On the trail of Ananda Coomaraswami

‘Creative writing must be included in the syllabus’ - Sampath Bandara

 

 

For veteran journalist Sampath Bandara, Ananda Coomarswamy is a marvelous character. Bandara said that the characteristics he learnt while reading about this personality inspired him to write a book. “Everything about him surprises me,” said Bandara. Bandara has done research on this legendary personality for the past five years and he will be launching his book about Dr. Coomaraswamy’s life and work, on July 3.

“There weren’t much information about his personal life. Many have requested permission from him to write his biography, but he has declined for unknown reasons,” said Bandara. According to Bandara, no other artiste compares to Ananda Coomarswamy in any generation after him. “Prof Senarath Paranawithana is comparable. This will be challenged, but what I say comes from what I learnt from my research,” he said.

Bandara is from Udunuwara, Embakke in Kandy District and received his school education from Kingswood College, Kandy. Sampath is the only son of K.R Attanayake and Daya Attanayake. Currently, he is employed at the Associated Newspaper of Ceylon Limited. His journalism career spans over two decades. He is also a talented lyricist and a creative writer. “It was a twist of fate that I joined journalism. I didn’t have plans to become one. But I wrote poems and songs and sent them to newspapers. Eventually they were published and I become more enthusiastic,” he said. He mentioned how late veteran Dharmasiri Gamage, whom he refers to as his guru in the field, kindly helped him to establish himself in the field as a young journalist. Later Bandara joined a cinema newspaper edited by Ernest Waduge. In 1993, he got the opportunity to join the Dinamina editorial at Lake House.

His keen interest in cricket during his school years at Kingswood College came in handy during his carrier in journalism. His capabilities in sports reporting directed him onto sports journalism. Because of his interest in cricket, he received the opportunity to cover a large number of Test and One Day International (ODI) matches in England, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sharjah and Sri Lanka. He has also covered a many major sporting events all over the world. “I got to report sports because they knew I was keen on the subject,” he explained how he became a sports journalist. “I got to travel to different countries; I obtained a lot of experiences. Yet, my interest in arts remained unchanged,” he added.

He has written a number of biographies including Ananda Coomaraswamy - The life and works of a universal man, Murali - The greatest among the greatest (Muttiah Muralitharan’s biography), She is Sonia (Sonia Gandhi’s biography) and several books on sports literature including the biography of Usain Bolt. Sampath Bandara’s latest book, Ananda Coomaraswamy - The life and works of a universal man will be launch on July 3 at 3.30 pm at the National Library and Documentation Services Board Auditorium.

Speaking of his latest biography, he emphasized that Ananda Coomaraswamy is a great legend that Sri Lanka didn’t know the value of, that no one has stepped up to do a proper research about him and his work. “When I was in England, I started collecting information about different personalities including Ananda Coomaraswamy. I became a member of the British library, London and got access to a huge collection of books and pictures of him,” he said.

Ananda Coomarswamy is known as a universal artiste. He gave Sri Lankan art and culture a new name. Yet, unfortunately, Ananda Coomarswamy who was admired across the globe as a pioneering historian and philosopher of art was only known to Sri Lankans because of Ananda Coomarswamy Mawatha in Colombo 7. Today this road’s name was changed to Nelum Pokuna Mawatha scrapping the only symbol that reminded us of Dr. Coomaraswamy.

“He is known as the best Asian critic of the 20th Centaury. DB Danapala once said that, ‘Ananda Coomaraswamy was known from Chile to China, but unknown to Sri Lanka.’ I am not sure why this happened, it wasn’t clear to me too although I did years of research,” Bandara said.

Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy born in Sri Lanka 135 years ago and grew up in England was the one who taught the West, the way to approach and understand the arts of Asia. His whole life was dedicated to the study and exposition of culture and arts. Graduated in geology from the University of London, He served in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) as an active geologist and mineralogist and achieved recognition as a renowned scientist by a series of very impressive discoveries. Later he became the Curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and died in 1947 aged 70.

Sampath Bandara said that it took him more than five years for him to gather information about this great legend. “I read books written about him as well as books written by him. His early work was easy to read and understand. But his books on metaphysics were too hard,” he noted. “I think he is an extraordinary character. He has written over 50 books within the 43 year period he was an author. There are more than 500 articles he wrote on various topics,” Bandara added. As Bandara mentioned, Ananda Coomarswamy knew over 35 languages and was fluent in 13 of them.

