• The leisure world of a two year old
• Jossie Baba, Manappuwa and the Negombo Minerva Players
• 'Maithri outwitted and outlived his contemporaries'
• The value of names
  The names of British governors are still perpetuated on the streets of Colombo and Kandy. Yet, some popular landmarks like 'Paranawadiya' which should have been retained, have been changed.
• Sri Lankan dancers keep London audience spellbound
  Being a great admirer of Sri Lankan traditional dancing and music and I myself having studied oriental dancing under Master Somapala Mudunkotge at Ananda College, Colombo, I was really looking forward to seeing it. I thoroughly enjoyed his performance of Chitrasena-Vajira dancing troupe at Sadlers Wells theatre in London a few years ago. Channa who has his own troupe now, was a member of that troupe.

Are affluent children over stimulated?

That was a question that cropped up seeing all the toys a certain two year old has whose parents however deliberately go slow on toy buying fearing the child would get over-indulged. Its their friends and the child's New York living maternal grandmother and LA based aunt who shower him with huge big buses with openable doors and windows, music making Sesame Street critters and talking books and of course Beanie Babies, in addition to the traditional train sets and friction cars.

Talking toys
You lean on a soft toy in his room and there emerges a catchy tune; you lift Barney the Dinasaur to make room for yourself on the futon and there goes the bright green creature teaching you the alphabet and on the ground is the child himself knocking keys and producing music with one hand and pressing a book button with the other causing a plane to take off, a jeep to swoosh and animals to chatter as the pages are turned revealing a safari adventure.

Over the TV set is his rack of videos - Sesame Street, Barney, Kermit and Ms Piggy, nursery rhymes and adorable Charlotte's Web with the runt piglet Wilbur crying that he's being fattened for bacon and Charlotte, the ladylike spider, comforting him; "Chin up! Chin up! We will think up some way of saving you", after her adult greeting: "Salutation": which she explains is saying hello to greet him.

The adults sees a distinct difference between Americans and British productions of TV programmes and videos for children.

The national traits seem to be captured: big, bold, brassy for American and more sedate and substanced in British productions. For instance Charlotte's Web, story by E. B. White, has not only a delightful story, good polished language, music and fun and colour all in the correct proportion, but also a lesson to be imbibed indirectly about true friendship and loyalty. Maybe lost on a two year old but effects are insiduous.

Baby knows best
By instinct or deliberate choice, the 2 year old selects a video of a rousing school room escapade with a racially mixed group of children - white, black, Hispanic and Far Eastern - with loud Barney, in the morning or when being fed and Charlotte and her woven web when quieter and ready for the afternoon nap.

The new rage cuddlies
Beanie Babies are the rage, even among American adults. They are soft and pliable and, to the touch of a child, probably life like. Sri Lankan soft toys - there are plenty available - are merely cuddly or decorative. A Barefoot parrot for instance is a show piece and does not encourage a child toting it around. Not so the Beanies - they are small, clutchable and "move" as if they were alive. And so the cuddling of a Beanie bear or rat once the 2 year old tires of his battered and scalped Stinky and tiger who are basically cot mates. Kolars, crocodiles, rabbits and tigers are all Beanies.

Beanies were much in the news very recently. The US trade representative, Charlene Barshefsky, who was a member of President Clinton's entourage on his recent China visit, brought back a clutch of Beanies made in China (FTZ I suppose). They cannot be sold in China, hence Ms Barshefsky's 40 critters were impounded by US Customs Service. The Senator from Illinois had suggested these confiscated Babies be donated to charity, but it was not done. Instead the little ones were destroyed since Ty Corp that makes them feared product liability lawsuits on the illegal immigrants. As an offshoot of the incident came Ty Corp's generosity - donating 500 legitimate Beanies and 500 Pillow pals to the La Rabida Children's Hospital in Chicago. Ty Corp had been criticised earlier for making no donations of the delightful critters to underprivileged kids.

Bean bag relays
I remember the bean bags we used to play with - 40 to 50 years ago. They were made of tamarind seeds and weren't they comfortably pliant. We used to have a bean bag relay at school for the sports meet - tossing a bean bag down the row of girls, running back and forth and screaming with delight if your House row was the first to sit down having out paced the others in the relay.

