Directing tourists to the north

Jaffna based journalist, Thulasi Muttulingam, uses social media and guides visitors to a once war-torn area which she says hasn’t lost its beauty 

Beauty of Northern parts of Sri Lanka is something the rest of fellow Sri Lankans missed out on for a few decades. Now that the Northern Province welcomes the world to experience its beauty, most of the travellers are eager to visit the area. The Nation suggests readers visit the Facebook page ‘Humans of Northern Sri Lanka’ or the blog eyeofthecylone.wordpress.com/ before you visit the area. These will give you information about the places you can visit, the history, culture and the communities. It will be a virtual tour of Northern Sri Lanka before you actually go visit the place, giving you a heads up on what you can explore while providing you with background information. 

Thulasi Muttulingam, a Jaffna based freelance journalist, is the brainchild of this Facebook page, who takes immense pleasure in searching and publishing the sensational information about the Northern Province widely traveling the five districts of the North viz Jaffna, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya. She said that this Facebook page was a result of her attempts to quench her curiosity, that she too missed the wonders of Northern Province as a child, although her parents were originally from there.  

“I grew up in the Maldives. My parents fled the ’83 riots here and were so traumatized by it that they refused to come back to Sri Lanka, or allow us to come back to Sri Lanka to resettle here,” she recalled. Thulasi didn’t feel welcomed as a child, growing up abroad and she always wanted come back to Sri Lanka and understand the culture and the heritage of the place where she actually belonged.

She has been 21 when the ceasefire agreement was signed in 2002 and this gave her the leeway to convince the parents that she should be allowed to return to Jaffna. “A few months later, they joined me.”

After coming back to Sri Lanka, she joined the Sri Lanka College of Journalism. She reminisced how she enjoyed her days at The Nation newspaper as an intern while she was a student of journalism. After her graduation in 2008, she worked at Sunday Times, Sunday Observer, Ceylon Today and now contributes to the Dail FT and the Daily News as a freelancer.

As one of the few Tamil speaking journalists working in English print media, she said, she was often called on to help file stories from the Northern Province while she was working as a full-time journalist based in Colombo. She wasn’t satisfied with how they managed to get those stories. “Very often it was over the phone, or at best a one to two day visit to the North. This is not enough to get a feel of the North or its myriad issues,” she said. “So at one point, I gave up my full time job and took on a job as a Reporting Officer with an Aid Agency working to rehabilitate war affected people,” she added. This job, which Thulasi took on two years ago, provided her ample opportunity to travel widely in the North, especially into its rural interiors, allowing her to gain firsthand insights into the people’s issues.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to write all these stories up. Thus I found myself sitting on top of a number of unique stories, which deserved wider reach – yet I was unable to disseminate them,” she explained what paved the way to create her Facebook page. “I finally figured out I could use social media and short snippet form story-telling in the manner of the much loved Facebook page Humans of New York (HONY), to get my stories out. So I started a Facebook page which I modeled on HONY.” 

She explained that Humans of New York had already inspired many similar global pages by this time. “There was already a Humans of Sri Lanka page active, so I named my page, which was concentrated on the people of the North, Humans of Northern Sri Lanka,” she said. In her blog and the Facebook page, she doesn’t leave out the essence of the Northern Province, its culture, heritage, people, places and even its food and where you can taste them. It’s a virtual tourist guide to the Northern Province.

She wanted to provide a wider understanding of the people of the North and the issues they face, to people who don’t have active access to the North, but are yet interested in them. A quick glance at her page, scrolling down would provide enough evidence that she has so far been successful in achieving her goal.

Speaking on how social media helped her to take the stories from Northern Sri Lanka to the world, she said that one can actually get the large stories out via a few words and a couple of pictures. “It doesn’t have to run into thousands of words in order to tell a proper story. With those shortened Facebook updates, far more people are able to read, follow and share. As such they get a much wider reach,” she pointed out. “With the click of a button, I can ensure that the stories I want to disseminate are read, not only by people within Sri Lanka, but all over the world.” She also said how these Facebook posts came to her as a relief while she was frustrated that she didn’t gain wide reach of readership for the long research articles she wrote as a journalist.

