Contravention of Victorianism: Magam Soliya (මාගම් සෝලිය)

(Published in The Nation on 05th May 2013)

Almost five years back I wrote a review on a book called “Bodilima” (බෝදිලිමා) which was significantly different than what I had consumed as a Sinhala literature enthusiast. Its writer was Mohan Raj Madawala. Not only did I admire the bold decision of writing such a book, but harshly criticized the writer for joining a “popular culture” radio channel, as I learned later on. Though mass-media is a serious business, nowadays FM radio channels are based on different agenda. Soap operas (in our context “insurance operas” started by Nalan Mendis and Somaweera Senanayaka?) and their other elements have nothing to do with art. Of course, we all are sold to a market price today, I was particularly afraid that this acclaimed writer would not produce another literary piece due to the influence of the commercialization that comes bundled with popular culture. That’s my candid reason for criticism.

In my previous article, I called him “Sri Lankan Márquez” (referring to Gabriel García Márquez) which I don’t regret thus with his new novel, Magam Soliya. (මාගම් සෝලිය)  However, now it’s time to come out of that frame to have a fresh look at the new book.

Magam Soliya is a novel! In fact, it’s a new experience to read a novel of Madawala’s style. I glimpsed the book and had to reassure that I am going to read a novel of a very different style. If I put it in a nutshell, it’s quite heavy to mind as soon as started reading, but being forced to dig into it with interest.

As a novel

My way of enjoying his writing is, read a section and go deep in to the avenue opened through it. This gives me so many dimensions, symbolic means and emotions to start a dialogue with my own experience. When it comes to a novel, not like a short story, so many events with so many characters give me limitless spaces to surf. Definitely, it’s not guiding from one point and takes you to the end point which should be the climax by tradition. Of course writer tells a story to enjoy, but for me climax is everywhere.

For some crazy reason, I need this book to be a painting that’s hanging in a gallery. So that I am free to revisit and see what shakes me most. I can have different dialogues in different days.

Though the story is closely related to 1818 Uva-Wellassa uprising, it doesn’t give you the expected epic story. The historic event is only the canvas used to do this creation. Of course taking such a historic event has given enough room to give birth to a beautiful imagination. This imagination is not merely a fantasy, it’s a discussion propagated from past. Static nature of history becomes live with the imagination.

Natural evolution of art

One of the famous paintings of Picasso, Guernica, was meant to express the destruction occurred during the Spanish civil war. According to “evolution of art”, it's quite obvious, war of Afghanistan or Iraq will be expressed by a modern day artist in a different manner.  Guernica can’t be presented as an expression for current warfare. Of course both are wars, but not the same. Things become complicated by the time and artists enhance their framework and style to convey the upcoming realities. They usually struggle to express the current situation, not the past. Even if you look at Graffiti, you will see how they have become complex by the time. Will see how the frameworks are being enhanced by generations;

This is original painting;

This is a modified version by an artist who experienced the Iraq war;

The strangest part of Madawala’s exercise is, he is making a well-stretched contemporary framework made of his modern days life experience and applies back to an atmosphere which is about two centuries old. This is really exciting and challenging. What could be the philosophy of Madawala in this regards? Probably, wisdom (ප්රඥාව) given to him through the aftermath of political, social and cultural changes of last two centuries might have tempted him to look in to the historical events happened around 1818 in far different angle.  

Contrasting

Style used to write this novel seems not predefined. It is justifiable to say he is using magic realism genre, yet he hasn’t become a slave of it. He is confident of what he is creating in readers mind. I have never seen a Sinhala novelist who enjoys such a freedom in expressing. Through the book, he enlightened me of the length one can go with ordinary characters. Characters themselves are pretty normal, yet the way they are being handled is simply wonderful. It reminds me of a fluent painter using different brush strokes to make different textures using same basic colours. He uses “contrast” like a modern architect. This becomes writer’s passive mechanism of controlling the degree of emphasis. Ironically, reader gets an effortless flow. This free motion of characters ultimately contributes to the context of the story which shows the underlying discipline of the writer. Please consider below section;

