Mr_Shank

Okay, so this book starts off with Anil arriving at Katunayake Airport and then she was driven into Colombo. When she was younger, Anil was a fantastic swimmer and nobody in Colombo ever let her live that down. Now that she is 33,she doesn’t like people to recognize her as being a swimmer, she wants that to recognize her as Anil- a great anthropologist.

The second day she was in Colombo Anil went to a hospital to workwith forensic students at the hospital. Within a few minutes, Anil had figured out how one of the corpses died, but she left that to the students to figure out.

The next morning she went for a ride in a bajaj, a three wheeled taxi that was opened on both sides. It was raining that day so she felt the rain on her legs and it took her to a flashback of a dinner party that her family had years ago. It started to rain and it pretty much ruined the whole dinner that hosted outside. Next, she met Sarath Diyasena, whom she would be working with in the human rights investigation. He was so interested in her swimming, he didn’t ask her about anything else. Sarath and Anil are staying on a boat where they do a lot of their work. Anil finds out that people have found 3 bodies in government protected caves. Sarath and Anil are going to get a permit so they can go and search for more bodies in those cave and see if the government is the one putting those bodies in there.

On her first weekend, Anil went to her father’s friend’s house. Her name was Lalitha and she is one of few of her dad’s friends that is still alive. She had a short conversation with each other and Lalitha’s granddaughter and then she left. She went to the hospital again to use some equipment and people kept coming up to her asking her if she was the swimmer that got the scholarship. She met Dr. Perera and he asked her to give a 30 minutes speech on snakebites. She had no idea what to say, but she agreed to it anyway. She met another doctor in the hall that knew her father and then he asked her if she the swimmer and she walked away nodding.

The next day, Anil asked Sarath to go get dinner with her, but he declined. She began to ponder what his real job in this investigation really was. Was he a spy for the government? Was he just an archaeologist? Then the book goes into some weird italicized chapter about a man on a train that kills another man when they go through a tunnel. It said there were police officers all over the train, so the police officer that killed the other man was probably there because he government wanted that guy dead. The police officer shoved the dead man out the window after he strangled him with a chain.

Anil flew into Miami and met a man named Cullis. He was in the bathroom withher while she took her bath and she slept with him naked I think. She took her camera and recorded the hotel room and him while he slept. She recorded his “lovely ribs” and his writing.They had met before and went bowling, but being naked around him after meeting him once seems odd to me.

The next chapter goes through people that died and what they were doing the last time they were seen. Man of them were at friend’s houses, taking baths, or even praying. This just goes to show that Sri Lanka was and is a very dangerous place to live.

Sarath and Anil drive up to where the 3 skeletons had been found and they are searching for a 4th. When Sarath and Anil were talking on the ride up to the mountain, we find out how her parents died- in a car crash. It was after she left Sri Lanka and she never saw them again. That is why she didn’t return to Sri Lanka until now. They go for a swim and talk about a friend that taught Sarath a lot who was a monk. He got killed and when Anil asked who killed him, he said “Now we all have blood on our clothes.”

The next day, they go into the cave where the 3 bodies were found. Anil finds a their body that was previously buried. It was burned, but not totally. This body was not prehistoric like all of the others people had found. They named the body Sailor. Anil is sure this body was a victim of a political murder and it sort of seems like Sarath is trying to convince her it is not. She questions him about his relative that works for the government. She does not trust Sarath.

The next day Anil just looks over Sailor and tried to find out how he died and what tests they can do to find out where he was previously buried. Sarath goes out and Anil goes to the rest house owner. She asks him about his wife and says that she’s very nice. Sarath told Anil that his wife died, but the owner of the rest house says that she is still living. Anil gets sick and by noon the next day, she had a terrible headache.

Anil becomes delirious because she is sick and almost cries during dinner. She saw monkeys in the hallways and she believed what she saw. One minute she was freezing and the next she was sweating. Anil tries reading but the lights were too dim. She calls Sarath to bring up brighter bulb and he quickly returns downstairs int he hotel to where he was before. Leaf calls and Anil can barely speak to her be she is so delusional. The next day Anil asks Sarath if she can trust him and he tells her she has to. Anil finds out how Sailor died and he was shot in the neck by a .22.

Next, we find out that Anil’s name is not really Anil. She took that name from her brother and she hated her real name. It took 100 rupees, a pen set, and tin of 50 Gold Leaf cigarettes, and a sexual favor for her get the name “Anil” from her brother.

She met a man named Chitra and he took her out to eat. She found out that he can help her out in finding out where Sailor was first buried. The book then goes to Sarath inspecting all four of the skeletons on the ship. He coats them and takes pictures of them. He takes part of Sailor’s skull and he takes pictures of him without his head. He realizes that he and Anil need help with this mystery.

I chose all 5 of these words because I had no idea what any of them meant.

Anthropology- The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans.

Guerilla- A member of a band of irregular soldiers that uses guerrilla warfare, harassing the enemy by surprise raids, sabotaging communication and supply lines, etc.

Cuneiform- Anatomy. noting or pertaining to any of various wedge-shaped bones, as of the tarsus.

Vainglory- Excessive elation or pride over one’s own achievements, abilities, etc.; boastful vanity.

Languid- Lacking in spirit or interest; listless; indifferent.

Frentic- Frantic; frenzied.

Mallory Stickler =)