Her name is ‘Lanka’

More than twenty years ago, the late Pundit W D Amaradeva, with great kindness and much indulgence, taught me what to students of music would be a very basic lesson in singing. ‘It’s not in the throat, Malinda; it’s in the mind and heart.’

Then he lamented that most singers, including those who were popular and even highly acclaimed, had not grasped this fundamental principle. I didn’t know anything about music. I didn’t sing. I was simply curious about how ‘good’ was measured. That’s after he said all this. 

‘So who sings with the mind and heart?’

‘After all is said and done, Nanda,’ he said or at least that’s the English translation of his answer. 

More than twenty years later, Nishad Handunpathirana,my friend, batch mate from Peradeniya, neighbour and virtuoso in the dilruba, introduced me to the Hindi musical term ‘pukar,’ which refers to the way in which a vocalist projects the voice with intense feeling. Heart. 

Today, for obvious reasons, Nanda Malini's songs come back to me. And I, a little less unenlightened than I was more than twenty years ago, am compelled to agree with Pundit Amaradeva.  

Today I remember two conversations I had with this incredibly accomplished singer. The first was during an interview for the Sunday Island. I believe it was in 2002. I had things to say about the album ‘Pavana (The wind)’ that was released sometime during a series of concerts under the same title in those exhilarating times that would eventually bleed, literally, into the ‘bheeshanaya (Terror or Time of Terror)’ in the late eighties. 

‘We were young and those songs resonated with the energy, hope and even convictions we entertained, but a friend told me that great songs outlive political moments; those of “Pavana” do not, unlike the songs in “Shravanaaraadhana (Invitation to listen)” and “Sathyaye Geethaya (The Song of Truth"). The songs of “Araliya Landata (To the Araliya Grove)” which was released after “Pavana” will be remembered, I think.’

She smiled. A few years later, when I ran into her at Sudarshi on Bauddhaloka Mawatha, she remembered and told someone that I am a harsh critic. She was laughing. This, by the way, was after I had written '[A] mild critique of Nanda Malini and Sunil Ariyaratne.'

That is all by way of encounter. Now all I have are her songs. The political choices. The lyrics and the voice.

Some may say that Nanda Malini ‘evolved’ from what they might believe was a Sinhala Buddhist chauvinistic phase. Others may think ‘evolved’ is debatable and that anyway the (virtual) rubbishing of her own songs without explanation was odd. She didn’t write the lyrics. The more overtly political songs were written by Sunil Ariyaratne, so fingers that may be pointed would first be directed at him. She did sing them, so fingers would point her way as well. 

Nanda Malini alone would have known if Sunil Ariyaratne was her political conscience. It was her choice, perhaps, or his or of both to drop ‘Me sinhala apaage ratai (‘This is the land of us Sinhala people’ or, ‘This “Sinhala” is our nation,’) even disavowing it in not so uncertain terms. Perhaps it was a decision made in the best interest of the nation and all citizens. But then again, ‘Pavana’ was littered with chauvinistic interjections, for example, ‘Bamunaa vunath…(even if a Brahmin)’: no less, no more, than songs which contained ‘Sinhala,’ or ‘Hela.’   

In contrast, consider children's songs such ‘Rukkaththana mala mudune (atop the rukkaththana flower)’ and ‘Surangeeta duka hithuna (Surangee felt sad).’ Consider love songs such as ‘Kanda udin ([from] above the mountain)’ and 'Kalaa vaven gath diya dothak se (Like a handful of water from the Kala Wewa).' Devotional songs such as 'Budddhanubhavena.' Consider even political compositions of the more general kind such as ‘Sakura mal pipilaa (Sakura flowers have bloomed).’ All this, before Ariyaratne took on political projects and found in Nanda’s voice a powerful communicative vehicle. Exquisite. 

