Nanda Malini presented a show in Toronto last month
Article written for felicitation volume to mark her forty years in singing
I first saw Nanda Malini dressed in a spotless white sari – her preferred dress – seated on the stage at Lumbini Theatre in the mid-70s, in a meditative mood. It was one of her solo performances and halfway through, four young men entered, wearing batik sarongs, shirts and reed hats. The serenity of the auditorium was ruffled by an inaudible, surprised hum.
I saw Keerthi Pasqual with his twin – the acoustic guitar he was seen with everywhere – and the quartet began to strum something like a calypso number. When did Nanda sing baila, I thought! It was catchy Sukiri Batilla set to baila-kapirignna rhythm with a totally new approach, proving that the genre which is looked down upon as the prerogative of the lowbrow Thotalanga denizens, could be resurrected for better things in music.
Years later, Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne wrote a research volume about baila-kapirigna, mentioning that this ‘alien genre’ had been with us for more than 600 years and ‘why not we give it its deserved place in our mainstream music’. Sukiri Batilla was ample testimony to qualify the prolific lyricist’s oft-heard claim.
Later in her career, she sang few more kapirignas, like Nidahas Baila, but none of our ‘prabuddha’ singers followed her example, fearing that the unsophisticated genre that was introduced by Mozambican soldiers would defile their reputation.
The musical union of Prof. Ariyaratne and Nanda is the most enduring, thought-provoking association in our musical history, jarring our conscience and making us question injustice, exploitation and lawlessness of our society, where a handful of politicians are sucking the life blood out of the land at the cost of a poor, naïve populace.
Nanda is our Joan Baez and our Joni Mitchel, but many may not agree with me. When I wrote a piece to Gulf News about Nanda when she toured Dubai in the 90s along with Rohana Weerasinghe, comparing her to the legendary Lebanese songstress Fairouz, a couple of Sri Lankans disagreed with me saying that Nanda is beyond comparison. She is indeed an incomparable national treasure. There are valid reasons.
Physically diminutive, intellectually acerbic Nanda is a formidable force laying bare the roots of social injustice, jingoism, corrupt politics, racial inequality and religious hypocrisy.
Her melody Budun Daham (Virinidu sung in anger) condemns the nation’s enslavement to foreign powers from time immemorial, Bamuna Unath (‘attack a Sinhala if he is a betrayer and respect a hero irrespective of his pedigree’), Udangu Liyan (flowers are not bloomed to be offered to Buddha or to wear on young maidens’ hair; fresh blossoms are to be paved the way for a war hero’s funeral), Upasakamma (questions whether it is right to hijack a kid to Buddha Sasana to make him a monk), Yadamin Benda (weeping over young rebels who were tortured and massacred in cold blood during the Reign of Terror of the 90s) and Panam Paththuwe (commercialization of religious worship).
Every new song continues to amaze us, while her extensive past repertoire is offering us a niche to reflect on our own woes and simple joys in life.
It is hard to find a favourite among hundreds of her iconic melodies but, on a personal note, I will settle for one song, ‘Tharuda Nidana Maha Re’ (The dense night when even the stars sleep), as the anthem of my life. (Sometimes, fans are reluctant to reveal the reasons why they like a particular melody. May be, there are some intimately personal reasons one doesn’t like to discuss).
Nanda’s touchy melody about coming to terms with loss is helping me to get over the demise of a loved one. Thank you, Nanda, for all your sweet melodies and may you be in good health to show us the gentle, star-lit path to sanity for many more years to come! – Somasiri Munasinghe
