The Easter Sunday terrorist attacks all but destroyed the island’s tourism industry. In the southern city of Galle, locals now seek their own Trump or Modi

Asiri Kumara stands on Koggala Beach with a fishing rod in his hand forlornly staring at the Indian Ocean waves. Despite his best efforts, there has been little to catch, and that’s not because of the monsoon rains that have been lashing southern parts of Sri Lanka for the past month.

What Kumara is hoping to catch does not come out of the turbid water, though; instead it arrives from distant parts of the world in cars and coaches. The 40-year-old former farmer makes a living giving tourists a glimpse of the Sri Lanka they want to see. For £10 a time, he and four friends jump on to vertical wooden poles erected at the water’s edge and pretend to be stilt fishermen, acting out an ancient tradition for visitors to capture on cameras and phones.

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