Good bye, Tissa Uncle!

Sad tidings of his death make us contemplate the legacy Dr Tissa Abeysekara has left behind. It is but a deep contemplation, for he was a genius – with a distilled halo: journalist, scripter, filmmaker, actor, presenter, novelist and above all a brilliant bilingual. In fact he is a rare species of all times let alone his own.

Even at his age – would have been a septuagenarian next month – when most of his contemporaries dined on ashes, his hands had still been full. He could still speak without blabbering. He could still write sharp and witty. When most of his contemporaries left our shores for a comfortable life, he stayed with us to share his thoughts.

Abeysekara had two turfs which he could tread on with much ease: cinema and literature. His literary life started with a teenhood short story for Dinamina and the filmic life started with a tea man’s job. It was a journey from the tea tray to the grandstand. He belongs to the camp of Martin Wickramasinghe who did not have university credentials. Yet Abeysekara was a gifted idol, who didn’t care a heck about doctorates.

Looking back at his life, he seems to have had that Midas touch in whatever the field he stepped in. When he joined Lester James Peries for the first time in 1964 it was almost a miracle. It was when Peries employed young Abeysekara as the dialogue writer and the first assistant director for Gamperaliya. He was later to see the movie clinch the Golden Peacock award for the best feature film. His scripting then followed up with Nidhanaya, a much precious reelwork now.

He had faith in aesthetic beauty more than spirituality. His powerful pathos in portraying the militant spiritual personage of Kudapola Hamuduruwo in Lester’s Puran Appu was natural. The role was relatively short-spanned but it won Abeysekara the Presidential award for the best supporting actor. The way he reacts to white man’s gunshot in the film still remains haunting in our hearts.

Abeysekara was very enthusiastic about the culture he grew up with. Anything you inquire, he could spell it out in his own inimitable eloquent accent. On culture and related areas, only a few other than Abeysekara will claim such a vast storage of knowledge.

Abeysekara had a strong bilingual backing from his family; paradoxically though his mother spoke only Sinhala. He handled both languages with equal mastery, which is rare in our generation. His vocabulary was vast at times, but he used the right idiom at the right place. His sentences were roaming on long routes at times, but they had rich meanings.

Language’s creative use was his concern, on top of everything else – even more than cinema. He spoke high of reworking the language towards his last days. He had much to say on narrative style. He reminisced his childhood days which influenced him with sound patterns.

“If I die and am born again as you say I will be, is that, which is reborn, the same me?” queried the man from the Buddha, and the Buddha replied, “Neither you, nor yet any other.

Likewise what follows in this book, being truth recreated through memory, is neither true, nor untrue. But then, does it matter?”

So starts his latest – did he ever fathom it would be his last? – book ‘Bringing Tony Home and other stories’ (published as part of a partnership between North Atlantic Books and Scala House Press; available at leading bookshops). We are happy we could give the first coverage on his book (see December 3, 2008 Daily News Artscope).

Thinking of you, Uncle Tissa – for I am very much younger than you, and you didn’t like to be called ‘Dr’ or ‘Sir’ either – I need to go back, stroke gently, those lines you have conceived in your ‘requiem’. I glance them on a mirror that reflects your thoughts clearer than ever:

“We need to sit down and have that long frank talk, just the two of us. You must tell me everything. I will listen. I have the time now.” (Poor Young Man, A Requiem: Bringing Tony Home)

Good bye charming wizard of our times, we know it must come to pass. But death should have spared you for a few more years – at least for that long frank talk. Death should have spared you!