Features
Reflecting on Mahagama sekara on his death anniversary
By Uditha Devapriya
Mahagama Sekara died on January 14, 1976. On January 15, 2023, at 6.30 pm, Bandula Nanayakkarawasam will be presenting the latest “Rae Ira Pana” show at the New-Fangled Auditorium of Holy Cross College, Gampaha. Featuring Sunil Edirisinghe, Uresha Ravihari, Shashika Nisansala, Rohana Siriwardena, Raveen Kanishka, and Sarath de Alwis, it will be dedicated to the memory of Sri Lanka’s foremost modern poet. The following is a partial review of Garrett Field’s book on Sri Lankan music in the early 20th century, Modernizing Composition: Sinhala Song, Poetry, and Politics in Twentieth-Century Sri Lanka (University of California Press, 2017), in particular its chapter on Sekara’s work.
In Modernizing Composition, Professor Garrett Field devotes a whole chapter to Mahagama Sekara. The Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology/Musicology at Ohio University, Field charts Sekara’s career fairly accurately and rather impressively. Field contends that Sekara’s career coincided with the peak in Sinhala nationalist sentiment that accompanied the 1956 elections and the enthronement of Sinhala as the official language. In 1960, Field notes, Sekara found employment at Radio Ceylon. Together with his most frequent collaborator, Amaradeva, he launched a music programme, Maduvanti.
By all accounts, Sekara was a complex, contradictory, and mercurial man. Field captures this aspect to his character well. Thus, in his first few years at Radio Ceylon, we are told that his poetry lacked social and political engagement. In 1958 he had published a translation of Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. Two years later he wrote “Sankalpana”, a poem Field contends “may have [been] derived… from passages in Kahlil Gibran’s The Voice of the Master.” Whether these attempts constituted a wilful disengagement from politics, indeed from society itself, is debatable. But Field makes a strong case for the view that it did: in addition to poetry, Sekara was also experimenting with folk poetry, and had become part of a group of poets “who championed a romantic nationalism.”
If you are Sri Lankan, can understand Sinhala, and, even if not fluent in it, can listen to and appreciate a Sinhala song, it would be difficult to escape the songs Sekara penned at this point in his career. Field’s study, impressive and scholarly as it is, focuses much less on those songs than it does on his poetry and theatrical work. Field argues, rather controversially no doubt, that Sekara’s awareness of the wider social and political implications of the 1956 elections, the upsurge in Sinhala nationalism, and the consequent marginalisation of ethnic minorities vis-à-vis Sinhala and Buddhism, turned him away from his earlier romantic views on the country, its history, and its heritage. To this end, the author quotes extensively from Sekara’s 1964 anthology, Maknisāda Yat. From his reading of the poems there, the author concludes that Sekara had begun to criticise Sinhala nationalism, transform into a humanist, and reflect critically on “the drawbacks of industrialisation.”
It is difficult, if not impossible, to deconstruct Sekara on the basis of one anthology. To his credit, Field attempts no such thing: his intention is to show how these poems differ, in form and content, from his earlier attempts. Yet, even on that count, it is not really accurate to view these poems as a complete break from those attempts. Field depicts Sekara as turning away from the romantic nationalism of his early period. But 1964, the year of Maknisāda Yat’s publication, comes around a time Sekara pens a songs that harkens back to that earlier phase: “Me Sinhala Apage Ratayi”, written for Saravita, released in 1965.
Perhaps the most illuminating contrast between these two efforts – the one representing a break and the other a reaffirmation – lies in a passage in Maknisāda Yat that dwells on Siri Pada. Siri Pada, of course, is a contested site for members of several religious faiths: not just Buddhist and Hindu, but also Christian and Muslim. Its heritage is shared by these groups: Buddhists venerate the Buddha’s footprint, the Hindus believe it to be Shiva’s footprint, and Christians and Muslims consider it as the site of Paradise. Sekara, in his poem, depicts the Peak as a meeting place for all these communities.
There will be paradise
On the summit of
Siripā kaňda [Sinhala]
Sivanoli pādam [Hindu]
Bābā ādamaleyi [Christian and Muslim]
By featuring the many names for the Peak given by these groups, Sekara in effect cleanses the site of its exclusivist, Sinhala and Buddhist only association. Field sees this as a radical break from and rupture with the way Sinhala songwriters and poets saw Siri Pada. It is, he observes, reasonable to conclude that “Sekera wanted the country to change in 1964 in regard to its escalating Sinhalese ethnic chauvinism.” In itself, there is nothing objectionable in such a reading of the poem. However, while agreeing with Field’s premise, I would point out that around a year later, Sekara was writing the following lines.