What troubled me most with regard to the politics, though, was the grave injustice done to Mahinda Algama who wrote the lyrics of what became of her most popular early songs, ‘Chandra madulu yata suranganaavan (fairies under the penumbra).' The last stanza was edited out. It wasn't about ideological prerogatives (understandable), but the way the lyricist was treated (dodgy): he was not informed; instead an excuse about length was offered. 

All of it is questionable and understandable.  Forgivable or unforgivable depending on how mild or harsh one wants to be respectively.  And all that was a long time ago. Critique stands but it’s lost in the enormity of all that she was and all that she’s given, as should be and as acknowledged even back then. 

Today as I ‘listen’ to her songs and walk through the political milieu that she lent her voice to, I recall a comment that Gabriel Garcia Marquez made about Pablo Neruda: ‘He was a King Midas of literature — everything he touched turned into poetry; even when he got into trouble with his politics, the poetry was very, very good.’ Something to that effect; he was of course referring to Neruda’s defence of Stalin’s Russia. She was very, very good. 

That voice!  

I remember it when she spoke about her journey, such a long time ago. She has since detailed her story and spoken candidly and without regret or disdain. In her public persona Nanda Malini was soft. Humble. In her political persona, problematic perhaps. She has had the humility, however, to admit error of judgment. She has returned again and again to lyrics that last. Ephemeral or enduring, political or apolitical, regardless of whether she sang of or for children, love, justice or hope, she sang with feeling. All heart. Always. 

Looking back, I realise she was kind and indulgent. Like a mother. And I remember ‘Mege nama lankaa ya (Her name is Lanka),’ ‘Sanda eliya gangak vee (Moonlight, having become a river)’ and ‘Avurudu dedahas panseeyak (Twenty five hundred years),’ all penned by Ariyaratne by the way, and the last two for ‘Pavana.’ They were first performed decades ago. The words are still relevant and that’s Sunil Ariyaratne at his best. 

Nanda Malini, by admission, had less control with high notes, but there was and is so much voice in the vast regions she could hold, so firmly and yet with such grace. 

The introductory lines of ‘Me jeevana gangaadaaaraye (This river of life)’ the signature song in ‘Satyaye Geethaya’ were foundational for me, politically, and probably for many others: ‘asatyayen satyayata, swapnayen yatharthayata, andakaarayen alokayata (from falsehood to truth, from dream to reality, from darkness to light).’ It was a task she set for herself, a tough road she chose to walk along, with courage but with human frailty. In his own way, Ariyaratne made it easier for all of us but that ease is as much or more attributable to voice as words.  

Her name is Lanka in all our little island’s fortitude and failing, strength and frailty, heroism and cowardice, and all that is nevertheless resplendent, resilient and musical. The invitation to listen, stands. 
 
 

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Remembering ‘Tyre Sunil’: may his tribe increase

Sometime in the year 1991, Ananda Thilak Bandara Herath, a final year student at the University of Peradeniya (Arts Faculty) held a one-man concert called ‘Vihinsana’ which could be translated at ‘extreme violence’.  They were all new songs, written by friends as well as a couple of reputed lyricists.  The music, for the most part, was composed by his batchmate Nishad Handunpathirana, probably the most accomplished esraj player in the world today. 

Thilak, as he was known, was from Galgamuwa and teaches in a school close to home.  He sings, still and has recorded many originals. Someday he will be a better known name in the music scene. I remembered him and his concert because of one particular song, the title of which escapes me now.  It was about the loss of a son to that terrible period called bheeshanaya when thousands of unarmed people were arbitrarily abducted by vigilante groups unleashed by the then UNP government, tortured and summarily executed.  It was written by D.B. Sunil, then a second year student at Peradeniya, reading for a special degree in Political Science.  This is a story about Sunil and not the song he wrote or the concert in which that song was performed or the artist who won appreciative applause. 

