Hemantha Gunawardena’s signature ~ Malinda Words

Almost twelve years ago, I wrote, ‘Stamps do not carry the name and signature of artists.' It was a piece about three exceptional teachers, including one artist, Pulasthi Ediriweera, who had by then designed more than 150 stamps.

A kind reader, responding to the above contention, wrote, ‘True, but [they carry] the name of our country and “art and creativity” or the talents of our people that definitely [touch] the hearts of many around the globe and the hearts of beautiful kids who like to collect stamps as a hobby. These artists, to me, like to stamp their signature in the hearts of people.’

A few days ago Pulasthi posted a portrait of a fellow artist, a colleague and friend, Hemantha Gunawardena. It had been done on request when Hemantha retired as an art director of Phoenix O&M after serving the advertising agency for several decades. No charge. Typical of Pulasthi who has taught hundreds of aspiring artists for years without charging a cent.

This is about Hemantha, though. He didn’t teach. He didn’t design stamps. His work is not collected by kids all over the globe. He was, however, an accomplished creative artist, self-effacing like his friend Pulasthi, and yet someone who stamped his signature on people around him, especially his friends and colleagues at Phoenix.

Hemantha entered the advertising industry long before there was enabling software that made things easy for illustrators and art directors. What’s done now with a few deft movements with a fingertip and some clicks had to be hand-done, so to speak. Tedious. Slow. In comparison. He was not left behind because he didn’t want to be left behind. He kept abreast of technological enhancement, he stood his ground. So very softly. Those who worked with him would, I am sure, recount dozens of interventions that made a big difference to creative projects.

He was always a part of any collective celebration or animated discussion be it on work, art or politics. He would put in a word now and then, or raise a quiet question, but was never confrontational. He withstood storms beyond his strength in whatever form they came. He smiled. Made the worst of moments bearable.

In all the years I’ve been at Phoenix, working as a part-time copywriter (or, as lyricist and senior copywriter Vajira Mahakanumulla once said, as a ‘trainee translator’), there have been two people who loved Sinhala songs. One was Harith Gunawardena and the other was Hemantha. They had thousands of songs, they knew about the songs, the singers, the lyricists and the relevant nidhana katha. Dileepa Abeysekera, another exceptional creative mind, probably knows as much or more but he had left Phoenix by the time I got there.

Hemantha’s workstation was close to my nondescript desk. And that’s how I got to know he loved music. I still remember the song he played one morning, long before our colleagues trickled in; he had music-hours, mostly before work began formally or after work when only those who had urgent work to complete were around. Swarna Sri Bandara’s lyrics, Amaradeva’s voice: Daethe ellee (literally, clinging on to [my] hands).

It was a song about a father thinking about his daughter and how she, who as a child had delighted him with the sweetest observations, had been taken far away from him by the chariot wheels of time. I think this was before Hemantha became a father. I already had two daughters and they were too small at the time for me to be nostalgic about young fatherhood and little girls. I could extrapolate though. The song has stayed with me and made me treasure that much more every moment of my daughters' growing up years. I asked him to play it again. He did. And then he downloaded his entire collection of Amaradeva’s songs for me.

Hemantha would become father to three girls and it is fortuitous, all things considered that he didn’t live long enough for time to take those lovely girls far away from him. But he’s gone now. Far away. Signatures left behind will remain for a long time, though; he stamped his on our hearts so gently that it took this departure to notice it at all.

Hemanthaya. That’s a season. Harith didn’t miss the significance of the name. Yali noena hemanthaya, was the title of a short tribute he penned for our friend, a season that will not come around again. Not for those he touched with smile and song. A song, a smile and a season. That’s Hemantha Gunawardena.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

03 April 2023

Hemantha Gunawardena’s signature

0 comments: