Sri Chandraratna Manavasinghe :

An innovative journalist, columnist and poet

by Edmund Jayasuriya

I first met Sri Chandraratna Manavasinghe in the early sixties. I had translated Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali into Sinhala, and a mutual friend, the late Henry Tennekoon, who was a freelance cartoonist for the Lankadipa newspaper suggested that I request Manavasinghe to introduce the book to the readers. I was rather diffident but remember meeting him one morning in the Lankadipa office in the Times Building at Bristol Street. He was in his late forties and was dressed in a verti, a grey sherwani, his hair dishevelled, and his unusually bright eyes, kind and penetrating.

My diffidence stemmed from the fact that he was a giant in the field of Sinhala literature at the time, a journalist of repute who had an independent style of writing and was a master of Sinhala prose.

He was also an orator of standing and a perceptive commentator on social and political affairs. I was just a greenhorn in my early twenties. He took a few months to write the introduction to Gitanjali but I believe it remains the best introduction to Tagore's poetry ever written by a Sinhalese scholar.

Manavasinghe was born on June 19, 1913 and bred in Puwakdandawa, a village far away from Colombo, in the remote Giruvapattuva in the South. Reminiscing about his childhood he says, "Kadavara Wewa is the largest of the several tanks in the village and although my footsteps on its bund may have faded by now my pleasant encounters there remain vivid in my memory.

On certain moonlit nights, my mother would lie on a mat under the jackfruit tree in the compound and stroking my head she would recite poetry or relate stories of the Buddha, which I still remember." (From an unpublished manuscript quoted by Ranjith Amarakeerthi Palihapitiya in his biography of Manavasinghe.)

Outlook

Perhaps, living among village tanks, paddy fields and temples shaped his world outlook. Once he said that all he tried to express through his poetry he gathered from his life among village tanks, paddy fields, gardens, evergreen shrubberies, hedgerows, chenas, flowers and birds.

He started his journalistic career in the Swadesha Mitraya. Later, he crossed over to Sri Nissanka's Heladiva and still later worked as an editor of Kalaya. Finally, he joined the Lankadipa in 1947 and worked in its editorial staff until 1960 for 12 years contributing his celebrated column Vaga Thuga. As a columnist, he was a pioneer in social and political commentary with a new breadth of vision and objective analysis. Many readers bought the Lankadipa to read his column, and his comments on current political and social affairs were so incisive that even the most powerful in the land took him seriously. He continued to write this column even after he left the editorial.

As a poet, he introduced the innovative Geeta Nataka (song-drama) into broadcasting (then Radio Ceylon), the first being Manohari broadcast in 1955. He wrote about 15 such dramas for the radio. Some of them he got his children and those in the neighbourhood to perform before broadcast. He derived much pleasure from it. He wrote lyrics for several Sinhala films and, quite often, when he did so Amaradeva was beside him who composed the melodies for them.

When Nanda Malini sang the popular song Galana Gangaki Jeevithe for the film Ranmutuduwa, Manavasinha was so impressed that he patted her on her head and said, "Kelle, you breathed life into my song!" True, but the words themselves are inimitable. Once he said, "If there is any charm in my songs it is nothing but the charm of my past life. I have acquired a certain 'flavour' from the journey I have travelled in this varied, vivid world, which is the fountainhead of my songs."

Goddess Sarasvati

He wrote his famous song for Goddess Sarasvati 'Jagan Mohini - Madhura Bhashini' when he was in his sick bed. He wrote it on a request made by Wimalasiri Perera for the first Sarasavi Film Awards Ceremony.

He took children's poetry pioneered by poets such as Ananda Rajakaruna, Tibetan Bhikkhu Ven S. Mahinda and Kumaratunga Munidasa a step forward. He rescued Sinhala poetry, which was restricted to a four-line mould, and added new rhythms and forms into it. In this exercise, Pali and Sanskrit poetry and folk melodies inspired him.

