The moving spirit behind Mul Pituwa

by Prof. Carlo Fonseka

Bandula Padmakumara is the enterprising creator and the moving spirit behind Mul Pituwa. It has proved to be one of the most prestigious and sustainable programmes in the three-decade history of television in the country.

I reckon that Mul Pituwa has commanded most of the time I have spent watching television. So Bandula's must be the face that I have seen most and the voice I have heard most on the idiot box. I can count on my fingers the number of days on which I have not watched Mul Pituwa ever since its inception.

This has been so despite the fact that there have been at least 15 television channels competing fiercely with one another for attention. Nor am I exceptional in this matter. It surely says something for Bandula's journalistic skills and public persona that Mul Pituwa has established itself as a self-imposed mandatory watched by so many people in so many walks of life in the country -from the most powerful to the humblest.

As one blurb for Mul Pituwa truly says the programme not only brings the daily newspapers to your home but also reads them for you. It spoon-feeds us with selected news and orthodox views with a vengeance. These are dished out so palatably that you don't realise that Bandula is in fact force-feeding you with his choice of news and views.

Technique

Quite obviously, Bandula cannot and does not read for us the front pages of all the major newspapers in the country. Nor does the programme focus only on the front pages of the newspapers. His professional judgment and journalistic wisdom are brought to bear on the selection of news, views and other features he presents to us. He mingles comment and background to the news with his narrative and implicitly makes the case for the conclusions he sets before viewers. The technique he has evolved over the years to present his programme which comprises his dress code, dignified presence, quiet confidence, tone of voice and gentle humour has turned out to be just right. What is the secret of his success? What makes Bandula Padmakumara tick?

To find an answer to the questions posed above, we have to go far afield. Bandula is first, last and always a media personality. Most people do not know that Bandula Padmakumara, the veteran journalist entered public life through the world of cinema. While still a student at Ananda College, Colombo he collaborated with a group of Anandians to make a quality film called Nimwalalla which was screened at several international film festivals.

Founder of youth journals

He lingered on for a while in the field of cinema and is credited with having assisted Lester James Peries and Tissa Abeysekera to make films in the 1960s.

The 1970s saw him venturing into the business of print journalism in a big way. He targeted especially the youth. Sarasi (a cinema weekly) Kumari (a girl's weekly) and Rajina (a women's weekly) are among the successful publications he founded. Indeed Bandula may truly be called the Founder of Youth Journals in Sri Lanka. The best, however was yet to come.

Only a few people know that he was the founder of the quality newspaper Lakbima in the 1990s. Even fewer remember that he was a founder member of the Free Media Movement which has had a somewhat chequered history. His contemporaries of the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s are now mature and influential citizens of the world. They watch serious programmes on television including Mul Pituwa.

During the past three decades when television became the premier medium of mass communication and entertainment in Sri Lanka, Bandula Padmakumara found his natural niche in public life on the television screen. Year after year, day after day during the past 10 years or so Bandula has held forth on television for an hour during the morning prime time.

Through Mul Pituwa (and Lokasithiyama) he has been a stabilizing factor in our public life by his subtle influence as an opinion maker. When Bandula Padmakumara speaks on television, viewers in their tens of thousands, possibly millions listen.

Without being a political figure he has become something of a benign political force. Bandula has been on the television screen in the country for nearly 1x365x10 hours during the past decade or so. Is there another with such a track record? I bet you, there isn't.

Impressive career

In 2001, Bandula was appointed Director Editorial of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., and served Lake House in that capacity for over two years. Mul Pituwa (and Lokasithiyama) was launched on Swarnawahini in July 2003. In Mul Pituwa, Bandula attempts to review objectively, non-judgmentally and comprehensively the major newspapers published in the country in Sinhala, Tamil and English as well as the important websites.

He focuses on significant news items, viewpoints and feature articles. It is an exhausting task. It demands discipline and dedication of a high order. Maintaining excellence day after day, year after year must be back-breaking work. Slipshod work, if any, will be seen by all. There has been little or no evidence of such work over the entire history of Mul Pituwa.

I once asked Bandula how he pulls it off so well, so consistently. He replied that it was easier said than done.

The formula is: "Early to bed, early to rise; without pride or prejudice, do what's right". In practical terms, this translates into a regimen of no late-night partying and no excessive eating, drinking, dancing, talking and laughing until the cows come home! This is a self-imposed regimen he has practised for nearly 10 years to ensure that his hour's performance on television every morning shall be flawless. As a spin-off, he has also been protected from the current killers, namely, the non-communicable diseases or NCDs. His management of time must be as sound as his management of Lake House whose Executive Chairman he became in 2007.

So good has his time management been that during the past few years he has found the time to offer a daily three-minute concentrated summary of current news to Dialog and Mobitel subscribers. (Any one in the field of public communication knows that it takes a great deal of time - over three minutes to prepare a three-minute presentation. One is reminded of George Bernard Shaw, who wrote a long letter to someone saying that he had no time to write a short one).

In his autobiography titled Arrow in the Blue Arthur, Koestler speaks of two philosophies of journalism - the Anglo-Saxon and the German. The Anglo-Saxon philosophy practised by British and American newspaper correspondents aims at an impartial and objective presentation of facts. Political biases and personal idiosyncrasies are kept down to a minimum.

The line, the correspondent is taking on a particular issue is only implied by his selection of material and the emphasis in his presentation.

The philosophy is: "Here are the relevant facts, the judgment is yours". On the other hand, German journalism especially during the period of Hitler's Weimar Republic had a diametrically opposite philosophy.

The role of the newspaper correspondent was to digest the facts on a given issue and present it to the reader the conclusions reached in accordance with the worldview of the controlling powers of the newspaper.

It is easy to see that by natural inclination and choice, Bandula Padmakumara has been cast in the Anglo-Saxon mould. One reason why his Mul Pituwa programme has been acceptable to so many for so long is the objective approach he consciously brings to bear on the practice of his profession. His philosophy is also a sound survival strategy. In our society the greatest threat to those who seek influential political office comes from members of his own group. Better safe than sorry is the name of the game.