From poring over law books to singing his heart out

Herbert, son of patriot Sir James Peiris, spent his young days in England. A Master of Arts of Cambridge University and a Barrister-at-Law, he gave up a legal career to popularise our folk songs. This article tracing his pioneering efforts is to commemorate his birth centenary on March 28.

"On March 28th, 1899, in a house called "St.Leonards" in Flower Road, Colombo, Ceylon, I am credibly informed I was born. Flower Road was so called because of the rows of scarlet-blossomed Flamboyant trees that lined the road. It was a paradise for water colour artists. My father, James Peiris was at the time a Barrister with a successful practice at the Supreme Court of Colombo. My mother was the eldest of a family of twelve. Her father was a wealthy landowner and much respected merchant - Jacob de Mel. Mother was only 17 when she married; my father was 33. By race we are Sinhalese. This majority community comprises 76% of the Island's population. Baptised Herbert Charles Jacob Peiris, I was the youngest of four children. My eldest sister Louise, eight years older than I: Leonard, my brother six years, and my sister Ethel four years older. So I was very much the baby brother, and came in for a good deal of petting and spoiling. In later life I came to demand appreciation and special treatment as my right, not only from my family, but also from friends and strangers."

Thus opens, Of Sri Lanka I Sing, the autobiography of Devar Surya Sena OBE, MA, LLB, ARCM (he changed his name from Herbert Peiris), pioneer in Sri Lankan folk music.

Having had the best education which England could give, becoming a Master of Arts of Cambridge University and a Barrister-at-law, Devar Surya Sena's family expected him to be a successful lawyer. But when he was 28, he decided otherwise.

"As an artist, an oriental artist, I felt I could get to a position of some eminence much quicker than sweating over Law books. This important decision changed the course of my life," he confesses. He told his father, he got a certain intellectual satisfaction from arguing cases but was disgusted with the sordid part of litigation.

Reminiscing the days (1928) in England studying music, he says: "I worked hard. To keep myself fit as well as to develop my breathing I walked in Battersea Park, close to where we lived. We had a piano in our flat, of course. I used to practise my singing, scales, exercises and songs for an hour in the morning and evening. One day a retired printer named Pitman, who had the flat above us, knocked at our door.

"In an angry voice he said, "We have some friends upstairs and we can't hear a word they are saying owing to the noise you are making." "I have a right to practise my singing," I replied. "You are making a nuisance of yourself," he persisted. "I'll see that you get out of your flat." "You can go to hell," I retorted. "You'll see what I can do to you." This man went to the length of getting signatures from some of the neighbours to a letter to the owner complaining that my singing was disturbing them, demanding that I should be asked to leave, adding that "besides" I was "a coloured man."

Devar Surya Sena sang a Sinhala Nadagam song for the first time in 1928 in London playing the 'sarangi' ("perhaps the Indian ancestor of the violin, played cello-wise") at a concert where the Duchess of York (later the Queen) was present. The same year he made his first broadcast over BBC. In a programme arranged by the Indian Society, he sang a Nepalese folk song. Returning home the following year, he "plunged with zest into the task of resurrecting Sinhala music", because "I was convinced it had existed."

"To rediscover the songs of Ceylon became my passion. It was absorbing. The Sinhalese scholars and pundits to whom I went for help didn't hold much hope. Sinhala music, they said, was dead. They chanted verses of Sinhala poetry and called it music. But I felt convinced that somewhere Sinhala songs existed," he argues. How did he set about it? He explored three fields which, he admits, yielded fruit. From Kandyan dancers he noted down some Vannamas. Secondly, folk songs sung in the remote villages where the farmers sang as they ploughed the fields or harvested the paddy. He picked up the melodies on his violin as the village folk sang and noted them in western notation in a manuscript book.

It was a novel experience for the English educated, Western oriented young man. "Everywhere village folk received me with gracious courtesy and hospitality. I'd be offered the best chair. A tender young coconut (kurumba) cut and given to me to drink. They were curious to know why in the world a gentleman from the town, 'mahatmaya' as we are called, wanted to hear Sinhala songs. ....This folk song collecting brought me in touch with the Sinhala peasant. His qualities of courtesy, hospitality and sincerity won my wholehearted admiration."

The 1930's saw Devar Surya Sena and his wife, Nelun Devi launch on a concert career in England and Europe. "I had obeyed what I thought was a call to build an understanding between East and West through music. The concert career I'd embarked on with such idealism didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I wasn't making enough money. As for building understanding or winning respect for Oriental culture, some people who came to my recitals seemed to regard Oriental music like a fossil in a museum......

Devar Surya Sena speaks bitterly of his early days in England. "While we Asians had a 2500 year old civilisation and culture, it was intolerable to be treated as inferiors by so-called 'white' people on account of our brown skins. During my time at Prep. school, Public school and Varsity we were a colony of Britain. I fought relentlessly to show, by my conduct and achievements that I was in no way inferior to the people of England. There were a few homes where I was welcomed during my holidays and treated as one of the family,"

And then the change. "And when I was losing my faith something happened. I met a band of people really free of prejudice. They were somehow different. They cared. They were out to fashion a new world manned by men and women whose lives had been made anew. I was cured of all bitterness. Thereafter my voice was used to move and change people's hearts. Nelun and I travelled in four continents with this glorious answer."

–Ranat

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