There is, of course, no fundamental difference between the Siri Pada Sekara perceives in Maknisāda Yat and the Siri Pada he perceives in “Me Sinhala Apage Ratayi.” Both affirm the “ourness” of this country: the Peak, he says, belongs to everyone and to all. The difference lies in the context: while Maknisāda Yat celebrates the diversity of the nation, and locates Siri Pada accordingly, “Me Sinhala Apage Ratayi” does not pretend to be anything other than a celebration of the country’s Sinhala and Buddhist heritage. One can term this exclusivist, communalistic, or even chauvinist: such interpretations are essentially the privilege of those who make them. My point isn’t that they are right or wrong. My point is that, in the same period, and roughly the same year, Mahagama Sekara could author a poem which valorised diversity and then a song that directly contradicts such a vision.
Field’s diagnosis and post-mortem, in other words, is accurate only to an extent. The point I am making here is not that Field is wrong, but that it is hard to fit Sekara into the proverbial round hole. There are many ways of interpreting Sekara. It is to Field’s credit that he has, in his book – a welcome addition to a burgeoning academic interest in Sri Lankan, specifically Sinhala, music – unearthed an aspect to the man and his career which, to the best of my knowledge, has escaped other scholars, including Sri Lankans. Notwithstanding Field and research, however, Sekara remains as ineffable as ever. Perhaps an encounter that Malinda Seneviratne, who translated Sekara’s magnum opus Prabuddha – a work conspicuous by its absence in Field’s chapter on the man – in 1997 would make this a little clearer. At the time Seneviratne was at the Peradeniya University, attending a “Sekara Samaruma” organised by a group calling itself the “Hanthane Nava Parapura.”
“There was a young student belonging to the Young Socialists who claimed that Sekera’s sensibilities were eminently Marxian, while a Buddhist monk said that his poetry epitomised the Buddhist approach to life. A third said that he recommended Sekera’s Prabuddha to anyone who wanted an answer to the question ‘What is Jathika Chintanaya?’ Finally, a Philosophy student observed that the length of the ideological spectrum from which these claims arrived itself points to the richness of Sekera’s work and reflects the fact that he touched so many people deeply. Sekera, as my father once said, like the sky, is not less private although he belongs to us all.”
In other words, the sheer eclecticism of Mahagama Sekara makes it possible, and not entirely wrong, to call him many things at the same time: Marxian, Buddhist, nationalist, and, perhaps the most correct interpretation of them all, open to many interpretations. This is because Sekara forayed into many fields and activities. He was not merely a lyricist or a poet, not merely a playwright and an artist: he also authored a dissertation on the Sinhala language, which has, again to the best of my knowledge, not been translated. Most Sri Lankans would, of course, associate him with his songs, specifically those he wrote for, and sometimes with, W. D. Amaradeva. But it would be wrong to deconstruct him from these efforts alone, though they constitute the bulk of his work that has ensured posterity for him, in the eyes of Sri Lanka’s ever evolving, and ever morphing, listening public.
The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.
Many of the international pronouncements on the current dangerously escalating Israel-Iran hostilities could be seen as lacking in adequate balance and comprehensiveness. The majority of these reactions could be said to be failing in addressing the aspects of the conflict that matter most.
For example, there is the recent UN General Assembly resolution on the crisis which calls for an ‘immediate, unconditional and lasting ceasefire in the Gaza’ and which goes on to urge ‘Member States to take necessary steps to ensure Israel complies with its international legal obligations.’ An immediate and durable ceasefire is indeed the number one requirement in the Middle East today but could it be ‘unconditional’? Could it ignore the principal requirement of Israel’s security? These posers need to be addressed as well.
Besides, it is not only Israel that should be compelled to meet its ‘international legal obligations.’ All the states and actors that feature in the conflict need to be alerted to their ‘international legal obligations’. While it goes without saying that Israel must meet its international legal obligations fully, the same goes for Iran and all other Middle Eastern countries that enjoy UN membership and who are currently at odds with Israel. For instance, Israel is a UN member state that enjoys equal sovereignty with other states within the UN fold. No such state could seek to ‘bomb Israel out of existence’ for example.
