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Random Muse:
Of sons and fathers
Sachitra Mahendra
A D Ranjith Kumara launched his biography on Rukmani Devi last week.
The hall was packed with fans of the author and the song queen. This is
neither about the author nor the song queen, but one of the speakers -
Nuwan Nayanajith Kumara, son of A D Ranjith Kumara.
 
This is my first encounter seeing a son delivering a serious speech
in his father’s book launch. Nuwan may agree so, when I tell him about
my first and foremost experience. Now, do not get me wrong. There may
have been other son-and-father (not vice versa) events, but this is my
experience.
When I was listening to Nuwan’s serious speech on Rukmani Devi and
how his father had dealt with her life story, I could not help recalling
some celebrity sons. Well, we see celebrity sons in abundance among
singers, actors and politicians. No need to say, the most lucrative
take-after is being a politician.
It is not amazing to see a son taking after his father’s profession.
We have that in our culture. The Peasant taught his subject to his son.
The village physician’s son was inherited the legacy. And evolution has
made today instilling the impulse of being either a doctor or an
engineer or at least a lawyer, no matter what your father is. It is in
an era like this, we see sons of celebrities follow their fathers. I do
not see any impressive point in a singer-son, unless he creates his own
melody rather than living on father’s songs. Actors and politicians are
different though.
Martin Wickramasinghe’s son Ranga Wickamasinghe became a doctor, but
he shouldered the Wickramasinghe foundation, and had translated some of
his father’s works into English over the years. That is to keep the
heritage alive for the offspring and non-natives.
Back to Nayanajith. His father is a journalist and an author, and so
is Nayanajith. This is not the plus point. There are enough journalist
sons in the field, and Nayanajith is more. He is not even thirty, but
has authored five serious works and is a visiting lecturer. In fact he
is the offshoot of what his father is.
It is a tough job to be a celebrity son sometimes. Your actual skills
won’t be recognised. You may get to a particular place merely because of
your credentials, but some fellows don’t get that theory. So to say Dr.
Ranga Wickramasinghe’s translation of collected short stories won the
State Literary Award this time, and some people may opine that this was
because of his celebrity father. Rarely will anybody care to evaluate
Dr. Wickramasinghe junior’s credentials to deserve such an award. This
is the dilemma of being a celebrity son!
On the other hand you are a red rag to the bulls in every corner, who
are waiting to backstab and get you down. Listen to the inspiring tale
of Nayanajith, and he tells the story of being overshot with
backstabbing. Nuwan says he could stand the alone. One plus point being
a celebrity son, perhaps, is the ability to get things done sometimes.
I was fast distracting from the speech recalling celebrity father-son
stuff. For the moment I needed to concentrate on Nayanajith’s speech,
putting the rest on the back burner.
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