The ‘Sir’ who made such an impression on us students
A young teacher joined Royal College, Colombo in January 1962 as soon as he qualified as a “Trained Teacher” from Maharagama Teacher Training School. He was Mr. Upali Attanayake (Sir/Upali). He was in a batch trained to teach science subjects for Ordinary Level classes in Sinhala medium. This smart and witty teacher won the admiration of almost all the students as well as other teachers within a short time.
I shall address him as ‘Sir’ when matters describing the school day activities and as ‘Upali’ on his personal achievements, in this article.
‘Sir’ was assigned a Buddhism class for second-form or Year Seven students. I was in that class. Later when I was in O’L classes he taught me Physics. He did not have the in-depth knowledge of a physics graduate from the university. He told us his knowledge was a few classes ahead of us and he had to study at home to teach the class the next day. But his dramatization way of teaching helped us to remember the subject matter so well, that many of us still remember the theories he taught.
Another unique feature that we appreciated was the fact that he taught the subject to an entire set of students in the class, whether they were weak or strong, without discrimination.
A voracious reader ‘Sir’ always carried an English novel to read in his spare time. One such novel I remember was “The World of Suzie Wong” written by Richard Mason about a woman from a Hong Kong brothel. About this time a film under the same name was screened at “Savoy” theatre, Wellawatte. One of the students had seen this film and told his Physics master he would like to read the novel. ‘Sir’ gladly lent it to him. Thereafter both of them exchanged novels.
Another occasion he discussed an English movie was when “Dr. No”, the first film in the James Bond series was screened at the same theatre. He told a few of us that he was impressed by the unique start to the movie, with an introduction to the character through the view of a gun barrel and a highly stylised main title sequence together with iconic theme music.
One witty student asked him “Sir, with whom did you go to see the films?” Without batting an eyelid Sir said, “With my girlfriend.” When we started giggling he said, “What’s funny about it, wait and see you will do the same thing when you leave school and walk into the adult world.” We were the lucky bunch to get a treat from ‘Sir’ when he got married to his sweetheart from the same training college a few months later.
- School days & Training College days
Upali Attanayake had his primary and secondary education at St. Joseph’s College, Maradana during the time of Rector Fr. Peter Pillai, a great and eminent educationist. Mr. S.E. Dias and Mr. E.C. Gunasekara, two of his teachers at St. Joseph’s later joined Royal and went on to become Deputy Principals. He was very fluent in both languages Sinhala and English displaying the high quality of education he received at this institution. The famous film artist Tissa Liyanasuriya, Shyamon Jayasinghe who acted as “Pothe Gura” in Ediriweera Sarachchandra’s Maname and famous singer Sidney Attygalle were some of his classmates.
He related many stories of being punished by the teachers and the Rector. One such incident was when he penned a song for his friend Sidney while doing science practicals in the school lab. Both of them were caught by the teacher and punished when trying to create the melody. The song was “Palle Wasana Ranmali” which became a big hit in the sixties.
According to his friend Tissa, Upali was a good debater and according to Mr. E.C. Gunasekara (the discipline master at Royal), he was a mischievous student. Once Rector Fr. Peter Pillai summoned his mother (a teacher herself) and warned him in her presence. Yet ‘Sir’ had a lot of regard for Fr. Peter Pillai and his teachers.
We were surprised when it came to light that ‘Sir’ had written the lyrics of the then-popular song “Nangilla Mallila” sung by Sidney Attygalle. Being a Hindi Film fan ‘Sir’ has taken the melody from the Hindi song “Yeh Khushi Ka Sama” sung by Talat Mahmood.
He also wrote a beautiful Christmas song, “Pulun Wage Sudu Raula Digai (පුළුන් වගේ සුදු රැවුල දිගයි),” probably for his friend Sidney to sing.
Upali entered Teachers Training College – Maharagama and was in the 1960/61 batch. He met his future wife, ‘Padma’ while at this institution.
Late Ratnapala Happuarachchi, one of his students at Royal who was very close to ‘Sir’ wrote about his teacher’s acting skills in the “Royal People” blog;
“When they were at the Teachers Training College – Maharagama. a Dramsoc (Dramatic Society) was formed to improve the English and Sinhala of the future teachers. Mostly English classics of Shakespeare were the popular ones. At one premier, Upali Atte (Atttanayake) was Brutus, who stabbed Caesar from behind. The time came when Senna (Cinna) stabbed from the front, with the dagger still intact, Caesar turned to say “Et Tu Brute” (And you too, Brutus) but there was no dagger in Brutus’ hand to complete the stab from the back. The audience realized the miss, catcalls and hooting started as usual, finally, the missing dagger had to be thrown across to complete the part. Anyway, they were hooted out of the stage.”
