Coward Of The Big Country

I've got completed another two movies of Gregory Peck's movie marathon. "The Gunfighter" (1950) and "The Big Country" (1958). Gunman was not a big deal, but I guess I have something to talk about " The Big Country ", because I felt that there is some link; a similarity; between my all time another favorite hit by Kenny Rogers', " The coward of the county". Kenny..! I have talked about his "20 years ago" in a previous post.

Big country was a Western classic. About cowboys, horses, drink and Guns. And also, the dessert, water, ranches and sunny hot days. I'm seriously wonder how those country folks could live there without trees. And dust all over with wind. And specially how they wearing those heavy cloths all day with that kind of a temperature. 

I guess it's the same environment that we have with our Nuwara Kala Viya area. But thanks to our ancient Kings and officers and people, we have our own man made water reservoir system that still can be used in those areas without only depending on natural resources. So I guess we do not see that dull brownish sunny look which have captured by the camera lenses in big country there, on our country. We still have the stocks of blue and green into some extent. But if we don't get much careful, the stocks would be soon get over and it would first hit on rajarata nuwara kala Viya area.

I have never been able to spend my time to breathe the breeze of Nuwara kalawiya till it get sunken into my lungs, heart and brain yet. You can never do that by just only spending few hours in there, because most of us spending most of those hours around ruins and lakes. But I have got this precious book which says most of the things about Nuwara kalawiya and its people and the life of its 80s; the tragic days. "Vav bandi rajjaye sawaariyak" by Edmund Jayasuriya. If you can read it by heart then you can certainly feel the colorful breeze to somewhat extent. 

Okay, now back to the big country and county coward. Gregory Peck aka McKay was a newcomer to this county. He's gonna marry the county's high class leader Major Terrill's daughter, Patricia, who he met in the city. County is divided into two sides, Poor class and High class. Poor side lives like savages, beyond a canyon. They are uneducated, but work to the word. They have a leader too, Hannassey. Straight, proud and powerful. But his son and son's two other companions are high nuisance to the whole county. Peck's fiancée have a wonderful teacher friend who has not taken any side of them. She inherited a water way land, which they called "muddy", from her grandfather who was always the peacemaker between the two sides. Muddy was what each sides are fighting for but she is not selling it to any of the sides but offer both of the sides to use the water very willingly. 

So for our McKay, on his first day to the county, he met with the Hannassey boys and had some trouble in front of his girl. He take it as a joke and nothing else. But she take it as serious harassment and her farther too. Major got a obedient servant foreman youth called Leech.  Leech has a eye on Patricia. Major and Leech and their clan ran after the Hannassey boys. As they were no where to find, they do some damage to the Hennessey's area. And that's where fight start to go out of the limits. 

Leech was a strong man. He doesn't like the intervention of McKay to the county. Specially because of Patricia. He always try to bring up McKay into a fight to show he is the strongest one here and to show McKay was not belongs here as well as to show Patricia McKay was not suitable for her. But our McKay has a different personality. He repeatedly refuses to go with fights when he was invited. When Leech challenged him to ride on a troublesome horse called Old Thunder in front of others, he refused. But secretly with a lot of hard effort he do it. Only the horse worker Ramon sees this, but McKay kept it as a secret between him. 

With this repeated refusals to prove his manhood, everyone in the household sees him as a coward, including Patricia. But McKay do not need to prove his manhood to others. His principle was to prove it to himself alone. He do not care what other people think about him, because of his thinking, he is not responsible for what people thinks, but what he is. This theory is only understood by the teacher friend Julie. He wanted to buy the "Muddy" from her to develop and live in there with Patricia. And also wanted to keep the same policy about the water, unrestricted access to the water for both sides. Julie agrees. But Patricia had other plans about the land like as her father. So the engagement breaks off.

Before that McKay alonely goes on a journey around the big country. He was repeatedly advised he would get lost. But he was not considered it. He had a plan in his mind no one knew. It was the journey to persuade Julie to sell the land for him. After the talking with Julie, he was little bit late to be back home. So a search party goes with Leech thinking he was lost. But McKay came back all in one piece and told the search party he was never in danger. Affairs between Leech and McKay suddenly goes to the top with a quarrel for making all the trouble. McKay didn't need a fight. He refuses the fight in front of Pat and others, making her all disappointed. Early next morning, before anyone was awake, McKay calls Leech for the fight to settle the quarrel. No one was presented to witness it, as it was too much early and held in a barren land. It was ended up both being exhausted. It was a draw. At the end McKay asked Leech what was they proved by this fight. This makes Leech's understanding of McKay into a whole new level. He started to respect him for his thoughts.

At the end....... Well it's up to you. Check it out what happened to the Mckay and Julie. It's up to you to find out, did he ever fight again to prove his manhood.

Well don't you think the story is same like the song of Kenny Rodger's "Coward of the County" released in 1979. McKay being relived again with Tommy. I was get into know this song was inspired for a TV movie with the same title. And Kenny was acting as the uncle as the song says. The plot of the movie is true to the song lyrics.

Anyway, enjoy and feel the similarity...

Everyone considered him the coward of the county
He'd never stood one single time to prove the county wrong.
His mama named him Tommy, but folks just called him yellow,Something always told me they were reading Tommy wrong.

He was only ten years old when his daddy died in prison;
I took care of Tommy, 'cause he was my brother's son.
I still recall the final words my brother said to Tommy,
"Son my life is over, but yours has just begun".

[Chorus]

"Promise me, son, not to do the things I've done
Walk away from trouble if you can.
It won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek
I hope you're old enough to understand,
Son, you don't have to fight to be a man."

There's someone for everyone, and Tommy's love was Becky.
In her arms he didn't have to prove he was a man.
One day while he was working, the Gatlin boys came calling
They took turns at Becky, n'there was three of them).

Tommy opened up the door, and saw Becky crying.
The torn dress, the shattered look was more than he could stand.
He reached above the fireplace, and took down his daddy's picture.
As the tears fell on his daddy's face, he heard these words again:

[Chorus]

The Gatlin boys just laughed at him when he walked into the barroom;
One of them got up and met him half way cross the floor.
When Tommy turned around they said, "Hey look! old yeller's leaving,"
But you could've heard a pin drop when Tommy stopped and locked the door.

Twenty years of crawling were bottled up inside him.
He wasn't holding nothing back he let 'em have it all.
When Tommy left the bar room, not a Gatlin boy was standing.
He said, "This one's for Becky, as he watched the last one fall. (And I heard him say, )

"I promised you, Dad, not to do the things you've done
I walk away from trouble when I can
Now please don't think I'm weak, I didn't turn the other cheek,
And papa, I should hope you understand
Sometimes you gotta fight when you're a man".

Everyone considered him the coward of the county.

Elephant Walk to a Digital Book Archive

It was all started by from a moment when a school batch mate of mine was publishing a FB request for a clue on getting the book called "Elephant Walk" written by Robert Standish in 1949. According to her there was a Sinhala translation as "Ali Paara" (අලි පාර) but she wanted the English one.

Elephant Walk..... Hmmm... I felt it like a familiar name. Not because of "Elephant Pass" (අලිමංකඩ) in Jaffna but for the name itself; Elephant Walk.

Yes! it was the movie I heard of sometime back. The Hollywood movie filmed in Sri Lanka, aka Ceylon in 1954. I never had watched it fully before and never had learnt that there was a popular book among the Sri Lankan community and the film was based on it. I just have seen only few clips here and there, totally because of the reputation it had as a story happened in Ceylon, nothing else. It is wrong to say that I was much eager to watch it, but it was somewhere in the waiting list, totally due to the reasons I mentioned earlier; the film locations are in Ceylon and film was about something in Ceylon.

So after this, the priority was increased for the movie in the waiting list; told my friend that there is a movie on it; she was interested; told her where to find it; and there I was watching it too.

I don't think the whole story heavily got my attention, but should say a big budget and lot of effort clearly visible on it. I'm still wondering how they managed to handle such a large herd of elephants. Specially on the scenes when elephants invaded into the bungalow while hero and heroine escaping from the tragedy. And also it should be a high cost in doing the estate scenes with local people managing the cholera incident. And I don't know whether they had actually built that large mansion.

When talking about the story of the movie it was mainly about pride, according to my opinion. The story targets on describing the pride in two perspectives; pride of a man and pride of an elephant. I still don't know whether the movie and the book are exactly the same. According to the plot of the movie, [SPOILER ALERT!!!] it starts with John Wiley who was a tea planter, bringing his newly wedded bride to his home at Elephant Walk, Ceylon from England. I don't know where that place Elephant Walk is in Sri Lanka, because I have too much doubts about the place. It should be a place where it has tea plantations, should be wild as elephants are hanging around, and should be a place that can go to Polonnaruwa and come back in a horse ride within a day. I seriously wonder what that place could be. The Bungalow at Elephant Walk was built on a elephant walk by his farther; Tom Wiley; as to symbolize his pride and dignity. The local elephants are always showing the violent resistance for invading their territory. His farther is dead by now and his grave is also in the garden. Due to his faithful servant Appuhami (played by an Burmese actor), Tom Wiley is still ruling the place from his grave. All the traditions and living styles are still in place without a change as Tom Wiley's days. The new bride Ruth, doesn't like the way things happening around and both Appuhamy and John doesn't like she messing around with the traditions of the house. So the love between John and Ruth is fading gradually. With the unpleasant atmosphere in the house, the relentless behavior of her husband that she is seeing now and fearing that he is becoming like his father, as what she heard from the rumors about his father, the distance among her and him is getting widen. The plantation manager who works under John is Dick Carver. She feels he is a pleasant, attractive, smart and different among the friends of her husband, who are all drunken heads like as John.

As she was the only white woman in the whole district , she is getting closer to him day by day. One day after a fight, when she loosen her patience with John, she drove away with Dick to go to the Colombo, planning to go to England. But the road was blocked due to the cholera outbreak news on that day in the estate. I guess this atmosphere gives much color to the John Wiley character played by Peter Finch. Even though the John is a crazy drunken head, from this moment it shows how he cared about the estate, its local people and how responsible he is for his work. He is no longer that careless drunken head. And here you can see Peter Finch is carrying a little local kiddo to protect him from the disease. Lucky little kiddo!! Now hearing the news, Ruth and Dick came back to the bungalow and give their fullest support to overcome the cholera spread. Whatever the arguments Ruth having with John, she gives all what she can do for the local people. By seeing how hard she works for his master's estate and the people, Appuhami beginning to respect her. By seeing how hard worker and responsible man John is like as she knew him before in England, Ruth beginning to forget the arguments. When the cholera outbreak is getting over, John tells both Ruth and Dick that they can leave, without looking a glance at them, meaning that he no longer care about Ruth. So Dick and Ruth decided to leave even though she have a little hesitation to leave John. Before moving out Ruth takes a nap in the bungalow finally after the long hard days and the only servant in the bungalow was Appuhami. Locals are busy with recovering from the cholera outbreak and both John and Dick are gone help them. As there is no one to be alert about the elephants, those fierce animals invade into the Bungalow in hostile manner and no one to stop them this time. When hearing the news of elephants stampede towards bungalow, the first person who looks whereabouts of Ruth is John and hearing that she is in bungalow, the first person who went there is John. Meaning that he still cares about Ruth, and hidden it under his arrogant behavior all these days. Finally he rescued her. But Appuhami getting killed by 'the' elephant on the grave of his master.