“ගැහැණු දරුවා සිහින් කෙසග වුවත් පිරිමි දරුවා පුෂ්ටිමත් විය. එසේම සපුමලී සිනාසෙන විට හීන් සුරඹා ඇඬුවේය. හීන් සුරඹා නිදාගන්න විට සපුමලී ඇහැරී සිටියේය. සපුමලී වම් ඇලයට හැරෙන විට හීන් සුරඹා දකුණු ඇලයට හැරුනේය. හීන් සුරඹා උඩ බලාගෙන කෑ ගහන විට සපුමලී බිම බලාගෙන නිශ්ශබ්දව සිටියාය.”

Also I realise the “contrast” in between different sexual relationships explained in the story. Sexual relationship in between Walli (වල්ලි) and Podi Nilame (පොඩි නිලමේ) is an aggressive encounter. On the other hand, relationship in between Manika (මැණිකා) and Bindu (බිංදු) is more likely an act of healing or merely a meditation.

Usage of sexuality

Also I believe, when the writer discusses about the sexuality, he flies over the boundaries of civilization and recreates it as an incomparable ultimate phenomenon of nature. It’s the lifeline of mankind. Please read the below sections that drags me to this thought;

“...තමාද තම දරුවා මෙන්ම ඇගේ කුස තුලින් ඊට පෙර දවසක ඒ තිඹිරි ගෙදරදීම උත්පත්තිය ලබන්නට ඇතැයි ඔහුට සිතුනේය. පුදුමයකට මෙන් ඒ සිතිවිල්ල ඔහුට පුදුම ආශ්වාදයක් ගෙන ආවේය.“

Writer is unifying the mankind through sex; it’s beyond our traditional view point.

“මැනිකාත් බිංදුත් අතර වූ මේ සමාගමය, ඔවුන්ගේ සිරුරු අභිබවා ඔවුන්ගේ හැඟීම් අභිබවා ඔවුන්ගේ ගැහැණු පිරිමි බවත්, වයසත් අභිබවා ඉහලට විහිදුනු ආශ්චර්යමත් නිකලෙස් සමාගමයක් වුනේය.“

Though it is controversial, see how writer is trying to link spiritual journey of a man with sexuality.

“සැබැවින්ම ඔහු මෙතෙක් භාවනානුයෝගී ධ්යානයෙන් ලඟා වූ සමාධි සුවය සහ ඒ විශ්වීය ශක්තිය, ආදරයේ දිව්යමය ප්රතික්රියාවක් හරහා සිදුවූ ලිංගික රමණය තුලින්ද ළඟා කර ගනිමින් සිටියේය.”

Ideology

Now we will look into this piece of literature by ideological mean. Entire story is mainly lying within the space of suppression made by the political atmosphere of British administration and its consequences. Story is also emphasising the acts of human nature that transforms to a major change. We know how the Kandian kingdom was affected by controversies that created as root level acts led to major events such as tragedy of Ahalepola (ඇහැලේපොල).

Some of the abstract concepts used in the book are very powerful. Power of man is centralised within his male sexual organ and that symbolise the importance of self-confidence and personality. That asset is only gained through the breast milk of a noble woman. Isn’t it a beautiful and powerful concept?

Though Abiththa Unnanse (ඇබිත්ත උන්නාන්සේ) is the main character, I see an exceptional beauty and meaning through Podina’s (පොඩිනා) character. Though she hasn’t slept with any man throughout her life, she’s blessed with magical milk in her breast. That is due to her commitment as a self-appointed village midwife who has been the livewire for countless births. Nothing beats the need of a birth in nature. It is the decision making factor of existence. Doesn’t she deserve the magical milk in her breast? Even the biggest empire (Great Britain) of the world can’t beat the power of her milk.