It was an evening in the village and he was seated in the living room of his half-built house, Vapi Mekhala, in Rattanapitiya. Casually dressed in sarong and vest and leaning against the sofa he started talking. He was talking in his resonant deep voice of the charm in Pali stanzas, the deep philosophy in Sanskrit slokas and the inexhaustible appeal in Bengali poetry, the immediate stimulant for the latter was perhaps my translation of Tagore's Gitanjali, which he had finished reading the day before. It was a treat listening to him and his deep learning and scholarship astounded me.

Awakening

Through his column, he awakened a generation. It was a time when we had lost our identity owing to colonial administration. No one was bothered, not even some scholars, intellectuals and religious leaders; they were in a stupor. Among the few who came forward for national resurgence like Mettananda, Iriyagolle, Kularatne et al, Manavasinha played a key role by awakening the people through his forceful, instructive writings.

He fought against the nationalisation of the Press. He defended freedom of thought and democracy and it is ironic that he passed away on the day the Bill for the Nationalisation of the Press was debated in Parliament.

With all his insistence on tradition and culture, he was never a conformist. Once there was the issue of Buddhist monks using money and they were accused of violating the teachings of the Buddha. Writing on this issue in his column in 1962, he says, "Life is subject to changes of time and space. The ordinance of mendicancy cannot be observed in New York or Moscow. Similarly, the ordinance for picking up cloths from dust-heaps for robes can never be observed in those countries.

Moreover, there are many countries and regions where many ordinances are impracticable because of environmental reasons. Many things in life are subject to changes of time and political system. The life that has to be led in these times is not what was led during the time of the Buddha. Those who criticise minor deviations arising out of adherence to changes of time, region and political system are those who have no real understanding of the Buddha's teaching."

Personal experience

He was unusually assured in his writing. About the skill in him, I may quote a personal experience. I was talking to him one afternoon at his home in Rattanapitiya and that day he was on off-duty. He asked me whether I could do him a favour on my way back and when I said yes he requested that the Vaga Thuga column of the following day be handed over to the Lankadipa office. He got up and went in and I thought he would bring the already written script. But no, he came back with pen and paper and wrote the column in my presence which took him no more than 20 minutes.

I still remember the subject of the column. It was about the proliferation of political parties and was a satirical essay against it. He was close to nature and after coming from office in the evening, he would spend sometime until dark near the Ehela trees or strolling round the pond in front of his house. Strangely, he enjoyed frogs croaking and could identify each one by its sound. One evening, looking at the yellow flowers of the Ehela trees swinging in the breeze, he told me, "These flowers make me forget the day's fatigue."

Musing over their past life, his wife recalls, "He gets up about five in the morning. Saying that he must feel the touch of the morning breeze he walks in the garden covering his head with the end of the verti. He would stop by trees and murmur, "grow and multiply." Quite often, he wrote in the morning hours and he wrote with such concentration that he was impervious to the environment even when it was noisy and disturbing. I had to take down in my handwriting most of his poems and songs as he recited them. He used to sit on the floor with his upper body bare and a pillow on his lap when he recites his poetry for me to take down. I had to be by him always; I had to be by his side when he takes his meals and serve him and had to accompany him whenever he went to remote areas for literary festivals. Although powerful, influential and famous, at home he was like a child."

Peculiar mannerisms

He had some peculiar mannerisms too. He used to come to the Lankadipa office around two in the afternoon. The moment he arrives, he would slip his sandals off and throw them under the table. He would put them on again only when he leaves office for home. He would walk within the office or go out to town barefooted. So the presence of his sandals under the table was a sure sign that he was present. Gunadasa Liyange recalls that one day Ven Udakendawela Saranankara came to see him and inquired after him from a colleague. The colleague said 'let me see', looked under the table, and said, Hamuduruvane, please wait he is somewhere nearby". The bhikkhu was annoyed and reported the colleague to the editor. But when things were explained, the bhikkhu understood and broke into laughter!

His favourite colour was yellow. About a week before his death he had said, "When I die bury my ashes under the Ehela trees down the garden."

He died in October 1964 at the age of 51. And according to his wish, his ashes were deposited in his tomb under the Ehela trees. Every evening at sunset, yellow flowers from the Ehela trees that enchanted him so much fall on his tomb, still sheltering it. The yellow flowers will continue to fall likewise on his tomb for many more years to come. He deserves it.