So that's how the things getting along. As I said earlier the movie was about something in Ceylon and it was filmed in Ceylon. So the major cast came into Ceylon in 50s for the shooting [1], and the actress who came to Ceylon to play the role of Ruth was Vivien Leigh, but you would not see her as Ruth in the film. It was originally planned as a husband and wife film with Leigh and her husband Olivier. But Olivier was unable to commit for this film as he had other work to do. So Peter Finch was selected as John. After few days on location shooting with Leigh and the cast in Ceylon successfully, she was suffered with mental breakdown [2] and was unable to continue with the film and eventually dropped out. The character Ruth was then replaced by Elizabeth Taylor and most of the scenes filmed on Leigh in Ceylon have to be drop out. The scenes that can be changed into Liz under studio environment with technical effects were only used. So if anyone thinks that Liz came to Sri Lanka for the Elephant Walk, then it's untrue. All work done with Liz happened in a studio [5]. The budget was increased due to the Leigh's problem and the replacement work and most of the nice shots done in Ceylon with Leigh were utterly wasted.

Reference

[1]: Vernon Corea Tribute Blog. (2013, Aug) Tag Archives Elephant Walk [Online]. Available:  https://vernoncorea.wordpress.com/tag/elephant-walk/ [Accessed October, 2016]
Vernon Corea was a legendary Radio Ceylon/SLBC and BBC Broadcaster. This blog contains more information with images about the movies filmed on Ceylon. Here is another link for information on films where locations were used as Ceylon. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/110522/Plus/plus_01.html  written by Richard Boyle, a well known British writer  who has much taste on Sri Lanka like as Arthur C. Clarke.

[2]: Richard Boyle, The Sunday Times Plus. (2012, Aug) Vivien Leigh: How Elephant Walk lost its star in Ceylon [Online]. Available: http://www.sundaytimes.lk/120805/plus/vivien-leigh-how-elephant-walk-lost-its-star-in-ceylon-7808.html  [Accessed October, 2016]
Was the reason behind behavior of Leigh is Devil Dancing? Whoa!!

[3]: Nalaka Gunawardane, Ground Views. (2011, May) Elephant Walk revisited: Mixing Tea, Jumbos and Monsoons [Online] Available: http://groundviews.org/2011/05/24/elephant-walk-revisited-mixing-tea-jumbos-and-monsoons/ [Accessed October, 2016]
Nalaka Gunawardane was a well known journalist who have easy access to every kind of modern tastes such like science, technology, inventions, movies, literature, politics, civilization....arr.... etc. written this review with the support of Richard Boyle. It's a good review with the background information.

[4]: Ceylon Memory Project. (2013, Aug) Devan de Mel Collection [Online] Available: http://threeblindmen.photoshelter.com/gallery/Devan-de-Mel-Collection/G0000cvedJngsQ.o/C0000ho.zxgezp.w [Accessed October, 2016]
Ceylon Memory Project looks like a digital archive of old photographs of Ceylon from family albums up to the year 1972. This Collection include some photographs of Peter Finch and Vivien Leigh when they are at Copacabana Night Club, Colombo with this De Mel Family. Bevis Bawa is also can be seen on them.

[5]: Greg Philip, A Lost Film, (2013, May) Elephant Walk [Online] Available: http://www.alostfilm.com/2013/05/elephant-walk.html [Accessed October, 2016]

This site includes the images of scenes of Leigh and how it was replaced by Liz with studio recreation.

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So that was the story about the production. But the big story for me is not that. As I was wondering, what could be this place, the first idea came through was "Elephant Pass". But elephants in Jaffna? (Whoa!! Never thought about that before) Seriously! How could that be possible? How does Elephant Pass got it's name when there are no elephants in Jaffna? Those are the questions in my mind and here is what I found in the Internet sphere.

"It was the Dutch who gave it this curious name. Elephant Pass is the name given to the causeway spanning the shallow lagoon that separates the Jaffna peninsula from the rest of the island. During the time when Sri Lanka was under Dutch occupation, elephants were exported from Karaitivu, one of the islands lying off the Jaffna peninsula and an annual sale of elephants was also held in Jaffna. Elephants caught in other parts of the country were driven into the Jaffna peninsula, across this lagoon, which was later bridged and given the name Elephant Pass. Elephants no longer traverse this stretch but the fanciful name still remains."

- Explore Sri Lanka : Northward Bound: Elephant Pass -

Ref : http://exploresrilanka.lk/2011/04/northward-bound-elephant-pass/

So it cannot be Elephant Pass. This Elephant Pass is not a natural elephant pass.

Then I looked at the filming locations.

Ratmalana Airport, Colombo for the airport scene
Kiri Vihara, Polonnaruwa for the temple ruin scenes
Hantana, Kandy for the tea plantation scenes
Sigiriya, Matale for the jungle and elephant scenes

How funny, three separated places.

Then I went on searching whether the book is a true story or a fiction. But I wasn't able to find much about that or about the author. Only found out the name Robert Standish was the pen name used by the author Digby George Gerahty. Also I was unable to find anything about his relationship with the Ceylon. According to the article on Sri Lankan Airlines Magazine [6], it says something like this:


"in 1952 Paramount Pictures purchased the rights of Elephant Walk, a novel by Robert Standish published in 1948. It's an example of the literary genre generated by coffee and tea cultivation in Ceylon, "the plantation drama", which began with William Knighton's Forest Life in Ceylon (1854) and continues to this day. The story is partly based on fact; a history of the Careys, a 19th Century pioneering British coffee-planting family. However, the business collapsed when St George Carey died aged just 28. [6]"

William Knighton's (විලියම් නයිටන්) Forest Life in Ceylon... hmm... That name caught my eye. Then I went on finding this book and; OMG!!! where I was lead into! A huge collection of digitized book archive; for the books now in public domain. I knew that there were so many projects on creating publicly accessible digital libraries majorly in Europe and USA for the books now in the public domain to download freely as ebooks, but never had that idea it would contain books about Sri Lanka aka Ceylon.

https://archive.org/

If you have heard of the wayback machine, then it is the same place. Their digitized book collection was another initiative to preserve knowledge and literature.

