engage with certain topics that were sensitive. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in India, as the death tolls were sky-rocketing, it was insensitive to talk about the beauty of sarees handmade in areas like Banaras, Kanchipuram and Ludhiana, which were devastated by disease. It was important to address this, and convey the brand's authentic emotions towards the catastrophe; However, it was a highly emotionally-charged topic and there was already growing criticism on how some brands were delivering their messages. We created a newsletter with stories that celebrated the skill and beauty of artisanal communities affected by the pandemic. The message was approached through Rithihi's values, while the response to the situation was framed through the brand's personality framework. The stories, as always, were delivered strictly through the brand voice that we carefully identified for Rithihi. As a result, the message was authentic in reflecting Rithihi's true views and sentiments, and it was well received. This story led to creating many meaningful conversations between the business and its audience.
During Sri Lanka's economic crisis in 2022, many hospitality businesses struggled to articulate why it’s still worthwhile to visit the island along with the reasons for the peaceful protests that were sweeping across the nation. It was a challenging message to coin. However, it couldn't be ignored or overlooked by any business inviting people to visit Sri Lanka; especially with the spread of misinformation and sensational news making Sri Lanka appear unsafe. Here's how we helped one of our longstanding clients in hospitality to articulate this message with the earnestness and sense of humour true to their brand voice.
These kinds of emotionally charged narratives are where a brand's true strength in communications is tested. In both these instances, the brand articulation framework that outlined the business values and the voice were the key tools in getting these stories right.
A well-articulated brand persona and voice are the most important tools you have when navigating through complex or sensitive narratives. They are your frameworks to be truthful and authentic.
If you want to find out more on how we consult and create stories to help businesses navigate through challenging messages, and complex narratives, send us a message.
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