On full moon nights, if you enter the Kallady lagoon in Mattakalappu, Ilankai (Batticaloa, Sri Lanka) and dip a paddle or oar into the water and hold its dry end to your ear, you will hear mysterious sounds from deep underwater.
These sounds are real, and have been recorded and documented, and are widely believed to come from “singing fish” or mollusks. But everywhere in Mattakalappu, on all kinds of public facades – from the arch in Uranee, at the entrance of the town, to pillars and clock towers and even a tsunami memorial plaque – there are mermaids.
The symbol of the meen magal, as the mermaid is known in Tamil, is a part of the the town’s identity. Even more mysterious perhaps than the phenomenon of the singing fish is that this mythic figure exists here, but without stories.
I have heard these sounds emerge from under the water, leaning over a boat to listen to the lagoon’s secrets. I have looked for the mermaids, or at least their meanings, myself. My…