Features

In retrospect – Music and Dance in my life

Published

3 years ago

2022/09/18

By Dr Nihal D Amerasekera

Music and dance charts my life from its early days. The very first song I was taught to sing, as a skinny kid of six, was the national anthem for Ceylon. It was for the forthcoming Independence Day celebrations on February 4, 1948. I sang it with a group of children at school. Then I was far too young to appreciate the meaning of the poignant lyrics and the nuances of the appealing melody. The true significance of the event was lost in the visual revelry and jubilation. Just like the memorable Day, this brilliant composition by Ananda Samarakoon will be remembered and treasured forever.

My generation were fortunate to have spent our childhood in the immediate aftermath of independence. We were now out of the shackles of colonial rule. One hundred and thirty three years of British rule had left an indelible mark on Ceylonese society. We emulated the British. Their ways infiltrated every aspect of the lives of the privileged class. In the early years that followed we enjoyed the best of both worlds. There was law and order. Independence of the judiciary was sacrosanct. Society was free of unconcealed corruption. We were the envy of the world.

When I was growing up what I saw around me had a tremendous and lasting impression on my life. My parents were in Kegalle in the early 1950’s. There were many British “up country” Planters still around. The Planters’ Club was the hub for all social events in the district. This was the watering hole for the British planters and for our own Brown Sahibs. Those were the days of formal and dignified ballroom dancing. The fox trots, quick steps and waltzes were the dances in vogue. Dancing on Saturday nights kept the members entertained. These close encounters fuelled by booze in a dimly lit dance hall often gave rise to malicious gossip and mischievous innuendo. I was merely an innocent witness.

My father was a government servant and was transferred every four years. He served his time far away from Colombo. My childhood was spent in rural Nugegoda in the early 1950’s in a modest unostentatious house owned by my grandparents. I had several cousins for company. This was like a boarding house without the strict regimentation. Growing up together our lives were littered with lots of laughter and some tears. Evenings were great fun. My aunt played the guitar and made us sing the Sinhala music of the period. We also sang the popular European operatic arias and Neapolitan favourites like Santa Lucia. We entertained the visitors with our singing and loved the applause and the sweets that followed.

In those days it was the radio that provided the entertainment. Radio Ceylon and its commercial arm popularised both Ceylonese and Western music. Lama Pitiya was one of my earliest recollections of a Sinhala children’s program. This was brilliantly presented by Karunaratne Abeysekera. There were plenty of stories and music. Artistes like Indrani Wijebandara and Chandra Cabraal produced wonderful entertainment. The Radio Ceylon English service too had some fine announcers who brought the music of that era to life. Hit Parade and Sunday Choice had an enormous following.

When I was at Wesley College my love of music prevailed. I joined the school choir. Then much of it were hymns at Sunday school and at church. They were solemn pieces of music with fine old melodies. There was music for every human event from cradle to grave. Carol Services during Christmas were a colourful event in the school calendar. Singing together as a group was fun and this promoted lasting friendships. We formed barbershop quartets singing “African American spirituals” in four-part harmony. We performed Operettas at school. They were immensely exciting times.

As teenagers, our generation became part of the music revolution of the mid 1950’s. The slow music of the crooners like Bing Crosby gave way to the intoxicating rhythm and the stirring beat of Bill Haley and the Comets. I well remember seeing Rock Around the Clock at the Savoy. The music was rousing and electrifying. I watched in awe and amazement the craze that unfolded amongst teenagers in Colombo. Every Tuesday night the radio programme called the “Hit Parade” played the most popular music of the week and we all gathered round the Rediffusion set.

When the famous leader of an American Jazz band, Duke Ellington, visited Ceylon in 1955 he played in an airport hangar in Ratmalana. The school took us for this thrilling performance. I remember him play that magical piece “The syncopated clock”. It was in 1956 the film “High Society” with Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra brought jazz into my life giving it a new dimension. Dixieland Jazz began in New Orleans. It was characterised by the freedom of improvisations. The strumming of the banjos gave Dixie that distinctive style and feel.

