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Poojacha Poojaneeyanam!:
Honour where honour is due!
Amaranath JAYATILAKA
When I saw the picture of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, paying his
affectionate respect to the Maestro Amaradeva on his 82nd Birthday, it
had an immediate strike in my mind to a picture I had preserved with me
dating back to more than forty years. It was a picture appeared in the
weekly film newspaper "SCREEN" published in Bombay where the great
Indian Leader Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, the most distinguished Statesman of
India, paying his respect to the great Indian Maestro Ravi Shankar by
hugging him affectionately.
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President Mahinda Rajapaksa hugs Pandit W. D. Amaradeva |
The magnanimous gesture of the President is an omen of what more
great things he will be capable of doing in the years to come with the
progress and development of our country under his dynamic leadership.
This sort of noble gesture can be done only by a true and honest leader
who genuinely love our motherland and our people.
Having realized the true nature of the vision and the mission of our
President I have become a great admirer of him. In an article I wrote,
to a daily newspaper I pronounced wrote:
"More than half a century after Independence a genuine Leader with a
far-sighted Vision and a clear-cut Mission, who will in the years to
come go down in History as the "Architect of New Sri Lanka in the 21st
Century", has emerged to lay the strong foundations in every sphere of
National Development to usher in not only Peace but also Prosperity for
the glory of our motherland: Sri Lanka.
This visionary leader is none other than the President Mahinda
Rajapaksa who only the other day pronounced yet another inspiring words
in his message to coincide with just concluded Presidential Awards
Ceremony. He wrote thus: I personally feel that if the State is more
forcefully and positively involved, the Sri Lankan sign in the world
cinema can be easily established.
Thus it is under the dynamic leadership of the President Mahinda
Rajapaksa who is the epitome of a Leader who practises Buddhist Adage of
Yathawadi Thathakari-Thathawadi Yathakari (He speaks as he does, he does
as he speaks) this noble mission can be fulfilled to implement a New
Cinema for a New Sri Lanka which will eventually lead to Sri Lanka
becoming the Light of Asia."
As it is the vision and the mission of President Mahinda Rajapaksa to
"Make Sri Lanka - The pride of Asia", it is the duty and responsibility
of each and every artiste connected with all the Fine arts in Sri Lanka
not only to support the President, but also to motivate and influence
all patriotic citizens of our country to support him for another term to
enable him to fulfill his noble mission of developing our motherland
into that of a great nation in this world.
Moreover with his hugging tribute paid to Maestro Amaradeva he has
proved beyond all doubt that he is the one and only leader who can
elevate all the fine arts of our country into great international
heights.
As the President Mahinda Rajapaksa has proved that he is a great
Statesman of the calibre of Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, the architect of
modern India, I pay my homage to our President for having already laid
the strong foundation to build a modern new Sri Lanka by the year 2016.
Therefore I strongly urge all our colleagues in the Fine arts of Sri
Lanka to rally round him to enable him to fulfill his promise and to
complete his mission within the next six years as envisioned by him and
to be able to implement the national development plan that will bring
everlasting prosperity to our motherland. |