While at Training College he wrote lyrics of songs in the film “Daruwa Kageda?” along with Arisen Ahubudu. The film was directed by Herbert M. Senewirathna and released on 6th October 1961. The songs of this film became very popular.
- Dramatic Society & Oriental Music Society of Royal College
At Royal, ‘Sir’ was appointed as a Vice President of the Dramatic Society and Oriental Music Society and produced several Sinhala stage plays. “Amutta” was one such play staged at the college hall. In addition to coaching the students in acting, Drama Guru Upali Master also acted in a major role in Ämutta. He introduced a unique feature in this stage play.
“A drunken set of hooligans entered the hall from behind singing and dancing, carrying Arrack bottles and walking through the aisle keeping the audience in suspense. Many thought that some hooligans had entered the College hall to assault some mischievous students. But they were all actors and the scene was part and parcel of the play. In another scene where shooting was involved a shot was fired from a real shotgun creating panic among the audience. (Actually, it was a blank cartridge, yet the sound of the explosion confused everyone around including some members of staff, the Principal Mr. Dudley K.G. De Silva knew about it and permission had been granted for the plot when master-in-charge Upali Attanayake briefed him.)”
- Upali Attanayake & Komisama
Then Principal of Royal College Mr. Bogoda Premaratne summoned Dayalal one day to his office and said “Abeysekara, why don’t you do a drama for the all-island school drama competition?”
By this time Dayalal Abeysekera (ex Professor of Sociology – at the University of Jayewardenepura, then an Advanced Level student) had seen Chandrasena Dassanayake’s drama ‘Aandi Tikai Ambalamai’ that ridiculed the United Nations and won first place at the all-island drama festival in 1966. Inspired by this and the government’s habit of appointing ‘Commissions’ at the drop of a hat, he developed his storyline. This was also the era of incredible revival of Sinhala theatre after Sarachchandra’s stylised play ‘Maname’. Dayalal named his play ‘Komisama Ediriye Sakki Denno,’ or in English ‘The Commission’.
The storyline was based on dissatisfied stage play fans complaining to the government about the poor quality of dramas. The government appointed a commission of inquiry. Those who represent various types of dramas like stylised, semi-stylised, Naturalism theatre, and musical theatre were summoned to present their views. When the representatives presented their views on Sinhala Drama, there were many hilarious arguments. But the Commission failed to summon the representatives from the traditional devil dance (බලි තොවිල්) of the country. Finally, a Devil raided the office, questioned the Commissioner as to why he was not invited and chased away all the representatives.
Dayalal wrote the dialogues in a poem form. When it was shown to ‘Sir’ he suggested a musical, along the lines of ‘My Fair Lady,’ the English musical comedy-drama film screened at Liberty Cinema.
By this time ‘Sir’ had joined ‘Isipatana Vidyalaya’ having arranged a mutual transfer with a teacher from that school. Isipatana was a single-session school whereas Royal had two sessions starting at 8:45 a.m. and closing at 3:45 p.m. He sought the transfer mainly to find more time to pursue his music and drama career according to his wife Mrs. Padma Attanayake. However, he accepted Dayalal’s request to help with the production.
Together with Upali Jayamanne, a talented student musician, ‘Sir’ converted the dialogues into a musical form. Mr. M.B.H. Wariyapola (famous singer Vajira Balasuriya’s husband), a senior teacher at Royal provided his portable tape recorder to record the tunes and music as and when created by two Upalis.
Sir assisted Dayalal to select the crew. Many of them became prominent personalities like university professors, doctors, lawyers, and administrators both in Sri Lanka and abroad, later in life.
The play commenced with a stage play enthusiast appearing on the stage expressing his dissatisfaction with the dramas he had seen. “I saw a play, even yesterday, but I did not see anything meaningful,” he says.
නලුවක් බැලුවා – ඊයෙත් බැලුවා
හරයක් ඇතිබවනම් එහි නොපෙනේ
බැලුවෙමි හාරා බැලුවෙමි
හරයක් ඇතිබවනම් එහි නොපෙනේ
And ended with uninvited “Devil” coming to the stage saying;
දේශය රැකගත්තේ කව්ද – නාට්ටියත් රැක්කේ කව්ද
දහඅට පාලියයි රැක්කේ
දේශිය නාට්ටියට බොලව් – කව්ද අතක් දුන්නෙ – අපියි
දේශිය නාට්ටියට බොලව් – කව්ද පණක් දුන්නෙ – අපියි
Komisama won the second place at the Inter-School Drama Competition of 1967. Minister of Education Mr. I.M.R.A. Iriyagolla who saw the performance during the festival was impressed enough to say that the production should be popularised in all schools (Kala by Viranga – Daily News).
Sumana Saparamadu wrote, “This play might have won the first prize – (Daily News – October 27th 1967)”.
