Travel: Finding traces of a globalised past in a Colombo cemetery

livemint.com:

The Economic Consequences of Peace (1919), Woolf’s close friend, the economist John Maynard Keynes, had issued a kind of nostalgic benediction on the globalisation the world—or rather his world—had enjoyed until the outbreak of World War I in 1914: “The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world." By the standards of Amazon today, this seems an overstatement, but Keynes was making a fair point when he says that the Industrial Revolution and this opening up of the world also made advancement possible into the middle and upper classes “for any man of capacity or character at all exceeding the average, for whom life (then) offered conveniences, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages." It is hard to guess how K.K. Jacob’s career would have played out if he had stayed in his native Travancore, but his career as an expatriate Indian in government administration and hospitals in Sri Lanka could not occur today.

After World War II, and especially in the last few decades, visas and work permits have tightened up. My great-grandfather’s obituary mentions that the authorities wanted him to delay his retirement till he was 60.

He died a month or so short of turning 54. “It was always felt that it would be difficult to replace him as the head of the IDH," the writer of the obituary observed.