In my teenage years parental influence was overpowering. It was not until I entered the Faculty of Medicine that I saw freedom. The excitement and the pleasure of dancing has no equal. The pounding rhythms drove us all into a frenzy. Being so close to female company in such subdued lighting heightened our sexual desires and sent our pulse racing. It was at University I learnt to combine the rhythmic music and the twirl and swirl of the gyratory dancing. The University calendar had many dances held at its halls in Reid Avenue. It was here the students showed off their ability to dance. Alcohol provided the confidence and lubricated the joints while the hormones did the rest. There was the inevitable baila session to end the night. They were wonderfully exciting years.

In the Faculty of Medicine exams came and went with monotonous regularity and soon it was all over. As hospital interns, onerous on-calls and busy schedules filled our days and nights. I was then working in Kurunegala. There were gatherings and dances at the Social Clubs. Many parties were held in the House Officers Quarters. We entertained ourselves in the evenings with bawdy songs and naughty limericks to find release from the tensions of day.

In the 1950’s and 60’s the music of Jim Reeves, Elvis Presley and Cliff Richards hogged the airwaves. They were the heady days of our youth. The Beatles with their thunderous drums, screaming vocals and the blistering guitars kept our feet tapping. I remember them for their irresistible irreverence. The ballads too made a return. This rather soulful music was made popular by Englebert Humperdink and Tom Jones.

After emigrating to the UK, family and career took precedence and dancing went on the back-burner. There were parties and dances in hospital during Christmas and on special occasions when it was mostly sedate and proper. However my love of music remained strong. I listened to the old Sinhala songs and also the Western music of the day of Eric Clapton and David Bowie.

With the passage of years, I gradually moved away from the noise and mayhem of loud music. Classical music became my first love. After retirement I moved back to the big city. London is the Mecca for music lovers. Now I live 20 minutes walk away from the Royal Academy of Music and easy striking distance of the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Festival Hall. These venues have classical music events everyday. Music now fills my life and I have no words to describe the peace and contentment I feel.

Since its origins in 15th Century Italy, Ballet has captured the imagination of audiences worldwide. Breath-taking choreography and graceful movements make it so pleasing to watch. I see most ballets on TV but see some of them live in London. Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn are recognised as the best dances of the 20th century. Much has been written about their sad lives and their tragic deaths away from the spotlight.

The Opera is not for everyone. Much of the old operas are in Italian and the stories are hard to follow. They require much homework to read up about the story. Operas of Puccini and Verdi are popular for their fine music. Georges Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” is set in ancient Ceylon. Although not as famous as “Carmen” which he wrote 10 years later I like the former for its connection to my homeland.

Retirement gave me the time to travel the world. One of the best trips was to South America. Watching the Tango danced by professionals in El Viejo Almacén in Buenos Aires, Argentina was simply a magical experience. The Tango is a mesmerizingly beautiful dance. Its elaborate movements relate a story. The tango music is a mix of Spanish, African and South American rhythms that became popular in the 19th century. This music and the dance initially began in brothels and its movements show the titillations of the ladies and the fire in the belly of their clients. Soon the Tango caught the imaginations of the people and began to be accepted by high society in Buenos Aires.

Despite the 42 years in exile, I had brought with me memories of life in old Ceylon. Listening to the music from back home is always an emotional journey and a reminder of those places and the people. The music of Sunil Santha, Chitra and Somapala from my childood days in Nugegoda have a certain timeless quality. Then CT Fernando, Sanath Nandasiri, Amaradeva and Victor Ratnayake from those later years will always be with me. When I was young, Hindi music was ever present in the tea boutiques and roadside cafes all over Colombo. It was my grandfather who introduced me to Hindi films.