“This year boys from Royal College stole the show with a clever piece of drama. They missed bagging the top award by a narrow margin of one vote…….. The players were well cast….. And the whole presentation had a novel touch about it……. The arts by Ranga – Ceylon Observer October 24th 1967.”
Since most of the student actors had to continue with their studies or follow various vocations, ‘Sir’ took over the play and staged it a few times with professional actors later on.
Sir’ also advised and helped members of the Royal College Photographic Society (RCPS) with award-winning photographic ideas. One such photograph titled ‘The cycle of life halts awhile’ taken by his student Sirimevan Jayewardene won the school section award organised by the Photographic Society of Ceylon in July 1968. The concept and direction were from ‘Sir’ and he posed for the photograph as well.
- Versatile actor and dramatist
Upali Attanayake was invited to play the role of “Mr. Aakaasa” by Master Dramatist late Henry Jayasena in his stage play “Janelaya” when original actor Shelton Silva left, in the mid-sixties. Henry said in an interview, “Upali brought into the role a versatility and vitality that would be very difficult to match. I have played the role too on and off but I could never match his unerring performance.”
Another Master Dramatist Namel Weeramuni invited Upali to play the role of Julian in Nattukkari, a Sinhala adaptation of the French play Colombe by French playwright Jean Anouilh.
Upali was Hela Yasawadu (representing Hela School) in Chandrasena Dassanayake’s Rankanda. It was a play created based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play Pygmalion, and the musical My Fair Lady. This became a controversial stage play in the early seventies due to the hilarious double-meaning Sinhala dialogues.
With the demise of Ben (Benedict) Sirimanne, the original Prince Maname on July 17th of 1970, Upali was the first choice of Professor Ediriweera Sarachchandra to take over the role in his masterpiece creation. After a few shows Upali withdrew as he felt it was difficult for him to act in a stylised drama with singing and dancing.
A British actor and dramatist Peter Potter who visited Royal College in 1968 commented that Upali was an expert in projecting voice on stage after seeing a rehearsal of a play he acted.
Though his first love was stage plays he went into acting in the Sinhala films later on and made a mark.
Upali’s first break in Sinhala cinema came when Dr. Lester James Peries selected him to act in Madol Doova. He played the character of Suranchiya, a trickster from Colombo who took the villagers for a ride. It was Lester’s first colour film screened in 1976. Thereafter he acted in 17 more films including main actor roles in Nedeyo, Aadara Rathne and Ayachana.
He got merit awards for his acting in the films ‘Janaka Saha Manju’ and ‘Karumakkarayo’ at the first and third Presidential Awards of 1979 and 1981 respectively. At the 12th Sarasaviya Awards – 1984 he won the Best Performance Award for his role in ‘Loku Thaththa’.
In 1976, Don Boyd, the Scottish film director and producer made the English film ‘East of Elephant Rock’ based on Malayan-Chinese Communist insurgents, on location in Sri Lanka. Upali got the opportunity to act in a foreign film when he was selected as British officer Rawlin’s Houseboy. Though it was a minor role his dialogue in perfect English would have surprised even the British audience.
- Creative Advertising Man
Upali also got involved in the advertising field. He was appointed a Director of ‘Thomson Associates’ a reputed advertising company. He created several TV commercials. One that became the talk of the town was ‘Mother and Daughter’ for Unilever’s Sri Lanka, to promote Rexona soap. While the concept, the dialogues, and the narration were by Upali, the television camera, programme production and direction were by Dr. D.B. Nihalsinghe. The product became popular and sales increased in no time. Upali’s clear musical voice can be heard when you download and watch this video from YouTube, even today. (https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231105/)
- Songwriter
In addition to Sydney Attigala, he composed songs for many other singers. Some of them were ‘Kavuluwa Atharin’ and ‘Viyu Pedura’ for Vijaya Kumaratunga, ‘Divi Thawalama’ for Vijaya Kumarathunga & Malani Bulathsinghal, ‘Honda Loku Hotal Gane’ for Moris Dahanayake & Angeline Lanerolle, and ‘Sisil Sulang Pawee’ for C.D. Fonseka. He had written lyrics and developed melody for all the songs except the last one where the melody was developed by Patrick Denipitiya.
Upali Attanayake was born on the 17th of April, 1937, the bathing day after the Sinhala New Year. The day was an auspicious day according to Sinhala Buddhist customs as he proudly mentioned.
He was undoubtedly a most versatile musician, dramatist, actor, and teacher. Upali also served a few years as an English Instructor at the University of Jayewardenepura.
Though he died on 6th June 1994 due to an incurable illness at the age of 57 years, his work as an artist and teacher will withstand the test of time.
-Rohan Abeygunawardena
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