D.B. Sunil is known to all his contemporaries as ‘Tyre Sunil’.  He was the thinnest boy on campus.  Probably the darkest too.  He was among the tallest in his batch.  He entered university in 1990.  This was immediately after the bheeshanaya.  It was a time when no one wanted to talk politics.  This was understandable.  It was as though the university was out of bound for politics.  Politics, however, does not take notice of such rulings.  It entered nevertheless.  Sunil, even as a fresher, argued that the political is not contained in the university and neither was the university insulated from it.  He wanted students to speak to issues that spilled over the university boundaries and indeed that activism should go beyond the Galaha Junction.  He was vilified by a student population that was averse to treading any path that may lead to the kind of chaos the eighties had seen.

‘Umbata tayar ekak udin yannada oney?’  he was asked (do you want to perish on a tyre?).  The reference was to the method of evacuation preferred by the vigilantes, tossing people on pyres made of old tyres and setting them aflame.  That’s how he became Tyre Sunil. 

Sunil was one of the brightest students at Peradeniya.  Life was never easy for Sunil, given the kind of background he came from.  He was tempered by the circumstances of his growing up and was mature beyond his years.  He had a girlfriend who ditched him around the time they graduated.  Supposedly due to a caste-mismatch.  He held no grudge.  He could not.  It was not in him. 

He sat the Foreign Service exam and passed.  He had answered all questions accurately at the interview. He didn’t make the cut for reasons best known to those on the interview board.  He worked for a couple of years as a data collector for the Agrarian Research and Training Institute, collecting price information from major markets.  He supplemented the meager income by giving tuition.

When he first started teaching, he had only 3 students.  The return on investment was minimal.  He told me then that he will continue to teach them because they had responded to the advertisement (a few handbills).  It was a responsibility.  He fell in love, married and had a son.  He purchased a small piece of land close to Peradeniya. 

‘I skipped lunch on certain days and had a plain tea instead.  When I wanted a cup of plain tea, I drank water.’

That’s how he saved the rupees and cents. 

I visited him in the year 2000 and spent a night at his place.  The house was not ‘half-built’.  It was less built than that.  Tyre Sunil treated me like a king.  I was given his ‘study room’ to sleep in.  ‘The Study’ had one bed and a table that held all the books he had, most of which were prizes he had won in school.  Among them was a familiar book, Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Gora’.  The English translation, that is.  It was familiar because, I found out soon enough, it belonged to me.  He had borrowed it way back in 1993 when he stayed at my place.  April 30^th, I remember, because we were planning to go out on May Day. 

I flipped through the pages.  It was full of notes.  Words were underlined and the meanings of the underlined words were written on the corners of the particular page, with pencil lines connecting word and translation.  Almost every page had such comments.  That is the kind of effort that Tyre Sunil expended to improve his knowledge of English.  It must have taken him a long time to read the book, even though he must have read the Sinhala translation before.  Tagore to Malalasekera and back to Tagore after every 5-10 words takes a long time, I realized. 

He had, by that time, got a Government job as a teacher.  His first appointment was in some small school in a remote corner of the Hasalaka electorate.  He told me that he was not looking to get a transfer.  He told me that a few weeks after joining the school, the principle had invited him to speak at the assembly.  There was a lot of pride when he said that he spoke about making the best of what one has instead of cursing those who had and lamenting over one’s lot. 

Sunil still teaches.  He has sold that property and purchased one closer to the Kandy-Colombo road.  A couple of years ago, when I visited, he was in the process of building a house there. It was more than half-built.  He has hundreds of students now.  He is as thin as he was as an undergraduate.   Works hard.  Goes out of his way to make sure his students do well and while learning about the subject learn something about the world around them as well. 

Sunil did not ‘go over a tyre’.  Many Sunils did, though.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the secret of the monumental human resource crisis our country suffers from,  as my friend Werawellalage Premasiri (Director-Development, Upcountry Development Authority), who hails from Kumarigama, Ampara points out frequently when our friends get together. 

[Courtesy, Daily News, October 1, 2011] 

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