FOCUS ON BOOKS
Professor Sunanda Mahendra
Title: Palitha Perera Samaga Sajiva Lesin (Live with Palitha Perera)
Publisher: Surasa Books, 2008
Page count: 391
Price: Rs. 475
Agonies and ecstasies of a broadcaster
A veteran broadcaster, media person, a lyric writer, administrator
and well known cricket commentator has written down some memoirs over
the years with a central intention. His intention is that his
experiences and his contributions to media channels, especially the
sound medium would be good resource material for those who follow media
courses and those who take up to media activities as a profession.
The recollections are manifold. There is firstly a brief introduction
as to how he came to be a professional broadcaster spelling out his
career from a relief announcer to a scriptwriter, especially radio
features and from there to a producer reaching the apex of being an
administrator of programmes. Secondly he outlines the various types of
experiences such as encounters with celebrities at home and abroad.
This is significant, for the reader comes to grips with some rare
information from such celebrities as Martin Wickramasinghe, Professor
Senerat Paranavithana, Dr Pandit W D Amaradeva, Visharada Nanda Malini,
athletes such as Bandula Warnapura, Susanthika Jayasinghe, politicians
such as J R Jayewardene, Gamini Dissanayake and Cuban President Fidel
Castro.
Thirdly he lays down some of the features he had written in the form
of transcriptions enabling the reader to gauge the right way to write
for radio, which is a factor gradually waning off from today’s radio
channels. What is sensitively observed is his commitment to the media
channels in which one takes it seriously up to the point of some unseen
agonies out of which he had penned two or three as examples.
It looks as if a certain degree of crestfallen factor has befallen on
him in the attempt to be too clever. Perhaps this would have been the
driving factor that had helped him to bring out this collection of
memoirs and experiences.
He depicts how he had been self-groomed as a broadcaster from his
childhood as a result of listening to the classical programmes broadcast
in the late night transmission, which included serious literary talks,
discussions and classical music. All in all as a result of his sheer
enjoyment he had dreamt of being a broadcaster.
He also notes that since his retirement, he had not had the good
chance of being a committed freelancer. Perhaps he is seen lamenting
over the fact that he is more branded as a cricket commentator sans a
serious broadcaster.
I am no person to pass judgments, but I sincerely feel that one can
be happy and content with what one had done in the past. Opportunities
come and go. It is the moment and the necessity that matters. But it is
a truism that Palitha would have been utilised more for the benefit of
media channels.
This factor alarmingly is neglected, I presume, due to the media
planning concept in our country. Palitha Perera who has also travelled
far and wide engaged in media work, shows how he learned the various
techniques of interviewing from his seniors like David Frost.
Embedded in the pages one sees his vision of a liberal interviewer
and dedicated researcher in the field of broadcasting.
To his credit he had designed some of the well known programmes for
radio as well as television: Jana Mandali, Sandella and Pilisandara are
a few memorable ones. A final world of honour is reckoned for I had the
good chance of working with Palitha Perera several times.
We joined together to designing Sinhala magazine programme Nirmana
Vindana where we enveloped some of the rarest literary specimens with an
eye to help the listener enrich his/her ability to be fostered to a
better deal of listenership.
Then we designed a musical programme Atheethayen Esena Gi (songs from
the past). Palitha was the scriptwriter behind, where, as I remember,
gathered some rare materials on such artistes as Rupasinghe Master,
Rukmani Devi, Kokila Devi Weeratunga and Vasantha Sandanayaka. Some of
those old melodies still keep on haunting in us.
I am happy to note that the script he used had been rummaged from
some of his old collections and laid down in the work (240 - 249pp). A
reader will also be pleased to see his interview with Rukmani Devi,
which is regarded as the last interview with her (327 - 329pp).
These memories and experiences have an added value as a result of
some of the rare photographs and photocopies embedded by way of
illustrations to the text. Though unknown and unseen today, the weekly
magazine Listener influenced some of the learned programme directors of
the day to collect and reprint some of the broadcast material that had
gone with the air waves to the sky.
The programme designers, as they were scholarly, bent on bringing out
publications to reassure the need to preserve the invaluable broadcast
material by bringing out such periodicals as Tarangini and Guvan Viduli
Sangarava. Palita, as a keen collector of some of these periodicals now
lost to the sight, has had the added advantage of making of some of them
for his present volume.
This factor, I envisage, as a splendid function. Thus I wish to
emphasise that these pages one can move fast also act like a manual for
those budding broadcasters who take their career seriously. What one as
a broadcaster should observe and how one should prepare, and to select
most wanted material and what to question above all, are outlined not in
the form of a pedagogical manner but in the form of a creative
communicator.
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