He took Coomaraswamy’s literary work to explain how a publisher or a writer should be creative in creating a book. “If you take a book of Coomaraswamy written more than hundred years ago, it would still match the quality of a coffee table book you find today.  He has paid much interest on the outlook of the book as much as he was keen on the content. His aim was to produce a complete artistry. Best example for this is his book Rajput Paintings,” he explained. He said that it is a shame that we can’t find the book Rajput Paintings in any of the libraries in Sri Lanka.

Bandara has written several books on sports literature, including the biographies of Murali, Arjuna Ranatunge, Usain Bolt and the cricket history and the story of T20 cricket.  Being a sports journalist for over two decades, Sampath Bandara said that the Sri Lankan society doesn’t have a habit of reading on sports and prefers watching sports on television. He also mentioned how people were interested in reading the sports page of a newspaper and how it is threatened now by the websites and sports SMS alerts. He said that although Sri Lanka was awarded Test Match status over 35 years ago, we still have not received this status when it comes to cricket literature. 

“We only watch the game, we don’t go beyond this. We watch the game only for the sake of its entertainment,” he pointed out.  He also said that he didn’t get any responses to the books he wrote on sports literature. “I didn’t receive any feedback. But I wasn’t much discouraged,” he continued. “It was my hobby and I had wanted to become a pioneer of sports literature in Sri Lanka,” he said.  “But when there is no positive feedback, the book publishers get discouraged. They don’t do it for fun. That is there way of earning money,” he explained why the book publishers don’t show much interest in publishing books on sports literature. 

He also said that the reading habit of the Sri Lankan is gradually declining where it has limited only to the International Book Fair held in September. “I am worried whether this habit of reading books will not be there anymore in another generation or two,” he lamented.

When he was asked why reading sports is important, Bandara said that it is important for a person to have a better understanding on what he or she looks at and it will also be reference to the future generation who seeks information.   “Few decades ago, cricket was confided only to the scoreboard, even in England. But a writer named, Neville Cardus changed the whole system. He became a guru and inspirational figure to aspiring young writers to write about sports. He was a reviewer of music. But he was able to convert the scoreboard into a story,” he explained.  “There is a trend in the world today for sports literature. Our country is still not aware of it,” he emphasized. Although we are not aware, Bandara said that countries like Australia, England and even India has a keen interest on sports literature. Bandara has struggled to promote this for more than 20 years, but has failed.

He further said that it will be more difficult to promote cricket literature now that the T20 matches are becoming more and more popular. “T20 is like gambling. It has destroyed the aesthetic value of the game. It’s all about big shots and big money. No one can write literature about T20, unlike the five day test matches,” he opined. “Sri Lankan can only speak about cricket. If one writes about sports, it will also be about cricket,” he added. Sampath Bandara wrote about the history of Sri Lanka Athletics in 2008. “We have a rich history in athletics. We had great world class athletes. It’s a shame that we can’t produce such personalities anymore,” he reiterated. “Even if we are to write about athletics in Sri Lanka, writers can only manage to come up with a few historical incidents. There is no today and no tomorrow to write about. We can only boast of cricket and it will also be destroyed by T20 culture,” he exclaimed.

He also spoke about the new generation of journalists. According to him, young journalists lack interest in seeking knowledge. “They have the habit of depending on the data they can get from the internet,” he said. “Unlike when we were young, young journalists today don’t appreciate the company of veterans in the field. They seek shortcuts,” he said. “When we entered the field, we could talk to the giants in the field and ask them for advice. Now I see that, some don’t even care if those seniors come and talk to them. There are no shortcuts in this field. They won’t be able to succeed if they don’t go step by step,” he added.

As he pointed out, a journalist cannot rely on what he or she reads on the internet. They tend to believe that all information can be found on the net, therefore don’t want to waste time looking up books. “There isn’t much information about Sri Lanka on the net. Even the little information available, you cannot rely on,” he emphasized. 

Sampath Bandara also pointed out the importance of introducing creative writing to the school or university curriculum. He said that it is a significant limitation for a person who wants to study about writing or journalism. “None of the literature syllabuses in our country has creative writing as a subject. Moreover, we don’t have a proper journalism degree for the students to follow. This is why today’s books and newspapers lack creativity,” he pointed out.

 

‘None of the literature syllabuses in our country has creative writing as a subject. It is a significant limitation for a person who wants to study about writing or journalism. Moreover, we don’t have a proper journalism degree for students to follow. This is why books and newspapers lack creativity’