People from the other parts of country didn’t have access to culture, traditions and arts of Northern Province for a long period. When asked what the other fellow Sri Lankans missed she said, “Well, I am still figuring out what I missed,” adding that there is yet much more to be explored.

Speaking further she appreciated projects like Jaffna and Galle Music Festival funded by Norway for the valuable work they do in reviving dying traditional arts in the North and using it to join North with South.

“The greatest tragedy is that the Arts took a backseat for nearly 30 years as the war raged in the North. It is only now that artists are slowly taking up their arts again – especially the traditional folk artists. In some cases, this might have become irretrievably lost as younger people migrated out and older people died,” Thulasi reiterated.

When she was asked whether she believes that there are enough opportunities for the people from other areas to mingle with the people, arts and culture of the Northern Province, she said, “I am not sure about enough opportunities, but there are certainly opportunities,” she said adding that there are already artists and activists from both the North and South, working actively to connect with each other. “They have been doing so for quite some time now, from since before the war ended. There could be more of such efforts though.”

In her perspective, a better understanding of each other is needed among the common people in order to enhance the relationships between the North and the South. “For too long, the vernacular media has demonized each other to the Tamil and Sinhala people, by giving only one sided stories. We need a more responsible media seeking to bridge the divide instead of working to increase the gap,” she stressed. “As a journalist myself, this is something I am trying hard to do.”

She also said that understanding the people’s aspirations, the source of their pain and hurt, and seeking to redress that should be given utmost most priority in addressing the issues in the Northern Province. “Right now in the Northern Province, which is functioning as a post-war economy, there are several raging problems such as widespread unemployment, marginalization of women especially war affected widows, and breakdown of law and order,” she pointed out.

“Many visitors from the South travel on the glittering new highways to the North and think much development has taken place in the North. Just off those highways however, are rutted bumpy rural roads that would rattle your teeth along with your intestines. These are what the common northern people use. All that glitters is not development,” she further said.

From the pages of Prem’s book

Journalist turned publisher Prem Dissanayaka talks about emerging business trends, the mindset of buyers and the future of literature in Sri Lanka

Pic by Ravindra Dharmathilake

For a book lover Maradana Road is a road to heaven. The number of bookshops and discount stores are fascinating and it would take more than an entire day if one is to check out all the bookstores. Among these bookshops is Surasa Bookshop which was opened recently. But compared to the other bookstores, it seems to maintain quality. However, head of Surasa as well as Fast Ads and Fast Publishing, Prem Dissanayaka said that it is not an easy task to maintain the quality of the books in the publishing industry today.

A prominent figure in the field of arts, Dissanayake is also an entrepreneur. He obtained his primary education from Thalahena Central College and entered Thurstan College, Colombo for secondary education. “I chose science subjects for Advanced Level, but I was popular at school for my drawing skills and had to help out in school events by drawing or painting banners,” he said. As a young student, he said that he had a keen interest in literature too and had started writing poems, short stories and various articles for newspapers. “Since my attention was grabbed by the political newspapers most of my contributions were also for the alternative political newspapers. Subsequently, I became a frequent contributor of Aththa newspaper,” he recalled. Aththa (truth) was a Sinhala daily newspaper, published from Colombo by the Communist Party between 1964 and 1995.

Leaving school Dissanayaka joined Aththa newspaper as a full time employee in 1967. Since then he has worked in several newspaper institutions including Lake House, Times of Ceylon, Dawasa and Veerakesari. “For some reason I couldn’t be at the same place for more than six months. Therefore in no time I was jobless,” he said. He mentioned that during this era many young people were unemployed and unemployment frustrated them. Dissanayaka was also a part of this frustrated group. To relieve his frustration he started contributing to the Kekulu newspaper which was renamed as Rathu Kakulu as the children’s newspaper of the Communist Party during the same period.

