“When you can hear the thunder,
feel a storm coming,
You need a shelter of love and giving,
so reach out with loving hands,
With a heart that cares and understands,
On wings of faith and hope we can fly,
And paint a rainbow across the sky”
To associate a sense of happiness with ‘cancer’ may sound crazy, but then again happiness can indeed be found in anything. As a thunderstorm split the skies, Shobi Perera returning from work was struck by the fear that it evoked. He sat in his car, waiting for the storm to pass, and the words flowed into his head. The image of the dark sky, beleaguered by thunder made him think of the dreaded disease. “People think of cancer as the end of the line, since it’s by far the most tragic disease, but they also need to picture the ‘rainbow’ at the end of the storm,” says Shobi - “The rainbow of hope.”
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| Shobi: Spreading awareness through song |
Overwhelmed by his thoughts, Shobi jotted them down then and there. “I am a humble sound engineer,” he says, “lyrics don’t naturally occur to me, but this was a very personal and sentimental moment for me.” Earlier that year, Shobi had bid goodbye to his eight-year-old nephew, who lost a courageous battle with cancer. “It was a very trying time, I experienced what it was like to lose a loved one to cancer, an experience that millions of people share,” he says. Shobi recalls how the families had come together, set aside all other work and focused solely on battling the cancer. “It brought us all together, the sense of unity was striking.” Having already seen the rainbow, he knew it was time to spread the message.
Last year, the Sri Lanka Cancer Society came together to organize a ‘Cancer Walk’, with the aim of raising awareness, especially amongst the youth. During the walk, a special song was selected as the theme, and it was none other than Shobi’s “Paint a Rainbow”. “I wanted the Cancer Society to have a listen to my song,” says Shobi, as he pulls out a guitar and starts strumming the chords to us, “I knew they loved it on the first go.” Amongst those who showed great interest in the song was President of the Sri Lanka Cancer Society, Justice Shiranee Tilakawardane. Later, Haadia Galely of the society, contacted Shobi and said that they wanted to promote the song in the hope of raising awareness which tied up perfectly with Shobi’s own aim of creating awareness and giving some hope to cancer patients.
M.Entertainment (Pvt) Ltd lent a hand in producing the records and Shobi has given all rights for the song to the Sri Lanka Cancer Society in recognition of the work being done. “I opened my eyes to a world where people set aside all differences and come together to fight the disease,” he says.
Shobi produces tracks for many leading artistes and is also the proud owner of quite a number of commercial jingles that can be heard on the radio at any given time of the day. Having fallen in love with the bass guitar at the age of 14, Shobi joined ‘Sohan and the Experiments’ in 1997.
The song is written by Shobi himself, while the musical ensemble is star-studded, to say the least. Being a trilingual song, the arrangement was translated into Sinhala and Tamil, with the help of Chaminda Rathnasooriya and M.Z.A Sadath. The piano score is by Soundarie David, Christopher Prins plays drums and Primal Liyanage the guitar. Kasun Kalhara adds power to the Sinhala vocals while Shehara Liyanage delivers the English vocals, and young Avinesh Wijenathan the Tamil vocals ( he has indeed gone on to win a reality contest, after the recording). Shobi makes special mention of Sohan Weerasinghe for his invaluable efforts in making the song a reality.
The first batch of 1000 CDs have sold out. ‘Paint a Rainbow’, priced at Rs 200, is available at Vibrations, and the Head Office of the Sri Lanka Cancer Society. Funds raised go towards the Cancer Awareness and other projects of the society. |
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