If not for the Wellasse people, this book could have been respectfully forwarded to the midwives of entire country who gave birth to the nation for generations, yet been unseen and unnoticed!

One of the other symbolic characters I like is Sedara (සේදරා). He becomes an ideal victim of tactical war of British administration. His assets are being tactically looted. He becomes a slave of alcohol. First he behaves like a hero, but he becomes lifeless when real war erupts. Soldiers don’t kill him; he was just left because it was obvious he is not going be a threat by any mean. Even today invaders prefer lifeless people than dead people!

“..සේදරා සිටියේ පරඩලක් ගානට කෙට්ටු වී අඳුරගන්න බැරුවය. ඉස්සර අඩුම තරමේ අරක්කු බෝතලයක්වත් බී දඩ මස් ගාත් තුන හතරකට වග කියූ කාලයේ ගෙදර උලුවස්සකින් හැරෙන්නවත් බැරි තරමට උස මහත් වී සිටි සේදරා සොල්දාදුවන් කටින් හුලං පිම්ඹ විට ඈතට විසිවී බිම ඇදගෙන වැටුණේය.”

Culture was the primary target of colonialism. These encounters are invisible yet more destructive. Today, aboriginal people in Australia could provide living proofs for typical end result of such a master plan. Once I peeped in to a public bar in Northern Queensland and saw a lot of aboriginal people, likely to have reached the fate of Sedara! Community with oldest cultural heritage of entire world has become rootless in their own land by the sake of modern civilization!!

I don’t expect to see the character of Abdul (අබ්දුල්). Though his role means a lot to the story, it is presented in a very traditional manner. Abdul’s character can be easily copied in to a book like “Sudu Sewanali” (සුදු සෙවනැලි) of Piyadasa Welikannage, without many modifications. When creating the character Abdul, writer seems to have missed his style he used to compile all other characters. It’s a raw character. As I heard, due to religious constrains, usually Muslim merchants didn’t interfere with alcohol business (රේන්ද කර්මාන්තය) that much which also should have been considered. 

Authenticity

One of the other major hurdles of writing such a book focusing a historical event is building the assurance of authenticity. Though, I keep insisting that writer is recreating his imagination, I am also urging that canvas which is being used, is the real historical event. For this, writer has definitely studied the social, cultural and political facts of that era thoroughly. Words which are being used assure it. I like the dialogues that take me back to history. Check below phrases;

“තව ඩිංගිත්තක් අපට ඕන”

“මේ තමයි පුතේ උඹේ අප්පුච්චා”

“ඒයි ඉලන්දාරියා මෙහෙ වර..”

Most of all, writer utilises his influence of folk stories and history to impress the timing of the story and the culture which is surrounded. Bindu’s character reminds me of some folk stories about the propagation of King Rajasinghe II who was one of the heroic kings of the Kandiyan kingdom.
Please read below section;

“..බිංදු හිටි පියවරින් අහසට පැන වටේට කැරකී අතින් සහ පයින් පහර දුන්නේය.”

If you are familiar with heroic Sinhala folk stories of 15th to 18th centuries, you may realise our kind of a martial art is explained here. This also reminds me of folk stories of dynasty of Galagoda Disawe (ගලගොඩ දිසාව) who were ruling Uwa as Mahadisawa (මහ දිසාව) for generations in Kandian kingdom.

Reflection

In summary, Magam Soliya is a research; result yet to be revealed by readers. Madawala is taking an immense challenge by presenting such a book to Sinhala reading community considering the fact that appreciation of literature hasn’t been taken seriously by current education system.

This book is addressing a historical event through a different style which is a new experience for the reader.  I feel that the writer uses magic realism like style to contravene Victorianism which has been fossilised in reader’s mindset. As most historians reveal Victorian tradition has made us slaves without chains; probably the biggest emotional barrier for our personality. Even the context focuses on character we need to have in us to face colonialism or today’s hegemony.

He is walking through the shrubs and dust of history to grasp unnoticed elements with utmost care which will be used to light the wisdom of future. He is experimenting and getting equipped with potent tools.