Although he was unemployed, coming from a family of businessmen, his parents were capable of supporting him. But he said that as a young man he had wanted to be independent and didn’t want to depend on his parent’s money. Making his wish come true, he was offered a job as a government science and math teacher in 1970. “It was during the Sirimavo Bandaranaike regime and I got the appointment to Ratnapura Sumana Balika Vidyalaya. But my first government job didn’t last for more than four periods in the time table,” he laughed. “It was uncomfortable to teach. I didn’t like it. So I took the bus back home,” he said adding that his parents were not happy that he left a job with a pension scheme without even trying.

Dissanayaka said that he believes that his reckless behavior as a youth was also the reason behind his success today. After leaving the government job, Dissanayake started working as an artist and this was the first step towards his position today. In 1978 with the open market free economy, the audio cassette industry became popular among people and the need to make cassettes look presentable was emerging. “Covers for the cassettes were made in Singapore. We didn’t have a method in Sri Lanka,” he mentioned. The first Sinhala music audio cassette in Sri Lanka was launched under the Tharanga label of Wijaya Ramanayake. The cover for this cassette Sanden Eha was created by Prem Dissanayake.

He iterated that it is important that a person creates a market value for his or her name in the area this person is skilled in, in order to brand themselves in the field. “Through the cassette covers I was able to brand my name. With this recognition I started receiving projects for the film industry too, to make directories, posters and banners. I became a busy man,” he reminisced. “If a person fails to brand himself, to create a market value for his skills, it won’t matter how skilled he is. He will become a failure, his skills would be crippled,” he added.

Although Dissanayake started this job to become independent, with the recognition and increasing number of projects he felt the need to start a professional business. “This is why I started an advertising agency and with the name I had built, we received a lot of opportunities,” he said. Along with the advertising agency Dissanayaka also started a cinema newspaper called Rasaduna and later another cinema newspaper named Vichithra. Rasanduna cinema paper was known to be a paper with an outstanding layout design. Vichithra newspaper holds the credits of popularizing HR Jothipala, the legendary singer. “Vichithra newspaper baptized Jothipala in the arts field as a giant cultural pillar.

With his death, Prof Sarath Amunugama writing for Vichithra, helped people realize that Jothipala was not just a pavement singer, but a hero in Sri Lankan musical history. “His article highly debatable, received attention that Prof Sarachchandra, Ajith Samaranayake, Freddie Siriwardena and Simon Nawagaththegama wrote replies,” he said. “Even the high class society understood his societal value,” said Dissanayaka. He explained how a newspaper can change the attitude of the people. “This is when Colombo high class people started to show interest in Jothipala,” he reflected.

Later he bought the Kala newspaper; another cinema-based newspaper from its founder Ariyarathna Kahawita. “Kala also became a leading cinema newspaper, but we had to give up due to the July riots. And that also marked the end of my newspaper career,” he said. After the riots he moved his office to a building behind People’s Bank in Colombo. He mentioned that moving there was a turning point of his life that he was able to help People’s Bank avoid an event which could have brought them ill fame because of its official advertising agency. “They were impressed and offered me projects in return. Following this event I received projects from National Lotteries Board and Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation,” he said proudly. By 1994 Dissanayaka’s advertising agency became the official advertising agency of People’s Bank, National Lotteries Board and Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation; the three main financial institutions in the country. “As a small company this was a challenging period, but we did our best,” he said.

In late 90s a complete printing press was a part of Fast ads and was named Fast Printory and following Dissanayaka’s childhood interest in literature, Fast ads became Fast ads and Fast Publishing, an advertising agency and a book publishing company. Today Fast Publishing is a competitive Book Publishing Company with the fascinating Bookshop in Maradana named Surasa. Dissanayaka is content with the quality of the books published at Fast Publishing. “In 1999 we started by launching 50 books. Today we don’t miss an award and are yet to see our nominations not reach the last round at the annual literary festivals,” he emphasized.

