Father Harry Miller left Louisiana in 1948 as a young Jesuit assigned to the mission in Batticaloa. Travelling by train from New Orleans and by ship from New York to Colombo, he arrived with his close friend, Father Eugene Hebert, as part of a cohort of American Jesuits sent to eastern Sri Lanka following earlier French, Belgian and Italian missions. Jesuits, he would say, did not come for a short term.

With Sri Lankan, Portuguese and French roots, Sister Irene Bartelöt has long been part of the layered social fabric of Batticaloa. She recalls a time when people did not ask about ethnicity or nationality, when, as she puts it, people “just mixed up.” That memory remains central to how she understands the town and its history. Her decision to enter religious life followed what she describes as a quiet, persistent calling.

Mrs Kandiah had never been to England, but through the words of her favourite nature poets she could wander through the meadows and hills of the English countryside without ever leaving her home in Batticaloa.

Former parliamentarian and retired principal of Methodist Central College, Prince Casinader is also a long-time correspondent from Batticaloa. He speaks about the singing fish of Batticaloa lagoon, a mysterious natural phenomenon said to be heard most clearly on still full-moon nights, when a listener places an oar in the water and presses the other end to the ear.

Mustaffa Mohamed Atham Bawa has worked in his family business since leaving school at the age of ten. From his small shop in the heart of Batticaloa, he reflects on changes to working life, the violence the town endured during the war years, and how Muslim and Tamil communities have slowly rebuilt trust.

Seventy-five-year-old Batticaloan annaviyar Arasaratnam is a koothu master. Originally from Karavetti, he knows more than twenty koothus. He reflects on the history and forms of this ancient Tamil theatre, and his struggle to keep the tradition alive today.

“But Dutch Bar is the best,” Margaret Ootschorn repeats. At ninety-two, she is among the oldest members of the Portuguese Burgher community in Batticaloa. Displaced after the 2004 tsunami, she now lives in Thiraimadu, a resettlement village built for her community. Though she has moved many times in her life, it is Dutch Bar she still calls home.

Seventy-one-year-old Seenithamby still throws his net on the Batticaloa lagoon. He reflects on the traditions of lagoon fishing, the father who taught him the craft, and the time he believes he encountered the kadal kanni, part of local fishermen’s folklore.

Byron Unmani was an elder of the Veddahs, Sri Lanka’s indigenous people, known as the Wanniyala-a-Aetto or “forest dwellers”. Displaced several times over the years, his community eventually settled along the coast and adapted to a new way of life as fishermen, living off the sea where they once lived off the forest. Today they are known locally as the “Sea Veddahs” of Vaharai.