I still own a fine collection of Lata Mangheskar, Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhosle songs to remind me of those years in Sri Lanka. I was an avid filmgoer in my youth and saw many of the Sinhala films right from the old BAW Jayamanne’s “Broken Promise” and “Kela Handa” to the later films of Lester James Peiris. Their music have a special appeal and pride of place in my memory. Rukmani Devi and Mohideen Beig sang some unforgettable songs. Their haunting melodies and beautiful lyrics will always remain with me. Many of the old favourites have been revived by younger singers with a faster beat and modern instruments. I love these new versions. They indeed have breathed new life into the old.

Baila entered our mainstream culture when the likes of Wally Bastian, Patrick Denipitiya, MS Fernando and others made it popular by their live performances on stage and on radio. This music had tremendous appeal with its pulsating beat which is an invitation to dance. The love of baila with the lively music and the rhythmic dancing is a constant reminder of my medical student days.

Music and dance have been a large part of my life. It has given me immense pleasure and continues to do so today. On looking back I feel deeply sentimental of those years gone. I recall with nostalgia the innocence of those times without the endless scrutiny of social media. At last I have now learnt to acknowledge the foresight, prudence and judgement of my parents to keep me on the straight and narrow. They have given me a fine all round education to appreciate the good things in life. May their Souls Rest in Peace.

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Features

Recruiting academics to state universities – beset by archaic selection processes?

Published

17 hours ago

2026/03/3

Thilina Walpola

by Kaushalya Perera

Time has, by and large, stood still in the business of academic staff recruitment to state universities. Qualifications have proliferated and evolved to be more interdisciplinary, but our selection processes and evaluation criteria are unchanged since at least the late 1990s. But before I delve into the problems, I will describe the existing processes and schemes of recruitment. The discussion is limited to UGC-governed state universities (and does not include recruitment to medical and engineering sectors) though the problems may be relevant to other higher education institutions (HEIs).

How recruitment happens currently in SL state universities

Academic ranks in Sri Lankan state universities can be divided into three tiers (subdivisions are not discussed).

* Lecturer (Probationary)

– recruited with a four-year undergraduate degree. A tiny step higher is the Lecturer (Unconfirmed), recruited with a postgraduate degree but no teaching experience.

* A Senior Lecturer can be recruited with certain postgraduate qualifications and some number of years of teaching and research.

* Above this is the professor (of four types), which can be left out of this discussion since only one of those (Chair Professor) is by application.

State universities cannot hire permanent academic staff as and when they wish. Prior to advertising a vacancy, approval to recruit is obtained through a mind-numbing and time-consuming process (months!) ending at the Department of Management Services. The call for applications must list all ranks up to Senior Lecturer. All eligible candidates for Probationary to Senior Lecturer are interviewed, e.g., if a Department wants someone with a doctoral degree, they must still advertise for and interview candidates for all ranks, not only candidates with a doctoral degree. In the evaluation criteria, the first degree is more important than the doctoral degree (more on this strange phenomenon later). All of this is only possible when universities are not under a ‘hiring freeze’, which governments declare regularly and generally lasts several years.

Problem type 1

– Archaic processes and evaluation criteria

Twenty-five years ago, as a probationary lecturer with a first degree, I was a typical hire. We would be recruited, work some years and obtain postgraduate degrees (ideally using the privilege of paid study leave to attend a reputed university in the first world). State universities are primarily undergraduate teaching spaces, and when doctoral degrees were scarce, hiring probationary lecturers may have been a practical solution. The path to a higher degree was through the academic job. Now, due to availability of candidates with postgraduate qualifications and the problems of retaining academics who find foreign postgraduate opportunities, preference for candidates applying with a postgraduate qualification is growing. The evaluation scheme, however, prioritises the first degree over the candidate’s postgraduate education. Were I to apply to a Faculty of Education, despite a PhD on language teaching and research in education, I may not even be interviewed since my undergraduate degree is not in education. The ‘first degree first’ phenomenon shows that universities essentially ignore the intellectual development of a person beyond their early twenties. It also ignores the breadth of disciplines and their overlap with other fields.

