Saman Athaudahetti: On choices made and paths un-taken

We usually recognize people by their outer appearances and not by their voices. It is indeed very rare for an entire country to recognize and remember a person’s voice.  A veteran journalist, writer, lyricist as well as a well-known speaker Saman Athaudahetti is gifted with such a voice.  His voice is still remembered and recognized as Gulliver of Gulliverge Suvisariya or as Oshin’s husand Ryuzo even decades after these were first telecasted. This week, in The Notebook of an achiever we feature this great voice-personality, his experiences and the challenges of playing many roles in various fields.

 

Although he is a well-known personality he said that he wasn’t as forward when he was a kid. “I was a very shy kid on stage, very reluctant to get in and perform. My parents often recounted how they bribed me with 10 rupees to sing on stage” he recalled.  “They used to tease me that I was trying to be a professional even then,” Athawudahetti laughed.

His parents had wanted peace and quiet when they got married and decided to live in Ehatuwewa, a small and beautiful village about 10 km from Galgamuwa. Saman was born there.  When he was three years old his father moved to Siyambalagamuwa Maha Vidayala. Therefore little Saman’s first school was also Siyambalagamuwa Maha Vidyalaya. However, when he was in the second grade his parents moved back to Colombo and he entered Royal College, Colombo where he polished his skills. 

“My parents moved back to Colombo thinking about our education. They had got teaching posts at Royal College but they had deferred because they wanted to travel across the country,” he added.

During this period, the Principal of Royal Junior School was H D Sugathapala who encouraged students to be involved in the arts and other cultural activity.

“He loved the arts and during this period school was a place where many great artistes practiced.  Artistes like Sugathapala de Silva, Dayananda Gunawardena, Dhamma Jagoda, Tony Ranasinghe, Nawanandana Weerasinghe used to come there to practice. We were fortunate enough to be in their company and be duly influenced,” he said. These influences encouraged him to take up theater.  In 1968 the school produced a play for a drama festival. In 1968 he won the award for the best actor in the school drama festival.

Noticing these talented kids, veteran broadcaster Prabha Ranatunge invited them to the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation for the children’s programs.  “That’s how I joined the Lama Pitiya programs,” he explained.

“I was a relief announcer at SLBC even before I got out from school,” he added.  He remembered the unforgettable experiences received there. “We were able to change the dimensions of children’s radio dramas, educational service as well as the sports service,” he reminisced. In 1978, he was made a permanent employee in the sports service. “Sports programs were unexciting and boring at that time. But we were able to introduce interesting presenting styles to Kreeda Sangrahaya. It was a turning point in the SLBC Sports Service too,” he said.

Jill John and Vandabona in Landesi Dupatha, the two adventurous radio drama characters were created by Athawudahetti and Karunathilake Handuwala and they remain memorable. His first experimental drama script was Rukada Pancha; an adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio. Then they scripted the Landesi Dupatha, an adventurous detective story. “During this period, children’s cartoons and dramas were either fairy tales or realistic characters. We introduced fantasy characters, which fell between realistic and fairy tales. That was challenging,” he recalled.

“I remember Prof Sarath Amunugama, then Secretary to the Ministry of State (Rajya Amathyanshaya) referring to the radio drama as ‘cartoon natyaya’ (cartoon drama),” he said mentioning how they succeeded in creating mental images in the listeners’ minds.

A few decades ago, radio dramas enjoyed a large listenership. However, with the rise of television, they lost the audience. “Radio media changes with the technology. SLBC officials couldn’t identify this change and that’s why this happened,” he emphasized.

“In the early days we had to listen to radio through short wave and medium wave frequencies.  This was no easy task but nevertheless the listeners were a dedicated lot.  When FM frequencies were introduced people didn’t have to go through hardship to listen to radio,” he said.  Although listening to radio became easy, the listenership of the national radio dropped.

Athawudahetti identified the ignorance of the official at SLBC as the reason for this. “When private radio channels started they tried to cater to the demand which had changed with technology.” According to Athawudahetti, private channels were not totally successful. “This is why they have to pay people to listen to their channels. This means that they lack the programs which attract listeners,” he iterated. According to him this might be happening because program producers and presenters were incompetent or because the owners were not brave enough.  “If the owners are willing and the team is competent enough, there is no need to give out money to make people listen to a particular channel. They will be drawn automatically.”

He also stressed that the popularity of a program cannot be measured by the ratings. “Ratings are for the advertising agencies targeting audience segments endowed with buying power; that’s only a fraction of the population. The majority is not included in this category,” Athaudaheti explained.

“For example, many watched the recast of Oshin. Wherever we go people were watching it and talking about it. But it didn’t have a high rating.  Not receiving higher ratings from the population group with buying power doesn’t mean that people didn’t watch it,” he added.

