Features

Douglas Ranasinghe: Second to none

Published

3 years ago

2023/10/6

By Uditha Devapriya

Sena, the protagonist of Madawala S. Ratnayake’s Akkara Paha, embodies for me the hopes and frustrations of the rural Sinhala youth after 1956. Lester James Peries selected Milton Jayawardena, then an unknown player, for the role in his adaptation. Days after he finalised the casting he was visited by Vijaya Kumaratunga.

I think it was a blessing, for both Milton and Vijaya, that the former got to play the character and the latter did not, because Vijaya would have been too brash to depict Sena’s failings and defeatism. Sena is an eminently passive character, whose role in the film is to be used and guided by every other character, in particular the woman who ends up as his destroyer, Theresa, and his friend in the first half of the story, Samare.

Theresa was played by the underrated Janaki Kurukulasuriya, who left the industry soon afterwards, while Samare was played by Douglas Ranasinghe, who stayed in the industry and remains there today. His performance in Peries’s film was so assertive, so unlike the more nuanced, gentle characters he would get to play later, that no less a person than the director remarked that he had great difficulty saving the protagonist from him. This view has been shared by Philip Cooray in his book, The Lonely Artist.

Most of our supporting actors from the earliest days graduated into stars, especially Joe Abeywickrama. Some of them, however, remained behind, perhaps because that’s where they were meant to be: think of D. R. Nanayakkara. Douglas Ranasinghe belongs to neither category, strictly speaking, and for this reason he has managed to distinguish himself. And in distinguishing himself, he has managed to transcend his limitations.

Ranasinghe got to be the secondary player, the supporting actor, in whatever film he was cast in. This has been his biggest strength and limitation, though within his limitations he gives out the best he could. You feel that some of his performances – think of Siridasa from Viragaya – are so calculated that they rise above the main actor. Then you feel that his other performances – think of Kulageya – have him as a side player, whose main function is to propel the narrative, or – think of Aravinda from Yuganthaya here – to serve as the voice of the establishment, of sanity, of plain common sense.

He was born in Kurunegala and was initially sent to the game iskole, the hodiya panthiya. From the hodiya panthiya he was sent to St Anne’s College, where he grew to dote on athletics and other sports. At school he ended up as a Prefect.

“St Anne’s was a missionary school, but unlike today missionary schools took in quite a number of non-Christians. In fact one of my schoolmates was Wijeratne Warakagoda, who was my senior, and who later left to Ananda College.”

Apparently his first love had been the military. This encouraged him to apply for the post of Police Sub Inspector. Failing twice, he succeeded on the third attempt, and was drafted for a training course at Kalutara. By then he had also decided to join Law College.

“Acting never really figured in my scheme. That’s not to say that I shirked the performing arts, but in my day, films and plays were at best leisure activities, never career options. By default, as professions, we had either the government service, the Civil Service, or fields like law, medicine, accountancy, and of course engineering.”

Ranasinghe’s forays into the performing arts were quite accidental. A series of encounters led him to his friend Sathischandra Edirisinghe, who asked Ranasinghe to take his place and play his role, that of a Corporal, in a production of Hunuwataye Kathawa.

“The training course in Kalutara was delayed by three months. Sathis aiya had done me a favour years earlier. I was only too happy to help him out.”

It was a rather auspicious debut, since after seeing his performance, Lester James Peries asked after him, took him in, and cast him opposite Milton Jayawardena in Akkara Paha. Jayasena had, naturally enough, been suspicious.

“He laughed and told Lester, ‘Now, now, you are taking all my good actors away!’”

His role as Samare had been his second, after G. D. L. Perera’s Romeo Juliet Kathawak, released in 1968 but filmed after Akkara Paha. The film is remembered for the Sunil Shantha classic that Ranasinghe croons with a guitar, My Dreams Are Roses. As for Akkara Paha, he remembers his experiences working under Lester Peries with nostalgia.

“With ‘Maestro’, you have got to be sure of what you do. He never bosses you around, but that doesn’t mean you can be complacent or that you can forget your cues. He expects something from you, and opts for three takes. When all three are done, you go for the final take. Because nothing escapes his eyes, you need to remember all three.”

What of his career after these two roles? After taking part in a short film titled Bhavana, directed by the great Paul Zils and entered into the Berlin Film Festival of 1970/1971, he chose to leave for England for a three-year course at the London Film School. The decision, he tells me, was both conscious and spontaneous.

“I left behind a career in law just so I could learn more about filmmaking and acting. At the end of those years, I was asked to stay back and take part in stage productions, to get involved with the Royal Shakespearean Company. But I became homesick. So I came back. Had I stayed behind, I would have been a different man. Who can tell?”

In this second phase after his return, Ranasinghe becomes more restrained in his acting. He has by now weeded out the emotional hysterics which marked out Romeo Juliet Kathawak and Akkara Paha. Those three years in London had clearly helped.

Opposite his co-stars, he has distinguished himself well: Richard de Zoysa, Chitra Vakishta, and Somi Ratnayake in Yuganthaya; Sanath Gunathilake and Sriyani Amarasena in Viragaya; Vasanthi Chathurani, Sriyani, Lucky Dias, and Tony Ranasinghe in Kulageya. We see him in glimpses now: Siddhartha Gautama, Aloko Udapadi, and Dharma Yuddhaya. In his recent performances he has mellowed well. His most distinctive features, in particular his square, firm jaw, continue to lend him both credibility and force.

Yet for some reason, to me at least, his performance as Aravinda in Yuganthaya doesn’t come out as convincingly as his roles in Viragaya or Kulageya. In Martin Wickramasinghe’s novel, Aravinda is a flawed antihero, a parvenu who wishes to join the upper classes. Lester Peries finds an equivalent, somehow, for Ranasinghe through sequences which have him silently wondering through his village and through scenes of him cautioning Malin (Richard de Zoysa) against the latter’s radical tendencies. But we never get used to his performance, because in his other roles he does not caution against rebellion but eventually sides with the rebel. In Yuganthaya, by contrast, he sides with the Establishment.

It is of course a tragedy at one level, but I think we have ignored Ranasinghe’s versatility. For one thing, in addition to film, he has operated in theatre, television, and radio. Not every actor in Sri Lanka has aspired for, much less taken part in, all these fields, which is why his involvement in them throughout his career deserves scrutiny. A comprehensive biography or autobiography has clearly become a need of the hour.

The writer is an international relations analyst, independent researcher, and freelance columnist who can be reached at .

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

13 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

13 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

13 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.