Founder Story

‘You can see them better from up there, by the mana shrub,’ someone whispered. So we clambered further up the dense tropical bank, boys, both Tamils and Sinhalese amongst us. With sudden fear and fascination, we saw the mob, around 30 men, moving in the distance. Soon a neighbour’s house went up in flames. The house was out of sight, but we could hear the roof tiles exploding like fireworks in the sweltering afternoon. It was July 1983. We were safe, but three days of mob violence would destroy hundreds of homes and businesses in Sri Lanka.

We grew up in Sri Lanka in the 1980s, as the conflict escalated into a bloody civil war. We’re minority Tamils who are culturally different from the majority Sinhalese. Upon gaining independence from Britain in 1948, each community drew close to its own culture and institutions; the boffins like to call this ethnocentrism, and it is at the root of many conflicts.

We were sent to a British-style school in idyllic Kandy, up in the central hills. We did rather well at English literature and rugby, and pretty miserably at everything else. The school library was still stocked with the books the British had left behind, as if frozen in time. So, instead of contemporary teen literature, we read Dickens and PG Wodehouse for fun, and Shakespeare and Donne for studies. When we did eventually arrive in England, we were rather disappointed. The metropole had moved on: not a single horse-drawn hackney carriage could we spy.

But London was a cultural Aladdin’s Cave. From Radio 4, to the National Gallery, to the Southbank Show, there were so many opportunities to develop the fledgling interests we had picked up. We settled in, but we also carried with us the legacy of the conflict back home.

Over the last decade, with the burgeoning technological landscape, we started to think about forming a company that uniquely represented our collective experiences. When we took soundings, we were delighted: people loved the idea of using their smartphones to become more culturally engaged.

Founding The Cultural Me feels comforting, like settling down with a book and a nice cup of Ceylon tea. The two main passions, the arts and culture on the one hand and the desire for peace on the other, have come together serendipitously. We are terribly proud of the brilliant community of writers who have been drawn to our mission, helping to form the nucleus of the community.

Through the service we provide, our mission is to help build a liberal future, a future where there is better engagement with the arts, a future where cultural ignorance is no longer at the root of conflict. Our long-term vision for the company is to be a force for change towards World Peace.

The Cultural Me launches tomorrow on World Peace Day.