I spent two weeks last January in Ambalangoda, watching Sunil Bandara incise Sinhala letters into strips of talipot palm. His workshop sits behind a cinnamon-peeling yard, half open to the monsoon air, where the smell of freshly scraped leaf mixes with the acrid sweetness of oil-lamp soot.
The Geometry of Grooves
Sinhala script demands rounded forms — no sharp terminals, no angular strokes. Each letter flows from a central duct, and the stylus must hold constant pressure against the fibrous leaf surface. A single error cannot be erased; the leaf absorbs the mark permanently. This irreversibility, Sunil told me, is what teaches patience.
“A printed book is a reproduction. A puskola manuscript is an event — it happened once, in this room, under this light.”
The binding itself is a kind of language. Three holes punched through the center of each strip, a cord of braided coconut fiber threaded through, wooden cover boards carved with protective motifs. Each manuscript is not merely text but an object that tells two stories.