Dissanayake lamented that the value of the newspaper journalist has deteriorated. “Earlier a journalist was solely interested in performing their duties towards society. They spoke for the society to pinpoint injustice,” he said. “In January 8, 1965 when Dambarawe Rathanasara Thera was killed, the journalists who covered the event came back soaked in blood. They had been attacked and injured, but they didn’t fail to do their duty,” he recalled. “If it happened today, journalists being attacked would be the lead story and not the murder,” he lamented. “Journalists seem to care more about their personal benefits, which should not be the objective of their jobs. But I believe that this might be happening unconsciously since the mindset of the whole society it similar. It’s not only the journalists who are running behind financial benefits,” he lamented.

He believed that these values have deteriorated because the priority of societies has moved from knowledge to money. “People run behind meaningless things. They seem to care more about maintaining their outer appearance other than the knowledge,” he said. He further said that this change occurred after 1978. “People have become selfish and unkind. Relationships are undervalued. The relationship our generation had with our parents is not there anymore with the new generations,” Dissanayaka expressed his grief.

He further said that the situation is no different in the book publishing business. “Book publishers’ main responsibility is to choose what’s good for the society. We could see that the pioneers of book publishers grasped their responsibility well,” he said. “If you take the early Sinhala texts, like Piyadasa Sirisena’s or S Mahinda Thera’s work, they were meant to refine the society. Books nurtured peoples’ intellectual needs,” he pointed out. He also mentioned that this created a community of readers around the publisher who demanded good books. Since the societal priorities shifted, he said that the quality of the publications as well as the demands of the community of readers has deteriorated.

“People who wrote books when there were no literary festivals or awards are still among the best writers. Sarachcharandra or Martin Wickramasinghe may not have got awards for their work, but there work is eternal. These award winning books today are forgotten the next year,” he exclaimed. “Literature should be improved with all these festivals and awards, but what happens is the exact opposite,” Dissanayaka said adding that the Sri Lankan literature seems to be threatened.

He identifies the main reason for this as the irresponsibleness in the publishing industry. “Once a book is on the process of getting published, it should be edited to fit to the need of the reader. In foreign countries, copy editors should edit them without harming the writer’s ideas after the publisher accepts the copy,” he explained. “But this duty is not performed here. Anyone can write anything and it will be published unedited. Therefore finally when the reader receives the book he or she has to edit it in the mind and read maybe having to skip paragraphs or pages of writing,” he expressed his grief. He also said that editing is a tuff job in book publication since the writers object to their work being edited. “If they don’t want their work to be edited, they should be very careful with their grammar, facts, dates and well as the body,” he affirmed.

He pointed out another major shortage in the book publishing. As he said the autonomous creations are less and further decreasing. New autonomous English books are very rare. Yet, the number of translations is on the rise. “This is also a sign to say that Sri Lankan literature is in danger,” he said. In addition Dissanayaka said that translations are becoming a trend now that translators produce books rapidly. “We had translations which were better than the original books like Sara Bhumi, Sudu Veddah or Sudu Gona where justice for the original book was done. But this translation trend is destroying it,” he noted.

He also spoke about the annual International Book Exhibition. Over the years the crowd attracted to the book fair rose significantly. “Book Exhibition has become a national calendar event. It should be an event where people could buy good books, but it is unavoidable that it gains features of a commercial fair. But these features should not destroy the freedom of choosing books freely,” he opined.

However, Dissanayaka said that he is doubtful whether the readership has increased although the number of books sold has increased at the Book Fair. “It seems more like they are collecting books rather than read. If they read all what they buy it would be evident in the society,” he claimed.