The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials; including web sites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, images, and nearly three million public-domain books. 

So here our focus is on the Internet Archive Text Archive collection. It includes digitized books and special collections from various libraries and cultural heritage institutions from around the world. When checking the books about Ceylon, I had often seen the name of University of California as the library contributor. With the support of scanning centers all around the world and financial support by many libraries and foundations it has the largest collection than any other project had. I have seen many times the name of MSN (Microsoft) as the sponsor for many books that I randomly checked on Ceylon. (But later MSN gone out of the project without any contractual restriction and donated most of their technologies). Google is also became a contributor after public users began uploading their Google books. Likewise this one got many backing from various institutions both academical and technological.

If you are a good navigator on the Internet, know all the tactics on searching, know how what keywords to use, this archive is a good place for you. Because it allows community input as well. But for the authenticity, I guess it's better to stick with reputed collections such like American Libraries, California Digital Library, University of Toronto - Robarts Library..etc. The importance of this is, you don't need to know the name or author of the book. If you want to read about a certain field of Ceylon, you can look for a categorizing topic as below.

• Using directly their topics - "Sri Lanka -- Description and travel"
• https://archive.org/search.php?query=subject%3A%22Sri+Lanka+--+Description+and+travel%22

As Sri Lanka doesn't took seriously, this kind of an initiative, for public to access the books now in public domain, freely without needing of creating any user accounts, we can satisfy at least from this. I saw a silent Sri Lankan but a high academic profile Dr. Kavan Ratnatunga who alone did the digitization on http://lakdiva.org/ with the collaboration of Project Gutenberg, contributing the free access for people on what he have.

Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture and heritage. Without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form. The Archive's mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars.

Preservation is important. That's what we can give for future generation as highlighted in the above quote. With this I remembers a certain documentary I watched sometime back about burning of Jaffna Public Library called "Burning Memories". It was happened 1981 and documentary was created in 2008 when 4th Eelam war is taking place. Whatever the wounds documentary is talking about, which one is right or which one is correct, it will gives you the thought, the preservation is important.

Reference
[6]: Richard Boyle, Serendib - The Magazine of Sri Lankan Airlines (2013, June) Elephant Walk: Gold Movie Of A Golden Era [Online] Available: http://serendib.btoptions.lk/article.php?issue=42&id=1063 [Accessed October, 2016]

A Book and Two Songs

The main grounds of writing this post is a wonderful cause. "I just finished reading the 845 pages of රණ මඟ ඔස්සේ නන්දිකඩාල් (Road to Nandikadal #R2NK)". If you are asking, Ohoo Not!! I'm not came here to comment on the book. Here, I just want to highlight the 4 verses that appears on the beginning and the end of the book that really touched me most of all. It was so soothing feeling to listen to that four verses at the end of the last page, after struggling with other pages for some time; a week or two. And also I'm here to share with you a wonderful history of another song that I was direct into when listening to that 4 verses.

The four verses...

"අවසන් හුස්ම පොද නොබියව හෙළන්නට
සිවු රියනේ හිත සතුටින් නිදන්නට
මිනිසකු විලස ඉපදුණු පල දකින්නට
පුළුවනි මරණ මංචකයේ වුවද මට"

I never heard of this song in the time of my generation on TV or even on Radio. Seems like it was highly popularized on those days but not mine days. So I was curios to know what was that song which included this four gentle verses sung by Abeywardane Balasooriya and written by Sunil Ariyaratne. Luckily I was able to find it in the Internet sphere and here is the original with the old taste. Music by Victor Ratnayake.

"ජීවිතය දෙස ආපසු හැරී බලන ගොවියෙකුගේ ජීවන චාරිකාව සහ ඔහුගේ උදාර සිතුවිලි "

අවසන් හුස්ම පොද නොබියව හෙළන්නට

සිවු රියනේ හිත සතුටින් නිදන්නට
මිනිසකු විලස ඉපදුණු පල දකින්නට
පුළුවනි මරණ මංචකයේ වුවද මට

දහදිය දිය උනේ නෑ මාලිගාවල
කඳුළැලි වැටුනෙ නෑ නිවටුන් දෙපාමුල
ගත හැඩි දැඩි උනේ ළඳුවල කැලෑ වල
කරගැට මතු උණේ නගුලට උදැල්ලට

මහ කෙත් රණ බිමට වැද ගෙන උදලු කෙටී
මේ රළු පොළොව ජය ලැබුවෙමි වැතිර වැටී
ඒ ජය මට නොවෙයි නුඹටයි ඉපිද නැතී
අද මා මළත් හෙට මා උන් සුවඳ ඇතී

පද රචනය : සුනිල් ආරියරත්න
තනුව සහ සංගීතය : වික්ටර් රත්නායක
ගායනය : අබේවර්ධන බාලසූරිය

Well... Most of the verses are general in kind and can be applicable for each and every human being, but if you take the whole song, it was a song about noble thoughts of a upright farmer who lead a honorable life. Eventhough the book was about soldiers, war and the sacrifice they make; being a farmer and being a soldier, no big difference. There is a great saying as "If you ate today, thank a farmer. If you ate in peace, thank a soldier." (I have seen often, the Indian people are highly using this quote to build up that Indian attitude) So with a small little bit of modification for the two verses "කරගැට මතු උණේ නගුලට උදැල්ලට" and "මහ කෙත් රණ බිමට වැද ගෙන උදලු කෙටී" accordingly, this is a perfect one for them; the gallant soldiers who lead a noble life.