Which brings me back to the question I posed at the very beginning of the article. Are children, specially the well to do, being over stimulated by all the toys and TV shows and videos they have offered them? We, and even our children who are now in their 20s and 30s, had so much less but we are on the whole very well balanced and intellectually OK, if I say so myself! This question bothered me as I was dazzled by the bright bright colours and assaulted by the loud sound effects of the continous high jinks of Barney and his brood and other such animated creatures.

And then observing the 2 year old I realized things are not bad, no real harm will be done. He, sweet mite, took greatest pleasure in the soap bubbles his mother blew him. A little bottle with a blue liquid and a small plastic circle with a handle entertained him happily in the open. Wise parents do control TV viewing time and indoor activities. But oft times, just to keep the child quiet he may be indulged with extra TV hours, exposing him to too much mental and emotional stimulation.

Thank goodness we in Sri Lanka do not really mess up our children thus. Books are still valued and READ, libraries are patronised and the out-of-doors made use of. So we score, at least in such instances, over the affluent developed nations.

The best of the century
Books, I mean, the best English language books of the 20th century as selected by the editorial board of the Modern Library of Random House and a group of mostly female, 20 something future publishers of Radcliffe College. The beauty of the selections was that there was correspondence between the two chosen lists even though the Random House group were of elderly scholars and literati, including Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Gore Vidal, Daniel J Boorstin and Christopher Cerf.

The Random House editors selected as best books of the century James Joyce's Ulysses, followed by F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

The young university students selected The Great Gatsby as their choice for best book, followed by J D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath Harper Leer to Kill a Mocking Bird and The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.

The two lists shared 47 titles, including four in each Top 10: Ulysses, Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath and Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

What's interesting to me in this piece of news I read is that I agree totally with the choice of the student group. Maybe they being women in the majority, they selected such classics as To Kill a Mocking Bird and the racy Catcher in the Rye, which are favourites of mine, re-read many a time since childhood.

by Joe Segera
In the days of the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa, there was no other era in the theatrical life of this country like the days of the Tower Hall, but there was nothing unique about it for that was the only avenue of entertainment that was available to the people. Any cheap show at the Tower Hall where men dressed like women performed drew crowds. This was followed by the theatre of the Jayamannes or the "Eddie Jayamanne play after the actor who made the plays famous", according to that accepted Authority on Sinhala theatre and drama, Dr. Ediriweera Saratch-chandra.

In the forties B. A. W. Jayamanne, the elder brother of the better known Eddie Jaya-manne, ventured into the uncertain world of Sinhala theatre and drama Aloy Jayamanne as he was popularly known had no theatrical background, his background was only Negombo which won fame and plaudits for its passion plays, particularly the Passion Play at Duwa staged by fisherfolk.

Aloy's father was a well known schoolmaster who taught at Maris Stella College. With Eddie and a few others he started a theatre group called the Negombo Minerva Players, very aptly named after the Goddess Minerva.

Unlike the Tower Hall plays the Jaya-manne plays were based on contemporary life and its many situations. They were a far cry from Tower Hall whose stalwarts were John de Silva and Charles Dias throughbacks of the memorable days of Sinhala kings such as Siri Sangabo, Sri Wickrema Rajasingha and others.

The Jayamanne plays which concentrated on life in middle class Sinhala homes and their domestic lives in the city of Colombo also chose to depict in the form of sub-plots a slice of life in the villages and rural areas which had their own style of facing the world with the "Gamaralas and Gama Hamines."

Aloy Jayamanne wrote a whole string of plays all beginning with the first letters of the English alphabet.

In those fading days of the British Empire the Jayamanne plays were simply "lapped up" by the people for not only were they well presented, but had the spice and the humour to entertain theatre-hungry audiences.

More than those scenes in middle class city homes, it was the other side of the story that really carried the day - the numerous episodes of the village elder, the Gamarala and his amorous escapades with the very much younger tempestuous lass of the village.