This can be helped (not solved) by a simple fix, which can also reduce brain drain: give precedence to the doctoral degree in the required field, regardless of the candidate’s first degree, effected by a UGC circular. The suggestion is not fool-proof. It is a first step, and offered with the understanding that any selection process, however well the evaluation criteria are articulated, will be beset by multiple issues, including that of bias. Like other Sri Lankan institutions, universities, too, have tribal tendencies, surfacing in the form of a preference for one’s own alumni. Nevertheless, there are other problems that are, arguably, more pressing as I discuss next. In relation to the evaluation criteria, a problem is the narrow interpretation of any regulation, e.g., deciding the degree’s suitability based on the title rather than considering courses in the transcript. Despite rhetoric promoting internationalising and inter-disciplinarity, decision-making administrative and academic bodies have very literal expectations of candidates’ qualifications, e.g., a candidate with knowledge of digital literacy should show this through the title of the degree!

Problem type 2 – The mess of badly regulated higher education

A direct consequence of the contemporary expansion of higher education is a large number of applicants with myriad qualifications. The diversity of degree programmes cited makes the responsibility of selecting a suitable candidate for the job a challenging but very important one. After all, the job is for life – it is very difficult to fire a permanent employer in the state sector.

Widely varying undergraduate degree programmes.

At present, Sri Lankan undergraduates bring qualifications (at times more than one) from multiple types of higher education institutions: a degree from a UGC-affiliated state university, a state university external to the UGC, a state institution that is not a university, a foreign university, or a private HEI aka ‘private university’. It could be a degree received by attending on-site, in Sri Lanka or abroad. It could be from a private HEI’s affiliated foreign university or an external degree from a state university or an online only degree from a private HEI that is ‘UGC-approved’ or ‘Ministry of Education approved’, i.e., never studied in a university setting. Needless to say, the diversity (and their differences in quality) are dizzying. Unfortunately, under the evaluation scheme all degrees ‘recognised’ by the UGC are assigned the same marks. The same goes for the candidates’ merits or distinctions, first classes, etc., regardless of how difficult or easy the degree programme may be and even when capabilities, exposure, input, etc are obviously different.

Similar issues are faced when we consider postgraduate qualifications, though to a lesser degree. In my discipline(s), at least, a postgraduate degree obtained on-site from a first-world university is preferable to one from a local university (which usually have weekend or evening classes similar to part-time study) or online from a foreign university. Elitist this may be, but even the best local postgraduate degrees cannot provide the experience and intellectual growth gained by being in a university that gives you access to six million books and teaching and supervision by internationally-recognised scholars. Unfortunately, in the evaluation schemes for recruitment, the worst postgraduate qualification you know of will receive the same marks as one from NUS, Harvard or Leiden.

The problem is clear but what about a solution?

Recruitment to state universities needs to change to meet contemporary needs. We need evaluation criteria that allows us to get rid of the dross as well as a more sophisticated institutional understanding of using them. Recruitment is key if we want our institutions (and our country) to progress. I reiterate here the recommendations proposed in ‘Considerations for Higher Education Reform’ circulated previously by Kuppi Collective:

* Change bond regulations to be more just, in order to retain better qualified academics.

* Update the schemes of recruitment to reflect present-day realities of inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary training in order to recruit suitably qualified candidates.

* Ensure recruitment processes are made transparent by university administrations.

Kaushalya Perera is a senior lecturer at the University of Colombo.

(Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies.)

Features

Talento … oozing with talent

Published

17 hours ago

2026/03/3

Thilina Walpola

Talento: Gained recognition as a leading wedding and dance band

This week, too, the spotlight is on an outfit that has gained popularity, mainly through social media.

Last week we had MISTER Band in our scene, and on 10th February, Yellow Beatz – both social media favourites.

Talento is a seven-piece band that plays all types of music, from the ‘60s to the modern tracks of today.