He opined that this situation can’t be corrected by imposin­­g laws. “There should be self-discipline in what a person writes or publishes. Selling a book is selling intelligence. People who are engaged in the business should be accountable for what they provide the society,” he said. “The amount people spend to buy a book should not be what he spent for the cover and the papers. The reader should get justice for the amount of money paid,” he reiterated.

Dissanayake stressed that if the industry doesn’t look in to these matters, the day the readers deny low quality will not be very far away. “Look at the audio cassette industry in Sri Lanka. It was in its golden days, but the industry couldn’t maintain the standards. So the trend was killed. Then the audio CDs became a trend. Today it’s a pavement business. Similar with the Sri Lankan film industry,” he pointed out. “If the book publishers and writers don’t become self-disciplined, same thing will happen to the book industry,” he said adding that it is still not too late for the necessary actions to be taken.

Playing the watchdog’s role

Cartoonist Thalangama Jayasinghage says cartoonists must use satire to drive home the message that politicians are being watched and an artist has a responsibility to guard the Wellbeing of the society

 

Thalangama Jayasinghage’s characters Palamalla and A-Thuma are no strangers to the contemporary Sinhala newspaper readership. Jayasinghe, who is attuned to what’s happening in the country, even after his retirement decades ago, continues to alert people on the political as well as the social situation of the country through his cartoon column daily. Last week, he launched his two new cartoon collections, Palamalla and A-Thuma. So far, he has created over 70 cartoon stories for newspapers including Silumina, Dinamina, Janatha, Sarasaviya and Tharuni. He drew his first cartoon story Chithra for Dinamina in 1954 and joined the Dinamina editorial in 1957. He worked as the editor of the Madura newspaper from 1980 to 1998. Jayasinghe is not only a cartoonist and a painter, but also a poet, a novelist and a short story writer. The script of the famous Sinhala film Sapta Kanya was also written by this artiste of many talents.

Jayasinghe is one of the most elderly veterans among the Sri Lankan artists. Although he is in his late 70s, he still actively participates in the field as a freelance cartoonist and writes poems for Lanka Witthi newspaper; a London based Sinhala newspaper. “Only a very few artists can tell you about the situation of Sri Lanka during World War II. I am one of them,” he reminisced. Born on July 5, 1936, Jayasinghe was the youngest child in the Thalangama South Buddhist Mixed School, when he got admission for his formal education. “We lived in Battaramulla during my childhood. Our home was located right in front of Isurupaya; the Ministry of Education,” he said. “The period of World War II was hard for everyone. It was a time when people were forced to eat Bajiri, not many today can speak about the experiences during that era,” he added.

He recollected how he became enthusiastic about learning how to draw. “We didn’t have any Art teacher at school. All the subjects were taught by the class teacher in the primary classes. We used to call her Guruthumi and one day she asked us to draw a water pot,” he recalled an incident from his third grade class. “We all drew and she checked all the books, one by one. When she saw mine, she lifted the book, so everyone in the classroom could see and said, ‘See this water pot of Jayasinghe’s,’ and laughed. What I had drawn was not a water pot, but a pot we use for cooking.” Little Jayasinghe was embarrassed, but he longed to learn art skills from his friend, Ariyadasa. After the class, Ariyadasa showed him the differences between the two types of pots and showed him how to draw. “He was my first art guru,” reminisced Jayasinghe.

Ariyadasa was older than he, although they were in the same class. He had owned a book full of tattoo designs and had copied them on to his friends’ arms and back, using a carbon pencil, so they could imitate the village rascals. “I also used to get him to draw tattoos on me. Watching him draw boosted my interest to learn how to draw,” he said.  He also recalled how art master Samaranayake who joined his school when he was in grade seven, helped him to improve his skills.

“We didn’t have much color printed pictures to see during the early 1940s. Samanarayake master used to bring me pictures and show how the colors were used and how those paintings were drawn.” It was Samanarayake master who identified his talent and encouraged him to draw more.

