Clarke and I

The day started with a simple enough tour to the Buddha temple in the middle of Colombo. We played the tourist part and let ourselves fall victim to a local charlatan offering “cheap thrills, the safest tuk-tuk ride, and all the Buddhist festivities” we can take. It turned out that there were no festivities, the tuk-tuk was simply driven by the man’s cohort, and the would-be thrills turnedout to be expensive and pointless. By the time our driver dropped us off in the middle of Colombo’s largest park, we were $40 lighter and completely parched. We discovered that the Sri Lankan favorite pastime is making out in the park. No joke. I can only assume that being watched by other couples in the park offers more privacy than being hassled by fussy family members in your own house. We slowly made our way in a direction where we thought we might find some water when we realized that we are very close to Barnes Place-Clarke’s home. Our destination was nestled comfortably between the Swedish embassy and the Iraqi embassy. We decided to spontaneously storm the castle, which also housed the diving shop, and discuss a possible scuba lesson in the hope of meeting Hector and getting a feel for the challenge ahead. It was a funny feeling. After months of planning this meeting we were standing only a few meters from our destination. Our destination had absolutely no knowledge of our existence. No idea that across the globe a dedicated group of curious individuals was dying to meet him. The moment was upon us. We shyly rang the front gate bell and moments later we were escorted to the main office of Underwater Safaris, located on the ground floor of Barnes Place. Hector sat with his back to us and immediately rose to greet us.  

Hector is a seasoned Sri Lankan beach boy. Sporting a smooth tan and a white goatee. His eyes were kind but seemed to posses the ability to look at Peddy and me simultaneously. His office was simple but on the wall behind his desk was a large poster of planet earth seen from space-from three different angles and a huge picture of Arthur. As I examined the office more closely I noticed more and more Clarkian trinkets decorating the desk and the other wall. I could feel the man’s presence. We asked Hector about diving. When he said that diving conditions were not great due to the Tsunami, I confessed to him that we actually came to meet Clarke and while diving is very dear to us, it was Clarke whom we really wanted to see. Hector’s jovial response was short, “you want to meet Clarke? Come on upstairs.” Surely this was a weird dream sequence. Without too much fanfare we were rushed to Clarke’s office on the second floor of the east wing. Months of intricate contact strategies collapsed into a clear inevitability. We felt we were drawn into Clarke’s home and that whatever we planned was worth nothing in the face of such series of events. Rohan, Clarke’s personal assistant, seated us in the lower part of a two-level office. It was sparsely decorated but did have a majestic G5 in one corner that shared a small table with Clarke’s biography, several of his books, and “First on the Moon” book series by Neil Armstrong et al. on a far wall was a dedicated picture of the earth shot from the moon and underneath it a dedicated picture of NASA’s entire Voyager crew. Rohan said that Clarke was resting and that if we weren’t in a hurry they will wake him up and we could meet him. In the meantime, we surveyed the far walls of the upper office level that displayed an impressive array of certificates, letters and dedications. Clarke was important and almost ominous even without this overbearing wall of acknowledgements. If we needed another reassurance to the magnitude of our journey it was right there on that wall. Rohan let us read a printed bulletin that summed up Clarke’s views on religion. One axiom stood out in particular. It read, “The best definition of faith: believing what you know isn’t true.” Well, everything we knew wasn’t true. With that thought we were informed that Clarke was up and ready to see us in his study. As simple as that, two guys from the Fertile Crescent were about to meet the man who sent mankind to the moon…