Within the reviews;

Journalism and being the second vulture

This is Kevin Cater’s most disturbing and award winning photo, which should be named as the photo of the century. More than the photo itself, Carters life and death come to my mind time to time. It is the ultimate tragic story of mankind… his death is a monument to the tragedy of replacing the human means with materialized objectives.

As a photo journalist he managed to capture the baby and vulture correctly in his camera. He did it, because that was his assignment there. He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for his work. When thousands of people who were disturbed with the photo ask what happened to the child Carter didn’t have an answer. Then only it was realized that he just concentrated on taking the photo, but not helping the dying child. Also Carter had told his colleagues that he had been waiting to see if vulture would spread the wings; which would have given chance to a better photo! Later on Carter committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carter’s story just highlights the tragic of forgetting the primary responsibilities of a man.  Before you become a photographer, before you become a journalist you are a man and that’s never changed. You are not paid for that… you are not honored for that, but that’s the responsibility carry on your shoulder when you are born.

One critique on Carters photo redefined photographer as the second vulture in the scene. It is not unfair at all. Vulture in the photo is an opportunistic bird, and so is the photographer in that occasion. What is the difference….?

In context of Sri Lanka, we see propagating a lot of web media that reports and analyze social issues to gossips. In spite of the debut of credibility of some such media, we also find it difficult to understand the vision behind some of the reporting. When we had the war, of course we had to hear the bitter news of human deaths in day to day basis. Now war is over and we don’t need to hear those, unless as a news. When it is a brutal killing or raping happen, some media seems to be doing a good job by giving them a massive publicity… In most cases, like Kevin Carter’s photo, there seems to have had two (probably more) vultures by the name of journalism.

How many lives we actually got?

When discussing above post with someone, it raised us to the discussion of role of a photo journalist.  Some conclusions, more or less, were as below.

“What else photo journalist could do than taking the photos. He is not there to do the job of a welfare worker”

Then my mind raised the question to me. Then why Kevin got depressed by the comments. Why people around world kept on asking whether he helped the poor girl. This is a serious question to me. This puzzle drags me to think deeper about definitions of each role we play in life.

Sometimes we are pleased to say that we had to do something according to my profession. As a journalist I had to report that. As a soldier I had to kill. As a politician I had to decide that way. As a scientist I had to create an effective bomb. If you believe in God, what is the life you carry in your shoulders when you meet him? Can you exclude your professional life? Can I justify a crime by explaining it in terms of my profession? Is there any limit of this?

After 9/11 CIA hired two psychologists (i.e. Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell) to train UA servicemen on effective torturing methods, known as SERE programme, which is even against the Geneva conventions. May be Bruce or James could think, professionally they had to do that. Most of all, society accepts them not like a killer works under labelled terrorist organization.

This is a big question in my mind. I think “professional” label is another myth implemented by post capitalist system to justify something unethical. I know a chemist who work for manufacturing company of Baby oils, but never use them for her babies since they are bad for health. She was kind enough to tell all the friends not to use those kinds of oils. Anyway, “Professionally” she is making them for thousands of other babies... All other professionals too are to do these kinds of justified jobs.

In today’s context we even say you should not mixed up professional life and day-to-day life. This sounds like, what we do as “professionals” will be not be tolerated by the values of a day-to-day life that believes in mankind and humanity. Is it?

From recent years I have been thinking of unified systems as an answer for these contradictions of life. Though, I am not a historian, I am pretty sure ancient civilizations didn’t work with categorised objectives as we do today. Each ones goal is to be inter-connected. In Sri Lankan context, I believe ancient farming or manufacturing didn’t raised problems of environment. Can we claim a massive structure like Sigiriya would have destroyed the adjoining surroundings or its lives? I guess this harmony should have been same for all other early civilizations.