It was Eddie Jaya-manne as the Gamarala who really stole the show. His very presence with his hilarious antics with Jossie, the lascivious village beauty that used to drive audiences to peals of laughter.

In his monumental work, "the Folk Drama of Ceylon", Dr. Saratchchandra is lavish in his praise for Eddie Jayamanne. He says, "Eddie Jayamanne is a comedian of unusual talent who brings into the modern stage the folk traditions of clever burlesque and mimicry."

The role played by Eddie Jayamanne as Manappuwa and his partner, the curvaceous Jossie whom Manappu most lovingly called "Jossie Baba" was the most hilarious in the Jayamanne plays. In one of those scenes Manappu and Jossie sing baila in the kitchen while master and mistress are out on a social call.

They danced to the rib-tickling strains of a baila called "Nonagay Aalay" which says, "while our master and mistress make love in the drawing room, the two of us are gaily making love in a corner of this kitchen."

The dialogues and the songs and bailas this comic duo sang were really out of this world, only Eddie Jayamanne could have composed them with his own unorthodox tunes. The much talked of Jossie Baba was at the very beginning a girl from Negombo who called herself Jemini Kantha. She was followed by the shaper Mabel Blyth also from musical, fun-loving Negombo.

Then there was the other sensation who was the other crowd-puller of the Jayamanne shows, Rukmani Devi. To her thousands of admirers she was verily the "Greatest". They rated her even higher than India's Latha Mangeshkar.

Of Rukmani Devi's singing, Dr. Saratchchandra makes this telling observation, "Rukmani Devi's singing was a welcome relief after the high-pitched nasal singing that characterised the public hall and Tower Hall stage."

Rukmani Devi who died a few years ago in a motor vehicle accident is still being admired and idolised by her admirers and fans. There is a statue erected in her memory on the Negombo Road at Tudella. Her real name was Daisy Daniels. She first burst into the limelight when she sang, "Siri Buddhagaya" with Maestro H. W. Rupa-singhe or Rupasinghe Master at a show in Colombo.

Later some of her finest songs were sung with the late Stanley Mallawarachchi a singer who in those early years was referred to by his fans as the local equivalent of that prized Hindi singer, Talat Mahamood.

While the Negombo Minerva Players were drawing crowded houses with plays such as "Broken Promise", "Kapati Arakshakaya", "Changing Fate and others with no rivals in sight, and playwright, B. A. W. Jayamanne was looking for a financier to make a film, "Broken Promise". He was lucky to find one in S. M. Nayagam, this country's pioneer industrial tycoon.

Nayagam spent lavishly on the film which was made in Madras at the sprawling A.V.M. Studios. And "Broken Promise" which turned out to be this country's first Sinhala film became an instant box-office hit in 1947.

Its Director was Jyotish Sinha, a frontline figure in the India film world at the time. The stars of "Broken Promise" were the stars of the Minerva Players. There were Eddie Jayamanne, Rukmani Devi, Stanley Mallawarachchi, B. A. W. Jayamanne, Jemini Kantha, Bertram Fer-nando and a host of others.

Others stars of the Minerva Players that come to light today are music maestro Hugo Fernando, Greta Janet de Silva, Mark Samaranayake and Christie de Mel.

by S. Francis Perera
It was one of the late J. R. Jayewardene's witty if cynical quips that if one cannot outwit another he should at least outlive him. It is a piece of counsel that Maithripala Sena-nayake, affectionately called Maithri - could have dispensed with. For he both outwitted and outlived most of his contemporaries. May be it is a bit too early to make an objective study of his impact on the island's story. But be it too early or timely there is one fact not to be denied; that Maithri who was a colossus in more than one sense, strode the country's stage for half a century.

We as a nation cannot grumble that fortune has been measly with us. But like other nations we too have been, occasionally, a target to the slings and arrows of misfortune. And we could not have suffered a worse misfortune at this critical juncture of our history than to have lost Maithri with his wealth of experience, acumen and geniality.

From time to time there have appeared on earth men of rare qualities of head and heart, as though nature meant them to be pathfinders to humanity. Their advent is welcomed, their performance is commended and their progress is watched with bated breath. Soon, it is hoped, he will rise to the pinnacle where he rightly belongs. But alas! It is not to be. By some quirk of nature that height recedes from him.

