2 Degrees of Separation I In Sri Lanka with The Lady of Shalott

You'd be forgiven for thinking that there's much, if anything, that links Sri Lanka to Guildford, that modest county town in Surrey, England, except possibly Guildford Crescent in downtown Colombo 7, which is a tangle of small, upscale streets that radiate off a much grander road named for Kemandasa Master, the Sri Lankan musician who managed the near impossible feat of fusing singular folk tunes to classical Hindu and Western music.

But dig a little deeper and Guildford begins to reveal its more hidden treasures.

For it is Guildford's most famous inhabitant who sometimes comes to mind as I wander around Sri Lanka and makes me realise over and again that this country is almost always no more than two degrees of separation from anyone else in the world.

for Guildford was said to be the home of Elaine of Astellat, who much later was painted by the greatest artists of the 19th century, John Waterhouse and William Holman Hunt.

Elaine first appeared in a 13th century French prose romance, Morte d'Arthur, which retold some of the celebrated tales of King Arthur, that king of the round table and his bevy of brave knights.

Elaine was no plain maiden.

She was, in fact, the legendary Lady of Charlotte.

She pops up repeatedly in early medieval retellings of King Arthur as the beauty who died of unrequited love, quite possibly one of the earliest recorded cases of takosubu cardio symphony.

better known as broken heart syndrome.

This is a sudden condition apparently brought on by extreme emotional shock and a surge in stress hormones that can stun the heart muscles and trigger a heart attack.

The condition is said to be fatal in less than 1% of cases, but it proved fatal for the Lady of Shalott, who on glimpsing her dream, Sir Lancelot, set off a chain of terrible events that would lead inevitably and inexorably to her death.

Lancelot is perhaps one of the most overrated and irritating male heroines to have ever existed in any time zone on this or any other planet.

But exist he did, and perhaps we should bear him some meagre gratitude, for it was after all his sex appeal that produced quite so much drama.

And the drama did result in the greatest of all the retellings of the stories of King Arthur, Lord Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott.

And this is where the two degrees of separation come quite unexpectedly into place.