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| Tuesday, 28 September 2004 |
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Investigative reporter and creative communicator
I was referring to the young innocent man, who turned to be a terrible criminal around late sixties, and was sentenced to be hung, which I presume was the last victim in the line of capital punishment imposed by any legal court in Sri Lanka.
The journalist Gamage, who is no more, was assigned to cover the legal proceedings as well as the rest of it to a Sunday Sinhala newspaper where he was a staff writer. Responding to my question, Dharmasiri Gamage said. "It's very interesting to know how Siripala become a criminal. He was a bright student from his early stages of primary education. One day the son of the principal of that particular school happened to have a great brawl with Siripala. In the first instance, Siripala had forgiven the son of the Principal. But the matter had not settled for that son of the Principal had started making various torturous problems that ended up in Siripala getting nervous. So Siripala had hit the boy so hard that it was reported as an attempt to kill him. The supporters of the Principal's son, who reported the matter distorted the actual event of happenings that followed. The result was that the Principal concerned had given Siripala a severe punishment of tying him to a post and allowing poisonous black ants to bite him. At a particular moment, Siripala had fainted off, and when released felt so dizzy, that he was quite unable to walk properly. Later on when he recovered from the trauma, he had pondered over the matter. What happened next is the most important point, for Siripala wanted to give up education, but felt that a revenge could be possible by punishing his opponent, the Principal's son. What did he do?" Dharmasiri posed for a moment and narrated the rest of the drama of real life. "He got a sharp blade and hid himself on the way to the Principal's house, trying to meet the opponent. As he was walking toward the house, Siripala caught hold of the opponent and made sharp cuts in several places of the boy. While the son of the Principal was physically tortured in this manner, Siripala fled away as far as he could, which resulted him coming to Maradankadawala, in the North Central Province". This true narrative as rendered by Dharmasiri made the group of young students spell bound and we found an uncommon sort of person in Dharmasiri. He had left no stone unturned in this drama of real life. He had unearthed all the aspects of the romance of Siripala and his fiancee Ranmenika, which culminated in the making of a popular as well as human interest film, shown at home and abroad. He made use of his source material for his own film scripts, short stories, novels and his speeches delivered from time to time. To his credit he had a horde of material collected from his travels, and kept copious notes on bits and pieces of paper. Dharmasiri was seemingly a relaxed person, but at the same time was engaged in more than one function. He was a wonderful pleasant friend who would go out of his way to help others. Though he suffered a lot, he never showed it openly to others, which was a remarkable point in his lifestyle. A lot more could be penned about his delightful nature and companionship. One significant point is that he wanted to scout out few talents which he did to his best via the periodicals he edited. The 'Yovun Janatha' is one such example. When he was felicitated recently by the new group of writers called 'ranweta', we came to know more about him. The more we come to know about him the more we love him, and he would be remembered for many more years to come. Dharmasiri Gamage the investigative writer is no more, but his findings remain for years both in the capacity of research into actual life and source material for creative communication process. He made use of his findings in two of his Sinhala films, 'puja' and 'yasa isuru', and travelled far and wide introducing to the reader various significant places, they may not have visited. |
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"How did Siripala become such a terrible criminal?" I asked
my good friend Dharmasiri Gamage, during the course of a lecture delivered
to a group of young students of communication studies.