Co-existence
It was true of Count Mirabeau who many hoped would bring revolutionary France to the path of peace; it was true of Parnell who alone could have brought Ireland intact out of the house of bondage; and it is true of Maithri, who steeped as he was in the cultures of the two major ethnic groups could have led the nation to the promised land of permanent peaceful co-existence. But fate decreed otherwise. The governorship was but a kick upstairs. It is our sad lot to remember him as one of the greatest prime ministers we never had!

To dwell on regrets is an exercise in futility. A great leader is dead and is beyond recall. We should ask ourselves whether there be any 'treasures' to be salvaged. It behoves those who have the true interests of the nation at heart to make a searching study of his career to glean lessons that will be of use to build a new order in the land.

Several of those who were closely associated with Maithri have presented biographical accounts of this eminent statesman. It would therefore be superfluous to traverse the same ground.

Having made a study of Maithri's life the present writer is convinced that his career has been moulded by a distinct philosophy. He considers it his duty to lay it bare - to present it to his fellow citizens engaged in the search for a lasting solution to the prevailing crises. Like the juggler in the market-place he will not try the patience of the reader in being vague about it or trying to withhold it till the end. All who have approached the subject in a spirit of objectivity could not have failed to see that his life was governed by moderation - a philosophical interpretation of which was first given by the Buddha. He called it the middle-path, for it wended its way through the polar extremes.

Exremism
To the Greeks who eschewed extremism in all its forms it was the golden mean. It is reasonable to suppose that his early study of Buddhism induced him to adopt the via media as the infallible road to success. Like the volatile Archemedes he did not break into a barebodied sprint crying, 'eureka'. Rather he set forth with restrained deliberation to fulfil his self imposed tasks.

The most conspicuous characteristic of democratic socialism is the temperate stand it takes between two extremes. It rejects laissez faire capitalism on the one hand and the authoritarian tendencies of the Soviet system on the other. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the inimitable political midwife, ushered in the democratic socialist state with the able assistance of Maithri, C. P. de Silva, T. B. Ilangaratne and others. If not for the titanic labours of this galaxy of able men, there was the danger of the disillusioned masses turning to the Marxists, who, on the pretext of bringing about the classless society would have installed a one party state.

It was Maithri who was entrusted with the task of piloting through parliament the first socialist measures. He discharged his duties so demurely that the people little realized that he was paving the way for epoch making changes. Maithri who took it all in his stride was able to command the respect of those of the right as well as of the left.

Leaving others to pay lip-service to socialism he took tangible steps to further its cause. He veered the state to the socialist path with the nationalization of the port and public transport. While taking the first socialist steps he was particular in observing the norms of democracy.

Democrat
Maithri, it is no exaggeration to state, was the democrat par excellence. As a representative of the people he served them with humility. He was never known to give himself the airs of a superior being. None could match him in his understanding of and insight into, the problems of the farming community.

In fact the very first words he uttered in parliament were in the form of an appeal that the grienvance of a peasant by the name of Pinhamy be redressed. On many an occasion he showed that he had the courage to fight in the cause of democracy. The classic example is his appeal to the prime-minister, in 1971 to extend the olive branch to the misguided youth fighting to overthrow the government. Thanks to timely action they underwent a course in rehabilitation and returned to the ways of democracy.

Like all true humanitarians Maithri was mild mannered. But those who mistook it for poltroonery were in for a rude shock. It was the year 1974 and the prime minister, having gone to attend a Commonwealth conference in London, Maithri was deputising for her.

One of the partners of the ruling coalition was in a truculent mood and was threatening to cause a disturbance of the peace. Thereupon the acting prime minister clamped a nationwide curfew and brought the would be trouble makers to their senses. No bones were broken; no harsh words were exchanged.

The storm in the tea cup which threatened to assume the magnitude of a hurricane was quelled. Civil life resumed its even course. It was, indeed, a stroke of genius.

The common people had free access to him. He did not, in Marxist fashion, call you comrade, but his words and deeds were pregnant with camaradarie. You left him with a feeling that you were the richer for the encounter.

