Street smart

Kishani Samaraweera takes a stroll down Duplication Road and discovers many of its quirks and a little bit of its history:

Once upon a time it was Sri Lanka’s snob street. No buses, no traffic lights, no traffic jams. Home to high end shops, clubs, restaurants, massage parlours, casinos and exclusive hangout joints, it had flair, it had swagger, it had style, and most of all it had attitude. It had a prosaic name – R. A. De Mel Mawatha – but everyone knew it as Duplication Road.

It is still called R. A. De Mel Mawatha/Duplication Road, but evolving traffic plans aimed at easing congestion, has meant the road losing its snob status and opening up to plebeian transport and irritating traffic lights at every hundred yard interval. There are more vehicles and more people using this road now, making it one of the busiest roads in Colombo. The traffic lights also make it one of the more bizarrely decorated. So the question is, does it still have attitude?

Extending 4.3 Km from Liberty Plaza roundabout Colpetty, to Dharmarama Road, Wellawatte, it is still a shoppers’ paradise, pandering to the consumer in you. Detach yourself from the need to splurge, and walking this once Snob Street can be a fascinating experience, especially given the various types of shops that line the street.

The road gets insanely busy in the afternoon and in the evening. The ideal time for a walkabout would be the evening as the road gets completely transformed once it is dark, taking on a magical mien with colourful lights and happy people, laughing, jostling, shopping, looking for something different, something new…

Growing infamy

Night life is vibrant on this road, and the sidewalks teem with locals and visitors looking for fun, food and music. Some of the best casinos in the country are found on this road, and attract both foreigners and locals like.

Another noticeable attraction is the spas or massage parlours, or at least that’s what the name boards say. Interestingly most of them are run by Chinese or Thai nationals. The kind of services these places offer is left for conjecture, but word on the street is that what’s on offer is much, much more than an simple, innocuous massage.

The conjecture nicely segues into Duplication Road’s growing infamy as the best place to find sex workers. As the peak hour traffic slows down to a trickle, and night life unfolds, skimpily dressed women, Sri Lankan, Chinese, Thai, Korean, and even Russian, move on to the sidewalk striving to attract customers.

It is interesting that except for a few people, there are not many people walking along the Duplication Road during day time. But the story is different at night. One would never imagine that such a dull and boring street during the day would turn into a vibrant and lively strip at night.

Walking along the road, it is hard not to notice that there are only a very few residential houses left on the ever changing road, with many road front properties being sold to make way for multi-storeyed buildings or artfully converted to shops, boutiques and restaurants.

The character of Duplication Road has been evolving since early 1980s. Ratnam (62) who comes to the community centre to spend his leisure time has been a resident of Duplication Road for over 60 years. He says, initially the road was only from Liberty circus to the Fifth Lane, and was less than five feet in width.

“Earlier the road was quite narrow and there was space for only one vehicle. It all started to change from 1983-84. Today Duplication Road is a completely different road, which has mainly commercial buildings,” he says.

He’s not happy with the transformation of the road and keeps repeating, “There are too many buildings now and nothing more. This road used to be a ‘highly residential’ area.”

Kumar, a three wheeler driver on Duplication Road for the past 25 years mentions that the residents of the area consisted of rich people, mostly. But now their houses have been sold, leased or given on rent for business places due to the growing demand for spaces commercial purposes.

Commercial value

“When we were schooling, this used to be a gravel road. Only a part of it was carpeted. It was a very small road,” Kumar recalls.

He also says the land value is quite high on Duplication Road, with a perch being sold for as much as Rs 10-15 million, as it has very good commercial value. Most of the properties have been converted to boutiques, offices or banks.

Jayantha A. Guruge, Director Engineering (Works), Municipal Engineers Department, Colombo Municipal Council, says the commercialisation of the Duplication Road started during 1980s, prior to which it was a residential area. He says it is now a mix development.

“Duplication Road faced rapid development in the early ’90s and today it is one of the highly commercialised areas in Colombo. After the one way traffic scheme was introduced in 2012, it became one of the significant roads,” notes Guruge.

Explaining why Duplication Road was built, he says it was developed as an access road parallel to Galle Road, and notes that no commercial development was permitted by the then authority. However during 1980s the Urban Development Authority relaxed the policy.

The road, according to Guruge had been developed with Rs 1200 million in World Bank funding.