By the way, if you take a farmer in these days, I don't think that they could ever say "දහදිය දිය උනේ නෑ මාලිගාවල" or "කඳුළැලි වැටුනෙ නෑ නිවටුන් දෙපාමුල" in this economy. Because there is no Gamaraala (ගමරාළ) culture or Gama Gedara (ගම ගෙදර) culture nowadays, which maintained a respectable position among the community those days; the days we had an agricultural economy; the days we live as an agricultural society. Gamaraala (ගමරාළ) is just only in children's books I guess and I'm even doubt that too. Just think the perception of Gamaraala (ගමරාළ) and the perception of farmer (ගොවි මහතා) you have in your mind.

Before moving onto the next song, I want to say thank you for the author Major General Kamal Gunaratne thousand times for including those four verses of this song on the book, which I never heard before in my life, more than writing the book. It was deeply touched the depth.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, now for the next song. It was a somewhat popular one in our time too if you are a radio listener. But I don't think I had ever watched it in a TV channel, but there might be a possibility of playing it in ITN or SLRC in our time. Mahiyangane Rankotha Vaasanaawan. This one was appeared on YouTube along with our precious previously mentioned four verses.

මහියංගණේ රන් කොත වාසනාවන් 
මහවැලි ගඟේ දියවර වාසනාවන් තුන්යම දුටුව සිහිනය වාසනාවන් බාල නඟෝ නුඹ මට වාසනාවන් ඉර බාරයි ඉර වට යන ගිරවුන්ට  සඳ බාරයි සඳ වට යන සාවුන්ට  මල බාරයි මල වට යන බමරුන්ට  නුඹ බාරයි මතු මතුවත් නගෝ මට මහියංගණේ රන් කොත….. ඉරගල නුවර ඉරගල පවතිනා තුරු  සඳගල නුවර සඳගල පවතිනා තුරු අපහද බැඳුණු සෙනෙහස මල් පිපෙන තුරු  මේ ගඟ ගලනු ඇත දුක සැප දෙකම හුරු මහියංගණේ රන් කොත…..

පද රචනය : සුනිල් සරත් පෙරේරා
තනුව සහ සංගීතය : සරත් ප්‍රනාන්දු
ගායනය : පියසිරි විජේරත්න

Lyrics: Sunil Sarath Perera (Not Sure)

Music: Sarath Fernando (Not Sure)

Singer: Piyasiri Wijeratne

This one was the original with the old taste. I have seen another one with the year 1992 with somewhat quality music. But I think old one can touch your heart more than that 1992 one.

Piyasiri Wijeratne

I may have heard it few times on radio and it was always a loved and touched piece of music. I guess it was really because of the both music and Piyasiri Wijeratne's voice. As it was such a long time I was not heard of it, I just click for it to play and went to put a 'like' and accidentally saw a wonderful comment. The commentator was saying it was a song from a television drama during Mahaweli project time. It was like I was saying amazingly "What??" So there after I was in my mission of finding the history of the song and here is what I found from the Internet sphere.

It seems like this was a modified song. The verses were taken from our traditional poetry related with sacred tooth relic in Temple of Tooth, Kandy. Ref: http://www.lakehouse.lk/budusarana/2007/08/28/PrintPage.asp?REF=fea05

"ගද්‍ය පද්‍ය කලාව තුළ දළදා සාහිත්‍යයත් බිහිවිය. පාලි දාඨාවංශය, දළදා සිරිත, දළදා පූජාවලිය , දළදා කාව්‍යය, දළදා සතකය, දළදා චතුර, ඒ සඳහා නිදසුන් කීපයකි. කවියන් හා උගතුන්ගේ ගෞරවයට පාත‍්‍ර වූ වස්තුවක් වූවාසේම නූතන ගීතයට ද වස්තු බීජයක් බවට පත්ව තිබේ.

ඉරගල නුවර ඉරගල පවතිනා තුරු
සඳගල නුවර සඳගල පවතිනා තුරු
මැද මහනුවර රන්කොත පවතිනා තුරු
දින ලා යන්ට නොදෙනෙමි දිවි තිබෙන තුරු

ඉර බාරයි ඉර වට යන ගිරවුන්ට
සඳ බාරයි සඳ වට යන සාවුන්ට
මල බාරයි මල වට යන බඹරුන්ට
අපි බාරයි සිරි දළදා සමිඳුන්ට"

Commentators were not sure about the name of the television drama, So I came up with few names according to the clues I got.

Surely it should be a drama done by Tissa Abeysekara for Mahaweli Authority during the time Gamini Dissanayake was the Mahaweli Minister. Mahaweli was the largest project for the country those days and needed much campaigning and Tissa Abeysekara was commissioned to create dramas on this flavor to build up this Mahaweli culture. I guess he was never a political party praiser. Anyway in my time, I think I never saw a TV drama flavoring for a government project, even for the war. It was always just programs, clips, songs and rarely one or two one-act-plays (ඒකාංගික ටෙලි නාට්‍ය). When you look at the civilization perspective, there is a wonderful sensation when politics becomes a history; a lot to learn.

According to the following reference, name of this drama should be "Mahaweli Sihinaya" (මහවැලි සිහිනය).
Ref: http://archives.dinamina.lk/baddaramalla/?sid=article&dt=2013/09/17&id=2013/09/17/b1309175

But I was unable to find this type of a name in Tissa Abeysekara's teledrama list or anywhere else. But found these three saying that Tissa Abeysekara done them for Mahaweli Authority around 1985. "Dolos Mahe Gangaawa" (දොළොස්මහේ ගංගාව), "Gangawa Tharanaya" (ගංගාවතරණය), "Thunkal Sihinaya" (තුන්කල් සිහිනය). According to facts, all three of them written by Sugath Vatagedara and "Dolos Mahe Gangaawa" was a 12 episode teledrama series and "Thunkal Sihinaya" and "Gangawa Tharanaya" was one-act-plays. I'm not sure really because I have seen none of them or heard none of them before.
According to facts "Dolosmahe Gangawa" was a teledrama depicted the life of well reputed Dimbulagala Seelalankara Thera. "Thunkal Sihinaya" story was based on a conflict between the new settlers and original settlers of the Mahaweli Project.

