Visual pilgrimage to cultural heritage

PILGRIMAGE: 'The Heritage of Buddhist paintings of Sri Lanka', an exhibition and documentary film on Buddhist paintings now on at the National Art Gallery will conclude on May 10.

This event, held to mark this year's Wesak celebrations, is organised by the presidential secretariat with the involvement of youth of the Samastha Lanka Buddha Shishya Sammelanaya.

The objective of the event is to provide a glimpse of the island's rich traditions of paintings on the surfaces of ancient caves, temples, monasteries, royal palaces and stupas.

Dominating art traditions of our country, Buddhist paintings are among the most gentle and sublime art of mankind. Some are among the oldest surviving Buddhist art of South Asia. Buddhist paintings are known to generate inner calmness and invoke serene joy and emotion in people, irrespective of their religious or cultural backgrounds.

They transcend artistic and aesthetic appreciation and appeal to some thing higher and deeper.

These fascinating pictures will take their viewers back to the richness of the Nation's Cultural traditions.

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Return of the Allegakoen Sisters

Arul Sathya

TAMIL MUSIC: Those who watched Allegakoen sisters singing Tamil Christian songs with a different note on Rupavahini in the morning hours on Easter Sunday would definitely have wondered where these sisters were all these years, because the songs were captivating and divine.

Those who had seen these sisters for the first time as I did, would mistakenly identify them as belonging to the Burgher community because they are fair as them and dress like them but indeed they are originally from Chundikuli, Jaffna.

The singing sisters, Chandriha, Radhiha and Depaha all were born and bred in Colombo and are past pupils of Methodist college. They are back again on public platform to sing light music and Christian songs after a long period of hibernation.

The Allegakoen sisters say that their voice and the singing talent were God given. Hence, they do not want to commercialise and use it to make money. They are keen to point this out as the reason why they did not continue their singing career when they were offered teaching jobs at international schools.

"Yes, when we sit and think back, we realise it was a mistake we made by not utilising the opportunities offered by radio and TV stations just because we happened to be teachers," accepted Chandriha, the eldest.

Since 1986, Allegakoen sisters have performed many programmes on radio and Rupavahini such as Arangetram, Udaya Geetham, Sangamam, Olith thendral, Ayubovan, Savasngeetha, Kalai Arangam etc. Later, they curtailed their performances only in Sunday choir. Although they have the ability of singing classical songs in English, most of the songs are in Tamil. The specialty of their style of singing is mixing western classical in Tamil songs.

"As most of our songs remain as light music and Christian songs, we were able to infuse Western style in Tamil traditional singing in appropriate junctures which gave them a polished look and was able to satisfy the expectations of the listeners," explained Radhiha.

The sisters are quite proud of their surname Allegakoen as their great grandfather S. A. Allegakoen was a proctor known at the Jaffna legal circle as silver tongue of Jaffna Bar. Their father R. W. D. Allegakoen also excelled in the legal profession as well as in tax consultancy.

"Our mother was the only guru who taught us music and guided us because she herself was an excellent flute player. My mother Thavamani Devi learnt flute from the famous south Indian veena pandit Seetharam and she had her own carnatic classical music group which comprised her family members.

Her group played public stage performances in Colombo as well as at Colombo Radio Ceylon in 40s and 50s added Depaha the youngest sister.

It is good that the Allegakoen sisters have come back to the Tamil music scene but it is better for them to utilise all the chances that come across as the Sri Lankan Tamil musical world is very badly in need of talents which can go beyond the traditional limitations and experiment with fusions the way Allegakoen sisters do.

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Now, Satyajit Ray a click away

CINEMA: Enter the world of Ray from today-through a new website, satyajitrayworld.com. Founded by the Satyajit Ray Society, the website allows Ray lovers to download and print rare posters, book-covers, music notations, sketches and illustrations done by Satyajit Ray-an integral part of his film-making.

Among the posters you can download are the ones drawn by Ray himself-Debi, Joy Baba Felunath, Apur Sansar.

"We want that younger audiences across the world should be aware of the multi-faceted talent that Ray was. Some rare downloadables-available on the website from today-are a picture of costumes of Hirak Rajar Deshe, original music notations of a song from Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and the set design for Sonar Kella", Arup K De, CEO of the Satyajit Ray Society told Hindustan Times.

This official site on Ray also offers surfers two new stories written by the maestro, Syaldebota-a Feluda tale and Patalbabu Filmstar-a story translated by Ray into English. What is also going to be important for hordes of Ray fans is a special section called ``Ray news'' which stocks up on all key Ray events across the world.

"Portugal recently honoured Ray with a posthumous lifetime achievement award, followed by an exhibition of Ray memorabilia by Spain-where Charulata's saree worn by Madhabi Mukherjee in the film and clothes worn by the great master were exhibited. The Ray Society, on request, sent the items," De said.

The website also offers a piece on Ray by Kathleen ``Connell-who teaches a course on Satyajit Ray at the University of Toronto.'' Connell, in her piece, narrates the story of her meeting with Ray and how she got to translate some of his works into English.

The Satyajit Ray Society is also collaborating with the Academy of Motion Pictures, California on the restoration and preservation of Ray's films. The search is also on for a local vault to preserve a copy of the films-which the Academy is gifting to the Ray society.

"We are also planning to launch a national awareness campaign on Ray. Funds may be forthcoming from the Ford Foundation'', said D N Ghosh, President of the Society.