To start off Lithmal, remember your childhood for me.
I was born in Pita Kotte, which is where I live even today. As a child, my first love was dancing and drawing. I was born into Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, Thriller, and Heal the World. I saw him dance on TV and, though I wouldn’t have taken in what he was saying, I was interested in how he conveyed his feelings through his body. Added to that was a veritable onslaught of Disney cartoons, which got me to draw.
I entered a preschool in Kohuwela, the first student to be enrolled there. The lady who ran that place, whom we affectionately referred to as “Aunty Sue”, got us hooked on to the piano and the organ. They say we are the musical instruments we grow up with, which is why I grew up adoring those two instruments. I would certainly say these first impressions were vital to my later career, especially since it was under Aunty Sue that I got rid of my stage fright and began to sang and talk.
So how were things in school?
Ananda College was different. It had to be. I quickly fell under the influence of my first real teacher in the arts, Vidyarathna Fernando, who taught dancing and was very much conversant with the pahatha rata tradition. Vidyarathna sir knew almost all forms of dancing, because at the end of the day, whatever culture it’s derived from, it’s about conveying what you feel through your body. I continued for two years. I would have been about nine or 10 at the time, in Grade Four. This was followed by Pipena Kakula, a little like, but more, much more, than a talent show, organised to uncover what students that age were good at.
It all began with a teacher called Mrs Dulcie Fernando. I believe she later wound up as the headmistress of the primary section, though I’m not really sure. Pipena Kakula had no criteria to fulfil, no prior experience to list out if you wanted to enter. Back then teachers knew parents and parents knew what the teachers thought about their children. It so happened that Mrs Fernando asked my mother to enrol me. She obliged. One thing led to another, and I found myself among four students who were being trained to announce. At the time I thought Pipena Kakula was trying to get us to try out different activities. Looking back, however, I realise now that it was actually getting us to concentrate on what we excelled at.
Did you continue with your love for talking and performing after that?
Frankly, no. There is a blank chapter in my life from Grade Six to Grade Nine. Apart from picking up the guitar and the violin, the latter less so, I let go of my love for the performing arts in favour of a stable routine: going to school, coming back home, studying, watching Scooby-Doo, chilling out.
I knew something had to give, and it did. That something was debating. I wasn’t even in the Debating Society at the time, back in Grade 10. I was dragged to it, supposedly to fill in a quota for an upcoming series of tournaments. I was first asked to speak for three minutes on any topic I wanted. Then I was given a topic to speak on for two minutes. My first real encounter thereafter was with the Sri Lanka Schools Debating Championship, organised by the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo. To say the least, it opened my eyes. Even more so when the same people who took me to debating dragged me to another activity I fell in love with: drama.
Obviously, drama is a different kettle of fish altogether. How did you fare there?
The first play as such to feature me was the Ananda College Drama Circle submission to the Inter-School Shakespeare Drama Competition in 2010, Macbeth. I was taken in as a messenger there. The following year, I took part in the Circle’s production of The Tempest, again submitted to the Competition. I was Ariel there. Thanks to these stints, I found myself returning to those pursuits I had abandoned. After my O Levels in 2012, I studied hip-hop dancing under Natasha Jayasuriya at the Deanna School of Dance, for about two years. In 2014 I studied ballroom and Latin dancing under Kevin Nugera for about six months.
How did you continue with debating thereafter? And theatre?
Since 2011, I have been involved with tournaments here and abroad. That year, I went through my school to two of them: the Sri Lanka Schools Debating Championship and the World Schools Debating Championship, the latter in Dundee, Scotland. In 2012 I captained the College “A Team” which went to Ipoh, Malaysia for the Asian Schools Debating Championship, the same competition I went to in 2013 in the Philippines and last year, as the Coach, in Kuala Lampur.
As for my other lives, I would say that both drama and debating got me into announcing, which I’d mildly touched on at school. In October 2014 a prominent radio station hired me, firstly as a show host and eventually as a news presenter. It was certainly exciting, not least because it was an entirely different experience. The same thing goes for theatre: except for professionally directing my own play, I have been involved with almost every aspect to a production, from backstage to scripting. Acting, however, remains my favourite pastime, because I love to be in the spotlight, though never to the extent of hankering after it. That is what I consider to be my signature, and at the end of the day, that is what defines me.
Written for: ESTEEM Magazine, September
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