And also a one commentator has saying the storyline was about a middle aged Mahaweli Officer who was secretly in love with a young village girl. He never expressed his love and she gets married to a another young man. According to another commentator the story was based on a 'Mahaweli Scholarship' and another one fadedly reminds that cast was Sanath Gunathilaka & Nadeeka Gunasekara. 

Well actually I have no idea of the name or the storyline of the drama this song "Mahiyangane Rankotha Vaasanaawan" contained. But one thing for sure, it was about Mahaweli, because likewise there were many teledramas televised those days based on this theme. Hope if you can help me.

A book and two Songs. The moment for the day.

Songs of SLRC teen life and Mohan Raj

In the 90s when we were kids, advertisements were not dominated the television like as today. I guess at that time license have to be get for having a TV and radio. Also I fadedly remember that day, the budget speech at parliament, president CBK cancelled it.

So as a result of advertisements not given the priority in national television channels, when there is a time gap remained, before starting the next program, usually they played a song to fill the gap. So most of the time, it becomes one of the songs from their musical programs; Ravindra Munsasinghe's Nadun Uyana and Manohari and Sinesh Bandara Disanayake's Yaathra. Here I'm talking about SLRC. Sri Lanka Rupavahini Cooperation. Couldn't remember how ITN handled it. They didn't had much creative musical stuff I guess those days.

Note: You can find the whole (maybe season 1) Nudun Uyana episodes in YouTube if searched a lil bit. Gosh!! Robinson's Emily Chang aka Himali Sayurangi!! Those days!!! 

And if searched, individual songs from other programs also could be found without the talking bit by announcers.

I have not watched any of those musical programs, and never had any interest to watch them as a kid. (But now it's totally different) Anyway as they were used as such gap fillers on frequent basis those days, the songs and their logos are much familiar to us. Later there were so many musical programs in SLRC, but the songs were never repeatedly played as these, so I do not remember their names which later came.

Following are some highly remembered ones for me played in SLRC. And for live audience type songs, Siha Shakthi people were there as well as Keerthi Pasquale with a guitar or Jagath Wickramasinghe or Athula Adhikari at the organ sometimes.

I guess Yaathra was targeted on creativity of University environment basically.  It was an earlier day's music video show that comes with the effect of Indian and American music video impact in 90s. 

Iman Perera's songs were often played from Yaathra. Here is the Wasanthaye Mal.

Ivan Paulusha was another hit from Yaathra. That was a highly rated one as the song had a Russian flavor which was uncommon those days.

Jackson Anthony's Dasa Piyagathkala from Manohari was another catcher. I perfectly remembered he had some smiley act in there, among the live audiences as well as with the players which was rare behavior for a show those days.

Sisira Senarathne's Maage Puthuta Mal was top of the most. It was highly in the memory because of the lil kid with him. It was from the Manohari, same live audience indoor show as the above.

And here is another one. I'm not sure whether this one is from a musical program above mentioned. But anyway it shown in 9.5 (namayai paha) presented by Hema Nalin Karunarathne. Japanese singers singing Sinhala Raja Kale. Just thought to share with you as it was a moment of a memory.

Krishantha Erandaka came later. But this song Vee Paduren was also repeatedly played in SLRC later part of our teen life. 

From later arrived Nadun Uyana show, this came as another hit. Karunarathne Diulagane's Gahaka mal pipila. Thereafter she was seen in many teledramas.

Okay!! enough of going off the track. Let's get back to the subject line.

So among those mentioned above, our subject topic was also put his mark. Mohan Raj. Until this year I didn't know he was the son of well heard name, Muthuswamy Master as most of the Sri Lankans known. Mohan Raj Muthuswamy. Never saw he used Muthuswamy part anywhere in TV those days. But did a great job taking his fathers songs for another generation like us.

Ref: http://archives.dailynews.lk/2004/11/24/artscop15.html

Madura Yaame and Maa Kaatada Meka Kiyanne was played high time those days. With the Tamil accent he got, it brought a nice flavor to the Sinhala pronunciation. (When talking about tamil singers who sings Sinhala songs, Sooriyakumar Muttalage was another name comes into mind. A familiar face on TV those days and still, and looks like never goes old. Wonder who is he? Unable to find anything about.)

Mage Dhasama piyawee enne, one of my favos. I now get into heard the Master's version, but I prefer Mohan Raj's this video version because of the memory taste is much stronger than the song taste.

Apart from highly peaked Madura Yaame, (it was tooooo much played by SLRC; or were we expected it too much) he and Nirosha Virajini together were did some Tamil flavors as I remembered. It included some covers of Rehman's Roja songs. 

Seems like he was not seen anywhere in the SL media nowadays. hmmm...  But looks like ApSaRasS, his orchestra is still in action in abroad,  Oh I remember as a kid, he was a man behind the keyboard. One of my admires who doesn't look at the keys while playing and also singing at the same time too. I guess it is the toughest job in a music band. Having hands on two levels different boards, switching on things here and there.

This was the only latest appearance I could find of him in the TV media that uploaded to the internet sphere. Oh! Look so different now, compared to the childhood memories. hmmm... we're getting old too. The program is Sanhinda, telecasted in ITN. Surely should be a remembering episode for R Muthuswamy. And if he is younger than Victor Rathnayake (must be), I guess he was the youngest music director I saw who uses a Serpina (Indian Harmonium) whenever for such kind of a instant singing program, 

It's so nice to digging up the memories and search through the internet. Cheers go for the people who recorded them those days and spend some time to digitized and upload. So here we are confirming our faded memories.