Today, Banker is interested in cash circulation and farmer is interested in fertile lands. Power generating companies interested only in generating power, but not the environmental pollutions. Environmentalists too are programmed to go against each and every development plan without knowing how their houses are provided with power and how their vehicles are supplied with fuel.

This funny system recalls me of my wedding! Photographer just wanted to have most successful photo sessions. Dress maker wanted to make a success by producing best bride and that’s her aspect of wedding. She was not interested in anything else than that. DJ wanted to make it a big music extravaganza and decorators wanted to bring most beautiful flower arrangements under this sun and moon. Individual goals seemed to be over ruling the main objective sometimes. Ultimately, I and my wife were the only people who wanted a successful wedding.

Even under this situations, sometimes some people work according to the call of their hearts.  I can recall two simple experiences I came across. When we head to tsunami affected areas in 2004 in Sri Lanka to help people, my friend, obsessed photographer, Roshan came without a camera which surprised me. He simply said “we are going to help people aren’t we?” Second occasion was.. my cousin, Kasun gave up aeronautical engineering after spending successful years in university, when he learnt all the leading researches are focused on advancement of fighter jets but not passenger planes.  In both occasions, they could have done the opposite since they have been justified by the civilization. Anyway, their hearts might have given a different judgement.

If we turn back to Kevin’s story, he should have had a struggle on his stance.  If he was a super product of post capitalist monetary system he shouldn’t have suffered from depression. If he was a super product of humane purity, he shouldn’t have left the toddler along with the vulture. Kevin’s tragic story can be quote close to our story also. Have to be wise when working with so called “professionalism” comes bundled with requirements of monetary system, not the requirements of mankind.

For me I have only one question. There are no many lives called professional life, family life and etc... I got only one life. Question is whether I live it truthfully to my heart or not.

Dutugamunu: a taboo topic?

Jayantha Chandrasiri has started a massive cinematic task. He is going to take King Dutugemunu’s character to Cinema. It’s going to be a challenge definitely. Apart from making the film, he is also facing the challenges of critiques already. I wonder this is the first time in the history in Sri Lanka; someone has encountered this kind of criticism even before starting the shooting!

I guess, there is a hidden agenda in this suppression. I don’t know whether this film will be a success or not, but trying to stop it even before doing seems very suspicious. I received a couple of e-mails that criticize the film so aggressively.
When Handagama’s film was banned by authorities, there were a lot of activists and Independent Media movements who talked and showed their disapproval. No one seems to be rescuing Jayantha. What is the difference in between two scenarios?

Some of the critiques say Jayantha is doing this for money and this is supporting extreme nationalism. Jayantha was making dramas/movies based on historical events for a long time. Actually, at that time, no one was much interested in history or such attempts. Now everybody knows that country itself is having new awareness in national ides and rethinking of our own ways of solving the problems. Under current context, a lot more people, media and groups have changed their colors to show their brand new patriotic faces. Now Jayantha has no rights to do what he has been doing?

This case tempts me to analyze the situation this way.. Jayantha has been quite successful in his movie making carrier and significantly he is the only one who didn’t run after international awards. People of Sri Lanka always loved him for what he did. There are some "too much internationalized" entities that always did their best to drag down the true national awareness in Sri Lanka throughout the history. They are not sacred of Handagama, Prasanna Withanage or Vimukthi because they are actually passively promoting their needs. Those people should be really scared that Jayantha would do a better job, otherwise they will not try to hammer him even before starting the initial work.

I have seen some other group who has been criticizing the film because they simply don’t agree with selection of actors. They simply say actor who has been selected for role of Dutugamunu is "not majestic looking" enough to represent the king. They blame Jayantha for doing Anti-national acts through the movie!!

If we summarize the facts, Jayantha is being beaten by both nationalists and anti-nationalists! In a country that “Per person independent movements” are so high.. no one is there to protect his right to do his art!

This harsh criticism has increased my inquisitiveness about the movie.

This movie can be a success or failure... but I really can’t understand the ethical base of hammering Jayantha based on speculations, even before examining the product.

