Sunday Times 2
A good scribe feted
View(s):By Yomal Senerath-Yapa
It was the celebration of a legend- one of the last of a breed to walk the corridors of the Lake House and the realm of quality journalism. On his birthday (which he shares with his younger brother Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne) a felicitation volume was launched and this gentle doyen of journalists- Tilakaratne Kuruwita Bandara- was feted, with a record gathering at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute.
There was hardly standing space- proof that a good scribe gets more than a padded contacts book; and proof of Kuruwita Bandara’s humanity.
Kuruwita Bandara was sometime editor of the Silumina but wore many a hat- as poet, literary critic, lyricist and author.
Both the main speakers of the evening were superlatively qualified to pay paeans to the man; given that they had grown up imbibing his erotic poetry as youths, and having known him as acolytes in the chancy world of media.
Many anecdotes unfolded, both media personality Saman Athaudahetti and Prof. Samantha Herath (who is the editor of the felicitation volume) being raconteurs par excellence.
Saman Athaudahetti spoke of Kuruwita Bandara as keeping up the tradition of great Silumina editors like the late Martin Wickremesinghe, taking the Sunday paper to new heights with record sales.
Prof. Herath serenaded the veteran for his outspokenness both in his work (he was once sacked from a high position because he refused to acquiesce to political machinations) and his poetry which could be sensual to the level of the daring in the staid seventies.
Both speakers touched on how Kuruwita Bandara fostered many generations; from younger brother Sunil Ariyaratne to countless young writers who benefited from his fine mould and honed pen.
The chief guest was Prof. Sarath Amunugama, a close friend who called it an ‘irony of fate’ that himself, the chairman of Lake House with the shortest tenure, and Kuruwita, the journalist who had worked the longest at Lake House, should be present.
He credited Kuruwita Bandara with having established a benchmark style in journalism as well as literature in Sinhala, harking back to those vintage days with reminiscences of life at the desk.
The event was interspersed with songs written by Kuruwita Bandara.