Comedies at its Best - I Love Lucy

It's hard to believe that you can be obsessed with a comedy series more than 50 years old that have never known or seen the comedians in it, in your lifetime. I mean when they get all dead by, when you get born, even when they are same age as your grandparents.

And also it is very peculiar when it was all from a motivation you got by watching a small clip in it. Watch this and see whether you shouldn't be curious to know the remaining of this show.

I love Lucy: english Pronunciation by KerrieTriplett

I Love Lucy

It was a television sitcom (situation comedy) telecast from 1950s and had several seasons. Story goes along about the life of young married couple Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. One was an (extra)ordinary housewife and the other one was a Cuban born, club orchestra lead singer. This Ricardo couple is accompanied by their landlord and landlady, Fred and Ethel. Old but not so old Mertz duo.

I was all get motivated by watching that small black and white clip, shared around FB lately. If the script can include such kind of a masterpiece comedy scene which makes me ROFL, I guessed, and was curious to know, whether the whole of the show is something worth to spend some resources. And I'm correct still and now in the second season.

When it comes to comedies, I don't know many names that I can say I like them and watched them all. But I can guarantee three names. One is gonna be "I love Lucy" and the other one is half already "The Cosby Show" and the last is completely "Mind your language". I'll later come along with Cosby Show and Mind Your Language, because those obsessions were in few years back. This post is totally dedicated for "I love Lucy". But I can say there is a one common notion with all around these three. That is "What you see is not what you get". Even though you laughed rolling on the floor with their performances, their real lives were devastating. All three. You see them as funny in TV screen, but they are not in real world. It's terrible and tragic. For Mr Brown, for Mr Bill Cosby, and same goes with today's subject topic Mr and Mrs Ricardo. I guess it's a some part of that curiosity that lead me to complete the seasons after getting into know about the story of their real-life stage.

I love Lucy and she loves me.
We're as happy as two can be.
We have our quarrels but then.
How we love making up again.
Lucy kisses like no one can.
She's my misses and I'm her man.
And life is heaven you see.
Cause I love Lucy.
Yes I love Lucy
And Lucy loves me.

The popular theme intro of the show got the lyrics later in the second season celebrating Lucy Ricardo's birthday as a present from Ricky aka Desi. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fn7PKzf5tk)

Okay sorry, even though I had been able to watch most of the Mr Bean stories, I really cannot say I like it. I mean I obsessed it. I like it as a comedy but I'm not gonna obsessed it, as I'm not willing to spend my time and megabytes specifically on it. But I'll watch it, if it is free and time can be spared. Because you know Mr Bean is out of practical life. We only laughed at his excellent performance. But the other names I mentioned here are almost near to practical world. That is why they are called as sitcoms. It depicted the society at that time. So when we had a laugh, we laughed with comedians' performances and we laughed at us too. That's what I like most about I love Lucy. It is something ordinary. A perfect love story with a comedy taste. Here is the everyone's favorite episode including lead roles. According to the facts, the script says they should be overjoyed at the end. But they were unable to do that in the first take. Ricky made a mistake singing the Rock a Bye Baby, had to make remembered the next song, and make a cry rather than being joyed.  So they had to repeat the scene again. But later it was decided to use the first take with all the mess, because it was the true genuine emotions came from them which made that episode more wonderful.

Now about Mr and Mrs Ricardo aka Lucille Bell and Desi Arnaz. They are a married couple in real life too. Happy couple ended as unhappy couple, and then the show was ended with them too. So sad. In their time, they were the iconic married duo in show business, build up a production house together; Desilu Studios, and produced the greatest TV sitcom "I Love Lucy" which was able to put a mark in the TV comedy industry and was a industry changer and more else; the pioneers in the change. And also few movies based on "I Love Lucy". Wonder what happened that makes it all destroyed, but good to know they've been good friends, long distant lovers even after the separation. What can say. Beautiful Disaster. Typical American celebrity culture!

As in the show, Desi was a Cuban, club orchestra lead singer. (In those days if you know, the club bands are huge as orchestras) His family came to America as refugees due to the Batista Revolution. You can see how emotional he could be talking about this matter in real life, when watching this clip. Isn't this sweet! He talks after Lucy speaks. Quality video in here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkpVZUZ7Hk)

Whatever the world says, I perceived, they are a happy couple as Ricardo's or as Arnaz's. Far better than couples in fiction; novels and movies. You know there is lot to learn from real life stories rather than fiction. As now I'm an official Lucy&Desi fan, I was able to find these clips where they've participated in game shows those days. Difficult to say whether they are acting as comedians in real life too. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck4ip6iCDMc) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=902ei_Xp21A) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4DFYNLa8cI)



Desi is a quite crazy Latino. According to the others at that time, he was a quite under appreciated, underrated person, both in front of the camera as well as behind the camera in the industry, because he is a Cuban.

What is the story he is telling? LOL!!!...

They are the greatest comedians, sweet lovers, and funny parents. They named their children with their same name. And made the birth of their son incorporated into the show as little Ricky on the same day. And almost all of the Americans have watched that episode rather than watching the inauguration of their president Eisenhower. Listen to this sweet song he made for his daughter Lucie and changed 'she' into 'he' and have it in the show for his son little Ricky as well as Desi Jr.



Oh wow!!! Look at the true emotions. And he forgets that he's in the show and says here mistakenly "I wrote it for Lucie" who it was originally written for. (He should be written it for little Ricky) Quality video of the show in here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkNJXZNuEH0) Colombia Records audio in here for the son; 'he'. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fofu0RnLGcs)

If you're watching this show, you have to ignore all the advertising in smoking in there. No wonder how people in those days became so occupied with tobacco. What to do; it was the only company who was willing to sponsor them. Because that thinking, the people would not take a Cuban fellow as red headed Lucy's husband and people would not fall into such kind of a family. The aversion towards Cubans those days. It was all Lucy who made that opportunity for him, and they proved together that thought was wrong. And too bad Desi died as a victim of tobacco with lung cancer.

