In awarding an honorary D. Litt to Tissa Abeysekera two years ago, the Colombo University in its citation, described him as "a creative artist and intellectual commentator". Regi Siriwardena dubbed him "the perfect bilingual". There aren't many.
He was also a perfectionist taking great pains to do his best – be it a film script, a documentary, a feature film, a teledrama, a keynote address or as presenter at a book launch. He would study a subject thoroughly before putting pen to paper. I sometimes complained to him that he gave us too much when he delivered a talk.
His patience in studying a subject made him a master in whatever he did. His convocation address at the University of Visual & Performing Arts in 2007 when he spoke on 'Cultural Orthodoxy and Popular Sinhala Music' is just one example. He traced the tragedy of Sri Lankan music scene in the early 1950s when "the musical practice in Ceylon was locked through official policy into a closed circuit." After describing the commendable efforts of pioneers like Ananda Samarakoon and Sunil Shantha, he referred to "the strange policy of musical spring cleaning for well over two decades" using Professor Ratanajankar to legitimize a process begun by the authorities "to annihilate westernized music from the local scene."
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He described the present day music scene thus: "The indiscriminate use of electronically generated sounds, and the incompetent orchestrations which assault our ears today, are a direct result of the younger generation of musical aspirants not having the necessary professional and institutional training and guidance vital to survive in the field today. Those who graduate from the School of Music have to spend years before they can adjust themselves to the professional demands of modern music. They learn on their own, and they get sucked into the vortex of the mushrooming music industry in a 'semi-literate' condition."
He then gave a solution to the problem: "Now that the field of music in this country has come under the purview of an institution with university status, let us begin all over again. If we are to develop music in this country, let the institution teach the basics and provide the aspirants with facilities and the freedom to experiment with all forms; let them choose and let them create. Tradition will grow out of that. It cannot be carpentered."
Tissa excelled as a script writer for films and teledramas. He worked with the doyen of Sri Lankan cinema, Lester James Peries from the days of 'Delovak Atara' (1966) and was responsible for the script of 'Nidhanaya' (1970), the best film produced in the first fifty years of Sinhala cinema. He wrote film scripts for many directors and brought a freshness to teledramas through the scripts he wrote. A great admirer of Martin Wickramasinghe, Tissa wrote at least half a dozen tele scripts based on his short stories.
An avid reader, Tissa was particularly interested in western literature. He regularly quoted from western authors to illustrate a talk. His desire was to be a writer. His first effort at writing came out in the form of a slim volume of Sinhala short stories titled 'Ipanella'. Professor Ediriweera Sarachchandra saw Tissa's apprenticeship in literature of immense help as a script writer. "Tissa has an unique advantage over many of the others who chose the cinema as a career from scratch, so to say. He was already equipped with a sensitivity, gained from literature, regarding the tastes and the ethos of his audience who can be equated, to a large extent, with the middle-class reading public," he wrote in the brochure on 'Viragaya' (1987), the film Tissa directed and which was highly appreciated by filmgoers.
Tissa often talked about his experience in filmmaking. At the release of the second film he directed, 'Mahagedera' (1982) based on his own story, he wrote: "My first film 'Karumakkarayo' (1980 - based on Gunadasa Amarasekera's much talked-about novel) taught me the hazards of working off literary originals. Literary personalities have an inborn distrust of the cinema, as if it is some monstrous juggernaut out to crush and disfigure their beloved creations. However, they are fatally attracted to it. I am yet to come across a writer however serious he may be who refused to lend his novels or short stories to the cinema, and I am also yet to meet the writer who is completely satisfied with the screen version of his work. Authors have an arrogance born out of a myth that the cinema cannot be as serious an art form as the novel and what they expect the moviemakers to do is nothing more than illustrate their novels.
"Any attempt at re-interpreting and re-structuring in terms of film causes loud and piteous squeals of protest that their beloved creations are being distorted. Behind this hostility lies a reluctance on the part of an author to share the credit with the moviemaker on equal terms."
Quality was the hallmark of Tissa's work. Watching Tissa filming the epic teledrama, 'Pitagamkarayo' (1997) I realised how much attention he payed to detail. He was relating the story of three generations living in the Kelani valley. He knew the area well and he did an excellent script which later came out in two volumes in the form of a novel. He was determined to provide top class entertainment to tele-viewers. And he did. 'Pitagamkarayo' was showered with awards – nine at the Sumathi Tele Awards followed by seven in UNDA Abhinandana 1997.
Just as much as Tissa covered the socio-economic changes witnessed in the Kelani valley over a long period of time, in 'Bringing Tony Home', the Gratiaen prize winning book, he vividly unfolded the changing scene of the area he lived in his childhood days. It was an absorbing story written in a most readable style. To quote just one instance. He made the reader join him on the journey when he walked home with his pet dog, Tony. "A mellow amber light falls from the western sky but when I look towards the east from where I came the heavens are dark and foreboding and I think I hear the rumble of distant thunder. But everything is cool and relaxed, and the traffic on the road had increased. There are more carts than motor vehicles and the bulls amble along with the carters nodding under the awning, the ropes gone limp in their hands and they are all moving eastwards where the sky is dark…"
He did the film script for Sumitra Peries' 'Maya' (based on Manel Abhayaratne's English novel) and 14 years later wrote a teledrama script and directed it. This was after Tissa did 'Vansarana' based on R. L. Spittel's 'Savage Sanctuary'. Each turned out to be highly entertaining fare for the viewers.
When he produced 'The Sun & The Moonstone' – a 40 minute documentary to commemorate 50 years of Sri Lanka's Independence – he called it "an honest effort to go beyond the surface of what one would see and hear as he or she moves through Sri Lanka. There was a freshness in the film – something different to what we normally see. Visually it was beautiful and the close-ups in particular were well done.
Describing his experience in making the film, he said that film is surface reality, only what the eye sees and the ear hears. How could the film camera go beyond this physical reality to lay bare the inner essence of a subject, he asked. He had travelled extensively throughout Sri Lanka and studied the country's heritage so closely and carried that past with him wherever he went, as his personal baggage. "The landscape of this country, the monuments of its past, the voices of its people both in speech and song, the subtle nuances in their moods and manners, create strong emotions with me," he confessed. And that he tried to capture in the documentary.
Tissa has left ample material for the student of cinema and literature in the form of books he wrote, newspaper articles, media interviews and the like. But there should be many more. Wife Asanka and the children have a task ahead of them- to locate his other writings and notes and publish them for posterity. Generations will benefit and Tissa Abeysekera will be a name we will remember for ever. |
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