I’ll never forget the time I got to spend with Sri Lankan polymath, writer and curator of The Ceylon Literary Festival, Ashok Ferrey, during one of the first recording sessions of my podcast, A Life Less Ordinary, back in 2017. My co-host, Tanya and I, got more than carried away by Ashok’s fascinating life and magnetic personality, capturing around three hours of audio that I edited down to its final two hour format.
The insight that stuck with me from Ashok’s many adventures around the world, through the many lives he has led – builder, mathematician, writer, personal trainer, bon vivant – is to boil things down to their simplest, truest expressions. The ‘modeya’ principle (‘fool’ in Sinhalese) as Ashok playfully refers to in our interview. This is most evident in his satirical and hilarious stories which I would highly recommend picking up at any decent bookseller the next time you find yourself in Sri Lanka. ‘The Good Little Ceylonese Girl’ is a great place to start discovering his work.
I chose this as my second “archives” feature to lighten up your weekend while reminding listeners (myself included) not to take life too seriously!
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