Jayasinghe passed his Senior School Certificate (SSC) Examination when he was just 14 and joined the School of Art, Now a department of the Visual and Performing Arts University, in 1951. “I believe I was capable of passing the exam at once at a young age because of my father’s influence. He was an educated man who’s Sinhala and English were of high standard,” he recounted how he loved to listen to his father reading out from books he maintained at his small private library. “Although he was educated, my mother couldn’t read. My father used to read out novels, so all of us could hear. He had books from WA Silva to Piyadasa Sirisena in his private collection.” He also said that he used to enjoy the Mudalali cartoon series published in Dinamina Newspaper which his father used to buy as a habit.

Jayasinghe had to leave the School of Arts prematurely following his father’s sudden death. As he was the eldest in the family, he was automatically held responsible for his family’s wellbeing. Therefore he joined an advertising agency in 1955. “My first salary was 125 rupees,” he laughed. By 1957 he had become an Art Director at another advertising agency. “By this time I’ve being earning 350 rupees per month. Although it was a good financial situation during this period, I wasn’t satisfied with the job. This is when Lake House published a paper advertisement asking for artists. I applied for it with much enthusiasm,” he recalled.

Although there were more than 60 applicants, he was selected for the post, making his wish come true. “Mr. Denzil Peiris recognized my talent. I received a telegram, on the same day I went for the second interview, for which 10 of the selected people were called up,” he said. Although his salary went down from 350 rupees to 250 rupees again, he agreed to start working for Lake House. Although he was fond of the job at the newspaper, he became stressed with the financial limitations and his enthusiasm waned. He became lethargic that his editor Denzil Peiris noticed his lack of enthusiasm.

“One day he called me into his office and challenged me to leave, saying that I am not pulling my weight. I explained to him how hard it was for me to adjust to the salary. He knew what I was going through and told me to be patient. Within a year my salary was doubled,” he said.

Although his main responsibilities were performed as an artist, he also worked as a journalist. He mentioned how independent the journalists were during this era and how it had a positive influence on the quality of work. “People in the newspaper industry were more humane back then. They knew how they should treat employees, Mr. Denzil Peiries is just one such example.” He pointed out that this freedom does not exist in the present context of the industry. “Today it’s all about meeting deadlines and minimizing the expenditure. Human feelings and compassion don’t count,” he lamented.

In addition he spoke about the responsibilities of a political cartoonist. “He should always keep in mind the wellbeing of the society. When the message is given through satire people grasp it quickly and they grasp it well,” he iterated. “The cartoonist should be bold enough to identify the strongest point and be creative with it to pass the message,” he said. He took an example from his own carrier.

“In the 1950s my political ideologies were different from the government of that period. People were financially oppressed. Goods were not available in the market even for those who had money. We went through a lot of hassle even to get one packet of milk powder for the kids. Yet, I couldn’t portray this frustration on a Lake House newspaper as it was a government newspaper,” he explained. He chose to portray his frustration in the Siyarata newspaper published by the United National Party under a different pen name. “Those cartoons were very strong and voiced the true concerns of a frustrated father as well as a citizen. I knew that it was working because of the unexpected responses I received,” he added.

He mentioned how surprised he was at getting complimented by the Manager of the Maharagama Sarasavi Book Shop. “He didn’t know that I am the cartoonist. I was just going through some other newspapers. He came to me and told me to buy Siyarata saying, ‘You have to see this newspaper, if you want to see the best cartoon.’ I was happy,” he said.

He further mentioned that the cartoonists weren’t appreciated until recently. “I believe we should be thanking Mr. Bandula Padmakumara for starting to readout the political cartoons on his morning show. Before that the cartoonists weren’t given due recognition,” he pointed out. Jayasinghe believes that other media establishments have also taken the responsibility in highlighting the cartoonist. “People eagerly await the cartoons now. They have started to recognize the power of cartoons,” he reiterated.

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’