The band has reached many heights, since its inception in 2012, and has gained recognition as a leading wedding and dance band in the scene here.

The members that makeup the outfit have a solid musical background, which comes through years of hard work and dedication

Their portfolio of music contains a mix of both western and eastern songs and are carefully selected, they say, to match the requirements of the intended audience, occasion, or event.

Although the baila is a specialty, which is inherent to this group, that originates from Moratuwa, their repertoire is made up of a vast collection of love, classic, oldies and modern-day hits.

The musicians, who make up Talento, are:

Prabuddha Geetharuchi:

Geilee Fonseka: Dynamic and charismatic vocalist

Prabuddha Geetharuchi: The main man behind the band Talento

(Vocalist/ Frontman). He is an avid music enthusiast and was mentored by a lot of famous musicians, and trainers, since he was a child. Growing up with them influenced him to take on western songs, as well as other music styles. A Peterite, he is the main man behind the band Talento and is a versatile singer/entertainer who never fails to get the crowd going.

Geilee Fonseka (Vocals):

A dynamic and charismatic vocalist whose vibrant stage presence, and powerful voice, bring a fresh spark to every performance. Young, energetic, and musically refined, she is an artiste who effortlessly blends passion with precision – captivating audiences from the very first note. Blessed with an immense vocal range, Geilee is a truly versatile singer, confidently delivering Western and Eastern music across multiple languages and genres.

Chandana Perera (Drummer):

His expertise and exceptional skills have earned him recognition as one of the finest acoustic drummers in Sri Lanka. With over 40 tours under his belt, Chandana has demonstrated his dedication and passion for music, embodying the essential role of a drummer as the heartbeat of any band.

Harsha Soysa:

(Bassist/Vocalist). He a chorister of the western choir of St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa, who began his musical education under famous voice trainers, as well as bass guitar trainers in Sri Lanka. He has also performed at events overseas. He acts as the second singer of the band

Udara Jayakody:

(Keyboardist). He is also a qualified pianist, adding technical flavour to Talento’s music. His singing and harmonising skills are an extra asset to the band. From his childhood he has been a part of a number of orchestras as a pianist. He has also previously performed with several famous western bands.

Aruna Madushanka:

(Saxophonist). His proficiciency in playing various instruments, including the saxophone, soprano saxophone, and western flute, showcases his versatility as a musician, and his musical repertoire is further enhanced by his remarkable singing ability.

Prashan Pramuditha:

(Lead guitar). He has the ability to play different styles, both oriental and western music, and he also creates unique tones and patterns with the guitar..

Features

Special milestone for JJ Twins

Published

17 hours ago

2026/03/3

Thilina Walpola

Twin brothers Julian and Jason Prins

The JJ Twins, the Sri Lankan musical duo, performing in the Maldives, and known for blending R&B, Hip Hop, and Sri Lankan rhythms, thereby creating a unique sound, have come out with a brand-new single ‘Me Mawathe.’

In fact, it’s a very special milestone for the twin brothers, Julian and Jason Prins, as ‘Me Mawathe’ is their first ever Sinhala song!

‘Me Mawathe’ showcases a fresh new sound, while staying true to the signature harmony and emotion that their fans love.

This heartfelt track captures the beauty of love, journey, and connection, brought to life through powerful vocals and captivating melodies.

It marks an exciting new chapter for the JJ Twins as they expand their musical journey and connect with audiences in a whole new way.

Their recent album, ‘CONCLUDED,’ explores themes of love, heartbreak, and healing, and include hits like ‘Can’t Get You Off My Mind’ and ‘You Left Me Here to Die’ which showcase their emotional intensity.

Readers could stay connected and follow JJ Twins on social media for exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes moments, and upcoming releases:

Instagram: http://instagram.com/jjtwinsofficial

TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@jjtwinsmusic

Facebook: http://facebook.com/jjtwinssingers

YouTube: http://youtube.com/jjtwins