As a significant ‘aside’ it needs to be mentioned that we in Sri Lanka should consider it appropriate to speak the truth in these matters rather than dabble in what is ‘politically correct’. It has been seen as ‘politically correct’ for Sri Lankan governments in particular to take up the cause of only the Palestinians over the decades without considering the legitimate needs of the Israelis. However, a lasting solution to the Middle East imbroglio is impossible to arrive at without taking into account the legitimate requirements of both sides to the conflict.
The G7, meanwhile, is right in stating that ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’, besides ‘reiterating our support for the security of Israel’ but it urges only ‘a de-escalation’ of hostilities and does not call for a ceasefire, which is of prime importance.
It is only an enduring ceasefire that could lay the basis for a cessation of hostilities which could in turn pave the way for the provision of UN humanitarian assistance to the people of the Gaza uninterruptedly for the foreseeable future. There is no getting away from the need for a durable downing of arms which could engender the environment required for negotiations between the warring parties.
Meanwhile, some 22 Muslim majority countries have ‘warned that continued escalation threatens to ignite a broader regional conflict that could destabilize the Middle East’ and called ‘for a return to negotiations as the only solution regarding Iran’s nuclear program.’ This statement addresses some important issues in the crisis but one hopes that the pronouncement went on to call for negotiations that would take up the root causes for the conflict as well and pointed to ways that could address them. For instance, there is no getting away from the ‘Two State Solution’ that envisages peaceful coexistence between the principal warring parties.
The ‘Two State Solution’ has been discredited by sections of the world community but it outlines the most sensible solution to the conflict. As matters stand, the current escalating hostilities, if left unchecked, could not only lead to a wider regional war of attrition but bring about the annihilation of entire populations. There is no alternative to comprehensive negotiations that take on the issues head on.
Besides, all who matter in the current discourse on the crisis need to alert themselves to the dangers of appealing to the religious identities of communities and social groups. When such appeals are made religious passions are stirred, which in turn activate extremist religious outfits that operate outside the bounds of the law and prove difficult to rein-in. This was essentially how ‘9/11’ came about. Accordingly, speaking with a sense of responsibility proves crucial.
In fact, it could be argued that a continuation of the present hostilities would only benefit the above outfits with a destructive mindset. Therefore, comprehensive and constructive negotiations are of the first importance.
The above conditions should ideally be observed by both parties to the conflict. Israel, no less than the Islamic and Arab world, needs to adhere to them. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has no choice but to say ‘No’ to extremists within his cabinet and to ‘show them the door’, inasmuch as hot-headed extremists in the Islamic and Arab world need to be opposed and alienated by the relevant governments.
Meanwhile, the US is on a duplicitous course in the Middle East. Whereas it has no choice but to rein-in Israel and convince it of the need to negotiate an end to the conflict, it is choosing to turn a blind eye to Israel’s military excesses and other irregularities that are blighting the Gazans and the ordinary people of Iran. It ought to be plain to the Trump administration that it is promoting a barbaric war of attrition by continuing to provide Israel with the most lethal weaponry. Currently, it is anybody’s guess as to what the US policy on the Middle East is.
The Islamic and Arab world, on the other hand, should come to understand the imperatives for a defusing of tensions in the region. Decades of conflict and war ought to have made it clear that the suffering of the populations concerned would not draw to a close minus a negotiated peace that ensures the wellbeing of all sections concerned.
As pointed out, the security of Israel needs to be guaranteed by those quarters opposing it. This will require the adoption of a conciliatory attitude towards Israel by state and non-state actors who have thus far been hostile towards it. There needs to be a steady build-up of goodwill on both sides of the divide. If this is fully realized by the Arab world a negotiated solution will be a realistic proposition in the Middle East.
We had no luck coming our way at the Miss World 2025 contest – not even our immediate neighbour, India – but I’m glad that Miss Thailand was crowned Miss World 2025 as Thailand happens to be my second home … been to Amazing Thailand many times, courtesy of the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
In fact, even before the Miss World 2025 grand finale, which was held at the beautiful venue of the HITEX Exhibition Centre, in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, my colleagues at office all predicted that Miss Thailand, Opal Suchata Chuangsri, would emerge as the winner.
