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| Wednesday, 9 February 2005 |
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On stage from Nalanda
He was a chubby round-faced boy who seemed to have a permanent smile on his face. A few days later I came to know his name - L.H.S. Perera. Soon we became friends. Not thick chums but good friends. He was not one of the 'regulars' of our Lama Theeraya. In fact he was a shy lad who shunned any sort of unwanted fuss. But he was a down-to-earth chap who would openly speak his mind out at any injustice - like the wrong boy being punished for an offence done by somebody else. LHS always wore the shortest crew cut possible and he was always
smiling. If he got angry he became red in the face and his 'danger glare'
as we came to call it was a signal that most boys - and perhaps teachers
too - took notice of. Long years later in life, I met LHS at the Heneratgoda Botanical Gardens situated in my hometown Gampaha. I thought he was a visitor and asked him if he had come with his family. "No" said he in his shy way. "I am here with my family. I stay here." He added. "I am the curator here and my job is seeing to it that the garden is always in good shape." He added even more shyly. I must say the Garden WAS in pretty good shape. LHS was a perfectionist. Thank you my friend, LHS, for helping me with those two torn out sheets of paper at our very first encounter at Nalanda, although I never revealed it to you even after gaining entrance there. I believe I was too shy to admit that I was the boy from Bendiyamulla who FAILED the exam! Stage play LHS, Sylvia and a whole lot of us took part in the very first stage play that was produced by the Nalanda Dramatic Society, 'Harischandra - the Truthful'. In fact it could have been the very first stage drama produced by Nalanda - at least during the post-war period. The production of 'Harischandra' itself is a very interesting story indeed. The story of Harischandra, the Truthful, a story from the pantheon of Indian literature had been performed at the then Tower Hall too by Charles Dias, a veteran playwright of that era. Siri Aiya (U.A.S. Perera) had taken a few of us Lama Theeraya boys to see the play. But for Nalanda, Siri Aiya who taught us Sinhala, Pali and Sanskrit, wrote the play anew. It was a big day when he announced that we were going to do a play. Siri Aiya selected the cast from among the teachers and the students very carefully. A hulk of a man called B. B. Perera from the HSC class was cast in the title role of Harischandra. Mallika Kulasekera from my own class the JSC was Taramathi, the ever-faithful wife to Harischandra. And I was cast as Rohitha, their twelve-year-old son. I must have looked younger than my fifteen years to be cast so. P.T.V. James, teacher and master in charge of the hostel was cast as Sakra and Siri Aiya himself took on the role of the bad God (if I may say so) Vishvamitra. I think it was W. K. Rupasena (later to be known as Ravindra Rupasena of the early Sinhala Cinema) who played the dual roles of God Vishnu and Krishna and a very young Amarasiri Gunasena (who later captained the first eleven) played the role of the bewitching Radha. There were a host of other players, mostly from the higher grades, such as Sylvia Weerasinghe, Indrani Jayasinghe (later Iriyagolla) Piyadasa Samarawickrema, Florence Weerasinghe, Siri Liyanasuriya and my good friend L. H. S. Perera and Karunaratne Abeysekera. Stanley Jayasinghe, Indrani's elder brother who was the very first cricketing 'star' of our times too played the part of a courtier, if I am not mistaken. (I'll be coming back to Stanley J. later in this narrative) All liars The story of Harischandra is rather similar in content to that of Bertold Brecht's 'world renowned play 'The Good Woman of Setzuan'. The Gods in the heavens have a right Royal - or rather right Godly - argument about the 'truthfulness' of human beings in the world down below. Some of the more benevolent Gods, including 'Sakra', the King of Gods, feel that there COULD be truthful men and women in the human world - in spite of all the trials and tribulations and the deceptions, cut-throatism etc that humans have to live with. God Vishvamitra is vehemently opposed to the idea of human truthfulness and declares most emphatically that ALL are liars as far as the human world is concerned. I believe it is God Vishnu who then mentions the name of Harischandra - the Truthful and assures the Godly meeting that King Harischandra will NEVER lie, whatever the circumstances are. Vishvamitra challenges and vows that he will see to it that Harischandra too will lie. Sakra takes up the challenge. He challenges Vishvamitra to make Harischandra lie, if he can, and prove that there isn't a single TRUTHFUL person in the human world and so the Gods - at least Vishvamitra and Vishnu, descend upon the earth. The rest could be imagined. Vishvamitra tries all his wiles and tricks to make Harischandra utter a lie and poor King Harischandra is subjected to all kinds of misery to make him lie. He loses his wife, son and even the kingdom. Yet he wouldn't budge. He refuses to lie. Meanwhile Vishnu, who too has descended the earth in the form of a rather love-lorne 'Krishna' is seen consorting with the beautiful Radha most of the time while giving a little bit of his moral support to Harischandra to keep being truthful. Of course all end 'happily'. Vishvamitra totally fails to make Harischandra utter an untruth in spite of ALL his tricks and back in the Sakra Bhavana he accepts defeat. There is great jubilation in the Heavens and ALL Is restored to Harischandra - wife, son and kingdom et al. As much as Vishvamitra running into 'difficulties' with Harischandra, we too ran into some problems during early production days, meaning rehearsals. As I mentioned earlier, we were a sort of 'mixed' cast including teachers, both male and female, students, mostly of the upper grades, again both male and female and our director/playwright was Siri Aiya. Some, among them teachers as well as parents did NOT seem to like the idea of this kind of 'mixed grill', so to say. They must have feared that all kinds of 'unnecessary' and 'unsavoury' things could crop up with so many attractive young men, women, boys and girls put together in a 'teeter-nadagama' as this kind of thing was termed at that time. Total faith Finally they had brought this to the notice of the principal, the much revered J. N. Jinendradasa. He would have, I am sure given a careful ear to the 'protestors'. Siri Aiya or rather U. A. S. Perera was a much loved and popular teacher of the school and I believe Mr. Jinendradasa had total faith in him. But the Principal had to take some action. I am not sure how it happened, but one fine day we had a guest at our rehearsals. He was a round man with sleek black hair combed rather carelessly down and he wore a silkish national dress of a sweet cream colour. He came in with Siri Aiya and he was smiling most of the time - a wise and tolerant kind of smile. He was a bit of a ball of a man, not too tall and he moved with the ease of a relaxed athlete. There were whispers as to who this man was - especially amongst the younger lot - and it was whispered back that our special guest was none other than the great Gunapala Malalasekera. Most of us almost held our breath in disbelief. I had imagined Dr. G. P. Malalasekera to be a giant of a man, like D. S. Senanayake, with a twirled-up moustache and forbidding eyebrows. He has heard so much about this true son of Lanka and I believe I could not dissociate him with stalwarts such as F. R. Senanayake, D. S. and a host of other such 'moustached' leaders of our country! Anyway I'll be coming back to Gunapala Malalasekera and Harischandra next week. Till then, do bear with me. **** Back **** |
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And
so when I finally got into Nalanda Vidyalaya I looked around my J.S.C.
class to see if I could recognize at least the two faces of the two boys
who had helped with pencil and paper a few years ago. If my mind was not
playing tricks I thought I recognized at least ONE face.