This post is a tribute for all the laugh I had, whatever happened between them in real life because Desi once said "I love Lucy was not just a title". They were great performers. All the shows were taken place in front of live audience. Like as in stage dramas. But I do not know how they can record it. Really something to learn about because Cosby Show did it in the same way; in front of live audiences.

It's so coincidental I used to call some lil rascal recently as "Babalu" because he is so crazy in making bubbles in the air. And you know, I get into know that "Babalu" was Desi's signature song. What a shocking coincidence! Here how he plays it with little Ricky in the show. Quality single version in here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAV3bOJaQuY)

I wonder whether they would have ever thought, there would be a crazy fan in the other side of the world, 65 years later. Ay yi yi yi yaaa...!!!! Lucy...you got some 'splaining to do...

Wazir and Last 5 Minutes Game Changers

I want to write this post long time back; actually few months back, but didn't able to find a good timing . Even though now the Wazir Bollywood mood is replaced by Gregory Peck Hollywood taste, couldn't resist having a post for last 5 minutes game changing movies including Wazir. That's because, today, one song of HRx's Mohenjo-Daro was released and all the stacked up memories of Wazir was bumped in me.

Now let me tell you what I meant by last 5 minutes game changers. These kind have a normal flow of the story and make the viewer to believe that normal flow. Within this flow, there'd be a, start, peak and end. And end is just a perceived end, not the real end. And just before the real end, that means the last 5 minutes, the whole story turns upside down. And it's not like a ordinary turning of the story, but a turning you have to do with a logical and structural thinking pattern. You have to match each and every incident in the flow with this turning point. And for that, you cannot write this story as the mind flows. You need a perfect structure and should write between the structure. And that's how the writer can wow the viewer, not before the last 5 minutes, but all through this 5 minutes which is the real peak of the movie. And ending it just at the peak, would give a viewer a surprising shock.

I first came to know this kind of a game changer with the movie The Illusionist. It was a story about a magician. The story would make feel you that the lead role has some abnormal powers to perform his magic, but at the last five minutes it shows how each magical incident was done with just simple tricks. 95% was totally boring from beginning of the movie, but that 5% in the end will kill your boredom, give you a shock and make you to watch again to understand the missing pieces that you perceived as boring.

After Illusionist, there comes another same type game changer; The Prestige. I couldn't remember exactly the story, but it was about two magicians; once friends, then enemies. It was same about magic and tricks. And it must be the first time I heard of Nicola Tesla and his wireless light bulb.

Then after I got hold of the movie Shutter Island without knowing it was a game changer. I guess I was in a hurry, and that lead me to be caught in the middle of 95% boredom. And idiotic me gave up watching it. How bad!!

Then the most recent one, Wazir. Wazir means Queen, in India. Queen in chess. Wazir in Chathrang. This story is greatly combines the concepts of game chess with the real life of characters. It's shocking how the story uses the idea, how an innocent pawn can make a queen by going through 6 squares forward. This innocent pawn is non other than Big B, who walks through a wheel chair as he got no legs. (That should be a tragic accident)

He was a chess trainer for bunch of kids and seeking for justice for death of his daughter. Justice; that means to be Queen. Pawn makes a queen by going to the 8th row. But to go to the 8th row from the second row, he cannot do that alone, he need a protector; rook, knight or bishop. So this protector is non other than Farhan Akthar, who was a cop, lost his daughter in a raid on a terrorist, and blamed himself for the death of the child, now trapped himself in a guilt complex. So this helpless pawn 'uses' the cop to go for the Queen. And this 'use' is all described in the last 5 minutes which gives you a shocking wow, seeing how it turns the whole story upside down.

And the next thing is, for a pawn to make a queen at the 8th row, he have to gave up himself. This concept is explained marvellously in the story as "to win, you have lose sometimes". (same goes with French Chess we used to play) So to win, Big B gave up his life. To understand this 'gave up' you have to watch last 5 minutes. By risking his life, he boosted the winning post.

Wazir was a extraordinary Bollywood hit released in the beginning of this year. Apart from being a game changer and goes along with game chess, there are three other things blows my mind. One is Farhan's mustache haircut as the cop Daanish and the slow motion Tere Bin and friendship between two generations, Panditji and Daanish. This friendship remind me Babumoshai in 1970 Aanand. Companionship between Big B and Rajesh Khanna. It has the same Atrangi Yaari flavor but with different tastes.

About the mustache, yes there is something in this mustache. :P

Tere Bin is a full slow motion scenic video that plays start in the movie. It reveal a whole story of Daanish's life before this story starts. It was a really sweet one that goes through their wedding ceremony, birth of the child, and ordinary life. It was the first time I guess I saw a full slow motion music video.

The actual full song can be watch from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1mTZQ5_UZE But I feel this one is little bit faster than the original.

So this Bollywood family drama flavor is the reason why Wazir is in top of the list above the other two. Wazir has no 95% boredom margin.

Now talking about creating game changers, I think it is necessary to create a character to represent the viewer. Couldn't remember whether 'The Prestige' got a one. But the other two had. In Wazir, the cop Daanish depicted the viewer. What he feels, we feels. What he perceive, we perceive. Then at the last 5 minutes, he is the one who realizes the true facts with the viewers. In Illusionist, I guess there was a policeman to do that duty. The magician 'used' this policeman to achieve his objective as the same way Panditji used Daanish.

And that's it. If you know any other game changers which changes the whole story the other way, please tell. Cya!