Yes, indeed, Miss Thailand not only won the hearts of millions but also became the first ever Thai to claim this much sought-after title.
Prior to winning the title of Miss World 2025, Opal Suchata was Thailand’s representative at Miss Universe 2024 and took home the third runner-up title.
Her Miss Universe crown, unfortunately, was subsequently forfeited, due to a contract breach, but she did not let that demotivate her, though, and went on to compete and win the title of Miss World Thailand 2025.
Coming from a family that was in the hospitality industry, her upbringing, in this kind of environment, made her aware of her culture and helped her with her communication skills at a very young age. They say she is very fluent in Thai, English, and Chinese.
Obviously, her achievements at the Miss World 2025 contest is going to bring the 22-year-old beauty immense happiness but I couldn’t believe that this lovely girl, at 16, had surgery to remove a benign breast lump, and that made her launch the ‘Opal For Her’ campaign to promote breast health awareness and early detection of breast cancer, which also became the topic of her ‘Beauty with Purpose’ at the Miss World 2025 contest.
Opal Suchata intends to leverage her Miss World title to advocate for other women’s health issues, as well, and sponsor a number of charitable causes, specifically in women’s health.
Her victory, she says, is not just a personal achievement but a reflection of the dreams and aspirations of young girls around the world who want to be seen, heard, and create change.
What’s more, with interests in psychology and anthropology, Opal Suchata aspires to become an ambassador for Thailand, aiming to represent her country on international platforms and contribute to peace-building efforts.
She believes that regardless of age or title, everyone has a role to play in inspiring others and making a positive impact.
And, what’s more, beyond pageantry, Opal Suchata is an animal lover, caring for 16 cats and five dogs, making her a certified “fur mom.”
She also possesses a special musical ability—she can play the ukulele backwards.
Opal Suchata is already a star with many expressing admiration for her grace, leadership, and passion for making a difference in the world.
And there is also a possibility of this head-turner, from Thailand, entering the Bollywood film industry, after completing her reign as Miss World, as she has also expressed interest in this field.
She says she would love the opportunity and praised the Indian film indstry.
She akso shared her positive experience during her visit to India and her appreciation for the Telangana government.
Congratulations Opal Suchata Chuangsri from Amazing Thailand. You certainly deserve the title Miss World 2025.
What is important is that the Miss World event is among the four globally recognised beauty pageants … yes, the four major international beauty pageants for woment. The other three are Miss Universe, Miss Earth and Miss International.
Unfortunately, in our scene, you get beauty pageants popping up like mushrooms and, I would say, most of them are a waste of money and time for the participants.
This week I thought of working on some beauty tips, using coconut oil, which is freely available, and quite affordable, as well.
Let’s start with Coconut Oil as a Moisturiser…
First, make sure your skin is clean and dry before applying the coconut oil. This will allow the oil to penetrate the skin more effectively.
Next, take a small amount of coconut oil and warm it up in your hands by rubbing them together. This will help to melt the oil and make it easier to apply.
Gently massage the oil onto your face and body, focusing on dry areas or areas that need extra hydration.
Allow the oil to absorb into your skin for a few minutes before getting dressed.
Start with a small amount and add more if needed.
* Acne and Blemishes:
Apply a small amount to the affected area and gently massage it in. Leave it on overnight and rinse off in the morning. Remember to patch test before applying it to your entire face to ensure you don’t have any adverse reactions.
* Skin Irritations:
If you’re dealing with skin irritations, coconut oil may be just what you need to find relief. Coconut oil has natural anti-inflammatory properties that can help soothe and calm irritated skin.
Simply apply a thin layer of coconut oil to the affected area and gently massage it in. You can repeat this process as needed throughout the day to keep your skin calm and comfortable.
* Makeup Remover:
To use coconut oil as a makeup remover, simply apply a small amount onto a cotton pad or your fingertips and gently massage it onto your face, in circular motions. The oil will break down the makeup, including waterproof mascara and long-wearing foundation, making it easy to wipe away.
Not only does coconut oil remove makeup, but it also nourishes and hydrates the skin, leaving it feeling soft and smooth. Plus, its antibacterial properties can help prevent breakouts and soothe any existing skin irritations, so give coconut oil a try and experience its natural makeup removing abilities, and also say goodbye to acne and blemishes!
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