I had been promised an interview with President Chandrika Kumaratunga, but after more than six weeks of phone calls and visits, it was proving more difficult than I had imagined.

Two years ago, the president lost an eye (and nearly her life) in a suicide attack by the Tigers. Sri Lanka's violent past has taken a huge toll on her family. Her husband, a rising political star, and her father, a legendary prime minister, were both assassinated by political rivals.

With an election coming up in December, politics right now is downright nasty in Colombo. Election-related violence occurs daily. Killings are so frequent they don't even make the front page. The government stands a good chance of falling, and they are battling for their careers.

When I originally envisioned coming to Sri Lanka, I had a fantasy of making a 1960s- style cinema verité documentary about a president in crisis. Something like D.A. Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock's Crisis, their behind-the-scenes look at the Kennedy White House, but with a Sri Lankan twist.

But the pleas of an American video journalist were not being received as I'd hoped. The president seemed to be surrounded by brusque parochial people who were especially fond of hanging up on me in mid sentence.

With my visa close to expiration, I was about to give up hope. Then, out of the blue, came a phone call from the president's aide:

"The president would like to meet you at once."

I threw on my wing tips, the only clean shirt I had left, and a jacket to absorb the sweat, and dashed over to Sri Lanka's version of the White House.

When I finally met with the president, I told her about the story and explained that I needed a 25-minute one-on-one interview so that she could speak directly to the American people. (I may have seen one too many episodes of West Wing.)

"I will do that," she said. "Come tomorrow at noon."

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