Sunil Madhawa & my 89

Most of the people who called themselves as journalists today are not journalists! But Sunil Madhawa Premathilake is a journalist. He is a sensitive person and he had a limitless love for the country and man-kind. He was brave enough to fight against powerful capitalist governments on behalf of liberty of the community. Most of all, he knew the responsibility of a journalist. His thirst for literature, passion of revealing the reality and committing any personal possessions for the betterment of others raised him to an honorable platform.

My memories on Sunil Aiya (most common way of calling him) go back to the dark age of 1989. It was the time that young generation took violent steps to challenge the government while unrest of the civil community was so high. In return, counter violence from the government was so terrible and that trend was targeting thousands of civilian lives also. This cyclic effect was making things worse.

None of the remarkable interferences were come through so called “international community”, but some of the artists and writers were doing their duty even without thinking of their lives. Sunil was one of the key writers who wanted to write against the dictatorship which was rising.. Sunil Madhawa became a giant in this manner.. He couldn’t exist in his position in most of the traditional newspapers because of the contexts of his writings. He left one by one.. there wasn’t any media to publish his bold ideas.. Sunil with few other brave writers gave birth to the trend of “Tabloid papers”.. they were actually not much focusing at profit, but it made some room for writing the reality.. people gathered around them while government kept on threatening the journalists who wrote the reality. Sunil became the target of few brutal attacks but survived with injuries.

In this time, I was just a student at Ananda College and was so inspired by literature and youthful radical ideas. As a group of amateur writers, we too were writing in our scales. Sunil Madhawa was a big hero in our arena. We were operating a writing circle in the college and we had some frequent activities, where Sunil Madhawa became a useful resource person. Sunil Madhawa’s passion of writing against suppression came to a climax by translating the book “Cry Freedom” (story of Steve Biko) to Sinhala (as Handanu Mana Nidahasa). Sinhala readers accept it with a great gravity since Sri Lanka itself had been showing the mirror images of the dictatorship and killing revealed in the book. Anyway, this book dragged his life to a great risk.

I used to visit the office of Lakdiva tabloid paper at Borella. Lakdiva editorial team was fabulous. Some of the famous people were blooming in it. Famous Wini Hettigoda was the cartoonist. Dalas Alahapperuma (minister in current parliament) was one of the writers. There was another special person called “Vimalasiri Gamlath”, that was Wimal Weerawansa who is playing a big role in today’s politics. His literature skills were tremendous. I wonder why he is not writing much today.. I call it a crime! Sunil Aiya was not much interested in anything else than literature and writing, but hanging around public bars. People were claiming that Sunil was addicted to alcohol. Sunil told that Bars are the best place to meet people; common people like factory workers, government servants, thieves, thugs, prostitutes and people of all calibers. Once, I wanted to ask about this and he honestly told that he is not addicted to alcohols, but to Pub societies. Dialog we had could be well-explained in Sinhala as it was;

I started an Open Wallpaper in school where I too started to reveal my radical feelings about what is happening in the country. I too understood it was time to go beyond Gamperaliya/Sinhabahu; our paper was bit aggressive. Aggressive enough to question the school whether it is justifiable to have a big-match fun while our motherland was on crisis! There is something else I need to tell, a lot of people around me was not approving this aggression. I guess they simply couldn’t accept this harsh criticism or they might have judged it as more political. I was “political” since I was schooling. I invited Sunil Aiya to visit my wallpaper and he came with Professor Somarathne Balasuriya (he is the translator of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”). He went through the pages and gave some comments. By the time he didn’t forget to convey a warning message too; “You are so young, be careful.. this is not a good time”.

In the meantime, one of the students invited me to write to a weekly magazine and he didn’t mention what it was. (Later, I found out that he was lead by a JVP activist)

I didn’t know the scale of trouble I was heading to, but one incident clearly gave me a red light. I was hanging around Kotte where I had a lot of friends. Actually, I was sitting on a half wall talking to the friends.. We saw a couple of people were at a distance with a broken down motor bike as it was shown.. One of my other friends was coming passing those two strangers and he asked me whether you know those fellows.. I said “no, seems their bike is giving trouble” He replied with an amazement “But they were telling your name in a whispering voice and pointing at you!”

