Chaaminda Ratnasuriya: the (thankfully) incurable romantic of modern Sinhala lyric

Way back in the year 2004, UNHCR (Sri Lanka) wanted to run an awareness-creating campaign on sexual and gender based violence. As a part time copywriter at Phoenix Ogilvy Advertising, I helped write some lines for what eventually turned out to be a campaign that won three Abby Awards. The campaign was swept away by the tsunami, but that’s another story.

Somewhere between campaign acceptance and execution, I went out of the country. When I returned a young boy I had never seen came to me. He said he had been assigned the task of doing Sinhala versions of the relevant print advertisements. He had written some copy and was checking with me for accuracy. I expected the same line of thought with perhaps some twists considering the target audience was different. He had virtually re-written the whole thing. It was brilliant.

First encounter

That was my first encounter with Chaaminda Ratnasuriya. At the time I didn’t know he was a lyricist. That was not surprising; we know the singer but rarely bother to find out who wrote the lyrics or composed the melody. ‘Daffodil Mala’ propelled Dayan Vitharana to stardom. People loved the voice and the words. They didn’t care too much about the word-turner. Ask those who have heard the song if they know who wrote it and nine out of ten will say ‘no’. Singers, on the other hand, and of course would-be singers too, are very alert when it comes to spotting talented lyricists. Listeners don’t know Chaaminda, but those in the music industry do.

That first encounter was naturally followed by endless conversations on all kinds of topics. We discussed language and literature, poetry and philosophy and we laughed through it all. There were known writers at Phoenix. Kapila Kumara Kalinga was the ‘senior’. Then there was Udayasiri Wickramaratne, easily the most versatile writer of my generation, Vajira Mahakanumulla (who had written for Senanayake Weralliyadda and was later to write the theme song of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s first Presidential campaign) and a few pretenders like me. At one point it was decided that we should all write and produce a book of poems. It was all in fun. Udayasiri came up with a possible title ‘Loke Hondama Kavi’ (The Best Poetry in the World).

Creative work

That’s when I wrote my first ‘poem’ in Sinhala. It was titled ‘Premaya’ (Love) and was pasted on a wall that had been dedicated at the time to non-ad creative work.

mohothai
sundarai
epamanayi!

(Love: blissful, but for a moment, that’s all).

A few minutes later, Chaaminda came up to me and said he had written a poem too. He pasted it next to my ‘poem’. It was titled ‘Raagaya’ (Lust). Just three lines:

mohothai
sundarai
epamanayi!

He knew and knows economy, has an amazing sense of humour, can laugh at himself, knows enough words and knows how to pick and choose the most appropriate, he knows life. Someone described the man thus:

‘His language is replete with a keen sense of the literary, his mind is alert and given to reflection and synthesis, he has a discerning ear, is ever conscious of the change that constantly occurs around and within him, is ready and able to incorporate into his being the relevancies that transformation begets, has not skipped a beat or missed a step in the process, walks freely into the future unburdened of rancor or attachment and consistently re-invents his language.’

Composers and singers

This young man began this journey long before the Sinhala listeners got acquainted with a flower called ‘Daffodil’. In 1994, Chaaminda wrote a song called ‘Nosithu Aadaraya’ (Unexpected Love) for Ranil Mallawaarachchi. Harsha Bulathsinhala set the words to music. He’s probably written hundreds of songs since then. He reckons that around 80 have been put to music. Being a harsh critic of his own work, Chaaminda says that around 10 and no more could qualify as ‘good’.

Apart from Dayan’s song, ‘Radical Premaya’ (Radical Love) and ‘Romantic Opera’ sung by Kasun Kalhara, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Ameesha’ (sung by Kithsiri Jayasekera, music composition by Kasun and Nedeeka Guruge respectively), and Mal pita mal (Flowers upon flowers) by Amal Perera are frequently played on FM channels. Artists, typically, seek audiences. They need to share.

I believe that Chaaminda is an explorer, and that we (i.e. those who are privy to his journey-notes, replayed by composers and singers) are the happy recipients of a slide show of special landscapes of thought, reflection and insight as such he captures in words. His poetry offers us cuts into landscapes our eyes pass over but do not see. These visuals, naturally, are not limited to coverage of the physical. Indeed, that which is tangible, immediate, stark and vivid, are but metaphoric instruments which he uses to delve into that vague and indeterminate that surprise, torment, inspire and fulfill us.

He’s told me that he has been inspired by the work of Sri Chandraratne Manavasinghe, Mahagama Sekera, Augusto Vinayagaratnam, Lucian Bulathsinhala, K.D.K. Dharmawardena, Premakeerthi De Alwis, Bandara K Wijetunga and Dharmasiri Gamage, i.e. all the ‘greats’ who came before.

He has never once claimed to be equal or even within touching distance of the lyricists revered by us all. He’s always claimed he is a student, nothing more. Not just of language and literature, I might add, never mind the fact that both ‘Radical Premaya’ and ‘Romantic Opera’ are landmarks in the evolution of his chosen genre.

Chaaminda knows words and therefore how to turn them according to whim.

There is discipline, however, when exercising freedom. This is what makes him a poet and not an essayist or a churner of word sequences whose lyricism is dependent on alliteration and rhyme and nothing much else. They touch us, they go. Chaaminda’s words are made for longer residency and engagement.

Music and lyrics

We live in times of plenty. Plenty of cheap, transient and forgettable things. Music and lyrics included. We live in splendid times.

There is splendour in the amazing creative energy among the youth, especially in the field of music. The cheap, thrills, but only for a while.

That which has more value marks presence and sinks lower and lower to the depths of our sensibilities. That’s how ‘foundations’ are made, of culture, knowing and appreciation. If the Sinhala song survived the tidal wave of pedestrian commerce, that survival rests on the work of some hardly-celebrated individuals. In music, the best and lasting of our singers and composers will acknowledge, I am sure, that Chaaminda Ratnasuriya was ‘strength’. And comfort too.

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