India and Sri Lanka have long been bound by conquest, migration, religion, and empire — yet contemporary Sri Lankan voices remain largely absent in the Indian imagination. Premiering on National Geographic, Jayaflava: Celebrating Sri Lanka seeks to change that. Hosted by food writer Tasha Marikkar, the six-part series begins with iconic dishes — kottu, crab curry, hoppers, lamprais — and expands into layered conversations about history, labour, trade, and identity.
According to the Mahavamsa, a circa 5th century CE Pali chronicle of Sri Lanka, the island’s recorded history began in 543 BCE with the arrival of Vijaya Sinha, a legendary prince of Vanga in present-day Bengal. Vijaya conquered the island with his 700 followers and established the Sinhala Kingdom. Two hundred years later, during the Anuradhapura period, Buddhism arrived with Mahinda, the son of the Indian emperor Ashoka. In 993 CE, the Chola emperor Rajaraja I sent a large army to conquer the island, and by 1017 CE, most of Sri Lanka had become a province of the vast Chola Empire under his son and successor, Rajendra Chola I. During the British colonial period, many Indian Tamil workers were taken to Sri Lanka to work on coffee, tea, and rubber plantations in the central highlands.
India and Sri Lanka have a long and shared history of conquest, cultural exchange, and colonialism. And yet, authentic Sri Lankan voices in the Indian imagination are sadly absent today. Sri Lanka is frequently flattened within Indian public imagination — either romanticised as a tropical escape or remembered through the lens of the brutal civil war at the turn of the century and the popular uprising in 2022.
‘Jayaflava: Celebrating Sri Lanka’, a six-part series from Sri Lankan food writer Tasha Marikkar — based on her cookbook of the same name — resists that flattening. Using food as a unifying force that connects cultures and communities across geographies, the series captures a sharp, cinematic, and intimate portrait of Sri Lanka — told through the dishes that define its communities, the landscapes that shape them, and the individuals who sustain its living traditions. Jayaflava presents Sri Lanka as more than a peripheral echo of India — a sovereign cultural universe that shares histories while retaining distinct textures.
Hosted by Tasha Marikkar and directed by her long-time collaborator Afdhel Aziz, the show moves beyond food television’s familiar grammar of spectacle and indulgence. They present the island as a complex, contemporary society — plural, modern, and unapologetically textured — beyond its exotic postcard beauty. Each episode begins with a single, iconic Sri Lankan dish but quickly expands into questions of history, migration, labour, memory, and belonging.
Kottu becomes an entry point into the restless spirit of Colombo. Crab curry leads viewers through Jaffna’s coastal histories. Hoppers trace the South Coast’s layered cultural inheritances. Coconut frames the agricultural and trade narratives of Puttalam. Lamprais — a legend of Dutch Burgher kitchens — opens onto Galle’s colonial afterlives. As Marikkar makes her way through Sri Lanka’s breathtaking landscapes and storied kitchens, viewers meet chefs, writers, and creatives shaping Sri Lankan culture today, both at home and across the diaspora. In foregrounding these voices, 'Jayaflava: Celebrating Sri Lanka’ suggests that cuisine is not merely heritage — it is an evolving conversation about identity, migration, and belonging.
‘Jayaflava: Celebrating Sri Lanka’ premieres on National Geographic on Friday, 20 February 2026, at 8.00 PM, with repeat broadcasts every Sunday at 1.00 PM. Follow @jayaflava to learn more.
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