He also pointed out that there is no proper method to check the standards of the programs, songs, language usage or the presenting skills of the announcers. “We did a survey four or five years back to assess the language abilities of the radio artistes. It’s sad to say their vocabulary is as poor as 250 words,” he lamented. “If a person can speak around 250 words fluently that’s the only qualification you need to become an announcer today,” he commented. He also said that there is no point in blaming the new generation for their poor language skills as there is no standardized place for them to learn and practice announcing. “This is not a problem peculiar to the media, it is in fact a problem of society as a whole,” he added.

He also spoke about hiring attractive voices as presenters. “When SLBC chose announcers they gave prominence to the voice as well as for the language skills and practice. I don’t see this happening today. A radio channel would choose an announcer if they agree to tell what the owners want them to tell,” he exclaimed. He further said that the situation is similar in television too.

Saman Athawudahetti is also one of the first presenters of Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation. His voice became a need to the SLBC as well as SLRC in no time. His work as a dubbing artiste was remarkable. Anyone who remembers Gulliverge Suvisariya, Dosthara Honda Hitha or Oshin would recognize his voice at once. He recalled how the directors were committed to find voices best suited for the characters.

“There were times when a director delayed the recordings or filming just because he wanted a specific person for a character. But today, if A is not present, the directors would go for B, C or D or else they would get anyone they see and finish off the recording on the scheduled day,” he said. “This is why we don’t remember character as we remember Gulliver or Dosthara Hondahitha even today,” he reiterated.

He said that this issue cannot be solved by protests and riots. “This should come through education and creating awareness. There will be a day that people will understand this,” he said hopefully.

“Or else, as Mr. Prem Dissanayaka told The Nation last week, people will start rejecting low quality products to the point where the industry will collapse,” he stressed.

 Athawudahetti is also a celebrated lyricist. Kawurunda Oba Mage – Sunil Edirisinghe, Sihilara Sitha Nayana – Athula Adikari, Kawuruth Ennathi…Kauruth Dannathi – Gunadasa Kapuge, Malak Une Ai Nuba Mata and Iri Thaluni Wala - Amarasiri Peiries are just a few examples from his collection of lyrics. He said the situation of the song industry too is sad today.

“If I am to ask you about your favorite song, I am certain that you will come up with a song which is older than 10 or 20 years,” he said. “Today a song will be produced following a package. It would be made to popularize some star introduced by a channel and his or her songs will be played four or five times a day. Then it will be available on the mobile phones. Ultimately, when they make enough money from the song to cover up the production cost, they will be the first to let go of the song and the star they produced too,” he explained. “If a song is truly popular, people would not forget the song in two years,” he added.

Today Saman Athaudahetti is one of the best travel writers in the country. He has already come out with three travelogues under the title ‘Wandering with Pleasure’. He has published his travel experiences along the Hanamichi, the Silk route and on the river Sarawak and he hopes to publish his experiences in India and Nepal in the near future.

“I used to write to the Mihira newspaper when I was a kid and then wrote many scripts for SLBC,” he recalled. Athawudahetti’s first published book was a Kinsi - a collection of children’s drama scripts in 1983. Then he published Raigampalage Kathandara in 1987, Pramada Dosha an account of what went wrong with the SLBC did wrong (for the 50^th Anniversary of SLBC), Harda Suthra in 2005 (with Sunethra Rajakarunanayake) and Eya Mese Sidu Wiya in 2008. His travelogue Hanamichiya Dige won the Vidyodaya Literature Award in the year it was published.

He said that writing a travelogue is not an easy task. “It requires commitment, time and lots of funds. I was able to do this because I received help from a few institutes in those countries,” he said.

When asked whether he is not interested in writing about Sri Lanka as this is a period where people talk more about travel and tourism he said that it would be best if it is done by a stranger to the country. “We have seen our country and its beauty has become something usual for us. Therefore the chance is greater that we will miss the important thing if we try to write,” he noted. “I would not be fair if we write about ourselves. We are prejudiced about our land.”

Athaudahetti’s latest book is a translation. His book Adara Ankura is a translation of the popular Indian author Kishwar Desai’s Origins or Love. “Indian literature is very nourishing and I admire it. As a frequent traveler to India I keep myself updated about new Indian books,” he said. “This is Kishwar Desai’s second book. I got the first book also but it was already translated. Prem Dissanayaka helped me get the copyrights and after that I started translating the book,” he said. “I liked the plot, a social thriller which speaks about outsourcing a pregnancy in India.  The original writers profile is somewhat similar to my profile. I had studied about stem cell therapy. I believe these are the main reasons that interested me,” he said.