He well deserved the honour
Reading the news that Dr. Wimal Dissanayake had won recognition at the Sahitya Day ceremony with the presentation of the ‘Sahitya Ratna’ award made me so happy. He very well deserved such recognition. He has been out of Sri Lanka for several decades – yet he was very much a part of us. He wrote poetry in Sinhala, delivered speeches at numerous literary gatherings in Sri Lanka, researched Sri Lankan cinema and authored several books and articles, reviewed films and books , paid regular visits to the ‘maw bima’ – in short he had his feet here though he spent his time in Hawaii as an academic.
The news also made me go back to the days he joined us at the news desk of Dinamina towards the late 1950s or early 1960s. It was the Esmond Wickremeasinghe era when graduates were being encouraged to take to journalism as a career. I had joined in 1956 as a reporter. There were a few others attached to the features desk. Some, as Wimal did, marked time till the results of the final exam were out and then started looking for a “more decent” job often in the government service. In Wimal’s case he had done well and could join the university staff. I forget which university he was attached to at first but I do remember that he was the pioneer in setting up the Department of Mass Communications in the Kelaniya University. His main problem was to find lecturers – so he had to depend on working journalists to come as visiting lecturers. A paltry allowance was paid but Wimal coaxed some of us to come all the way to Dalugama at least once a week. Experience was our qualification. We found it a worthy cause and looking back, the effort was well worth. It was a solid start and soon there were enough qualified people to carry on. And more and more students showed interest in the subject.
Soon Wimal found his way to the East West Centre in Hawaii where he became an internationally recognised academic and researcher.
‘Profiling Sri Lankan Cinema’, the book he authored with Ashley Ratnavibhushana is one of the few well researched and objective studies of Sinhala cinema.
During one of his visits to Sri Lanka not so long ago, I listened to two keynote addresses he made, one on cinema and the other on the short story. One was in English and the other in Sinhala. I was amazed at his fluency in both languages, his clear thinking and how he has mastered the art of presenting an idea in the simplest way. During that visit he went down south with Gunadasa Amarasekera for a talk to the students of the village school where GA had studied as a kid. He was back in Colombo to be the chief guest at poet Sarath Perera’s book launch. He had several other engagements too.
Years of experience as a university lecturer and a public speaker have made Wimal an articulate and persuasive orator.
Another Dinamina reporter who went a long way was Shelton Gunaratne who is presently Professor Emeritus of the University of Minnesota in Mass Communications. Another who moved over around the same time and became a university don was M.H. Gunatilleka. Yet another, S.G. Samarasinghe (he pioneered the literary magazine ‘Sanskriti’ with Amarananda Weerasinghe) joined the Administrative Service and served as head of several departments.
Joining the Dinamina with me was B.A. Siriwardena (‘Sira’ to all of us) who after nearly ten years at the features desk (he was the leader writer) joined the ‘Aththa’ on the day Dinamina editor M.A. de Silva resigned during the March 1965 election. A brilliant writer, Sira’s style is unmatched to this day. At least three who were on the Dinamina staff at the time remained journalists right up to their deaths. Features editor Sisil Ilangakoon, feature writer Hema Gunawardena and local editor U.L.D. Chandratilleka. We were all from either Colombo or the Peradeniya campus of the University of Ceylon – the only university at the time.
I was a ‘rare case’ of a ‘native journalist’ (as some preferred to call those who were in Sinhala newspapers) who moved over to an English paper. It happened when Denzil Peiris who overlooked the Dinamina for a short time after M.A. de Silva left reverted to the Observer and took me along to man the news desk as news editor. By the time I left to join Lever Brothers, I had completed thirteen years at Lake House.