Everything came in to my mind with a flash. What Sunil Aiya told and etc. I understood that we were playing with fire. I simply stopped writing much radical type things and updating the Wall Paper was not done.

It was a dark age in deed. Youths were killed and burnt with tires here and there. Apart from the rebels, a lot of people died without any reason. Both rebels and government bodies sometimes diverted their guns to stop all kinds of rivals.. Sometimes to stop journalists, artists and for personal reasons too! In one such incident, a dozen of school children was labeled as rebels and killed for a personal reason lead by a minister (namely Nanda Mathew!) Not only him, most of the powerful people got their personal things done and accounted to the revolution. Some of the civil activists and intellectuals left the country for their own survival. Still I feel pathetic to see some of the ministers who approved brutal killing, being the members of that cabinet in that era, are now behaving like very honorable politicians. (this included our current speaker in the parliament Mr. V.J.Mu Lokubandara!)

Now it is 2009! No one talks much about the lost revolution and the crisis we faced 20 years ago, but I have my emotions with the tragic incidents happened in front of my eyes.

When I recall those past incidents I see Sunil Madhawa Premathilake as a great giant who fight against authorities on behalf of people.. he is a role model of a great journalist!

Recently, I saw Sunil Aiya at Borella bus stand. I knew he is with his noble dreams of a better world..!

Nandana Marasinghe : a fallen bird !

I haven’t seen Nandana Marasinghe. But I have heard & read about him. He seems to be a real man with a lot of admirable qualities. He was with dreams of a nice and equal society in Sri Lanka. Difference between all other people who see dreams & Nandana was significant. He worked hard to make those dreams realities. He was an artist, musician, poet, humanitarian , visionary, rebel, great husband and a great father.

He is a founder member of JVP. In 1971, he fought to make a better change in Sri Lankan society. He is also the creator of famous “Vimukthi Gee” concert. He was more in to love humanity & mankind while fighting for a better world..Such straightforward and broad attitudes towards the revolution was quite strange for a party like JVP, I believe now. When it comes to the second (lost) revolution in 1989, Nandana was doing his social duties independently (he left JVP!), but very firmly. So JVP killed him. He was so pathetically shot at Anuradhapura pola, in October 1987. Old JVP members knew how many times Nandana had saved Wijeweera’s life in 71! “Vimukthi Gee” is still being sung by JVP without knowing that they killed the person who wrote!

Some people believe this killing lead to another killing of a giant figure in Sri Lankan politics & Sinhala cinema; that’s Wijaya Kumaranatunga. Since Wijaya was a close friend of Nandana, he had delivered a quite aggressive speech at Nandana’s funeral pointing fingers to JVP. In fact, JVP decided to get rid of Wijaya too, without any delay.

When I entered the University in 1996, there were JVP supporters with a lot of theories about two lost revolutions. I was very much keen on these political activities. Sadly, most of them didn’t know about people like Nandana. The poem (by famous Rathna Sri) attached below was written about Nanda Marasinghe on the wallpaper called “Prabathaya” in the “Open Canteen” which I happen to do the editing. You can still see this wallpaper hanging on the “Open Canteen” of Colombo University.


It is so surprising to talk about the general knowledge of the students. At that time there was a student leader whose surname too was Marasinghe & they have thought this poem is about him..! What other things could I say.. as far as I know Rathna Sri is not a joker but a very respectable poet!!

At Nandana’s funeral Wijaya has openly questioned “What kind of revolution one can do by killing such people…”

Not Nandana, Nor Wijaya is in our society today!

I think our society is greatly suffering from lack of ideal people.. We still have leaders and artists in our society, but still there is lot of room for real people with real human touch & better sensitivity!