Mediocrities
Your run in the mill politician is a pitiful character. Now that parliamentary debates are telecast we see our representatives for what they are worth: bumptious mediocrities enveloped in a thick veneer of humbug. You may find men of the same calibre in the gallery of a cheap cinema any day of the week. They call themselves the servants of the people, but within the four walls of their houses they maintain a lifestyle that their visible assets could not have procured for them.

On the other hand Maithri was a class by himself. He was well-informed and had a mind of the potency of a Toledo blade, which could cut through a mass of irrelevant details to arrive at the truth. This simplicity of manner and dress endeared him even to those who were politically opposed to him.

His nation-wide reputation for incorruptibility was quite a record. Presidents have been accused of robbing priceless objects of art from official residences they occupied, prime ministers have been tried for graft, ministers have been deprived of their civic-rights on being found guilty of entering into shady deals, but of Maithri's integrity there has never been a shadow of doubt.

It is no more than giving her, her deserts to state that his wife was a source of solace and inspiration to Maithri. There have been other great men whose greatness was sustained by their wives. Gladstone, Campbell-Bannerman and Lenin are but three of them. In her memoirs Madam Krupkaya, the wife of Lenin, speaks of her vain struggles to prolong the life of a dying husband. Through all the vicissitudes of his career his wife was a ministering angel to Maithri.

What will be the verdict that history will pass on him? He is a rash prophet who will dare to anticipate history. Maithri like his great mentor was a pragmatist. He was a democrat without claiming to belong to this or that school of liberalism and a socialist without wearing the label of any band of progressives. He ran after no alien philosophical will-of-the-wisps mistaking them for the last word in political wisdom. That he pursued a noble goal and fought the good battle will be his epitaph.

Though down to earth he would have been equally at home in Shangri La where, according to James Hilton's novel, they make a cult of moderation. The light that he shed among his fellow-men was not a fiery one. It was mild and benignant as is the Aurora Borelis that illumines the arctic night.

Maithri never wearied of the perennial struggle for truth. No misfortune brought a cold to his face, nor did setbacks plunge him into a slough of despond. The only fault - if fault it could be called - I detected in him was his dislike to assert himself. Often he withdrew from the field leaving it to political bantam cockerels who made up for lack of worth with their shrill crowing. He belonged to that small band of angelic men who in the words of Lord Byron:

"All through the dusty day,

Still chant their morning's song."

by Kirthie Abeysekera

'What's in a name?

That which we call a rose,

By any other name, would smell as sweet.'

These words put into Juliet's mouth by the Bard of Avon ring hollow in Sri Lankan ears. Blinded by love, Juliet, the Capulet, was prepared to renounce her name for her lover, Romeo from the House of Montague.

But what would a 'Chandrika Kumaratunga' be without 'Bandaranaike' sandwiched in between? No Senanayake from Botale would trade his name for one from the House of Horagolla. Neither would a Jayewardene admit a Premadasa to the House of Matrimony, though they may sit side by side as President and Prime Minister.

Names? To us, Sri Lankans, a name means everything. During the days of the British Raj, we were quick to adopt anything and everything English - starting with names. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike changed his trouser and wore the cloth. He switched from Christianity to Buddhism. But he kept his name Solomon West Ridgeway Dias. John Lionel Kotelawela wouldn't want to mingle with the masses he once dubbed as dogs he had chained until Bandaranaike unleashed them.

My non English-speaking father, a pioneer Sinhala tea plantation owner in Uva, wore the tweed cloth and coat. But his name was 'Don David' Abeysekera. Before I was born, he had dropped the suffix "Appuhamy' which identified him as hailing from beyond the Bentara Ganga.

At the time, the 'Appuhamys' and the 'Bandas' were frowned upon by the 'Suddhas and the 'Kalu Suddhas.' My father's brothers were Henry, Andrew and Julius. He gave me and my three sisters Sinhala names. He probably saw the changing trend. Uncle Henry also gave his children Sinhala names. But my English-speaking uncle Andrew who was relatively more Westernised, named his children, Frederick, Daphne, Rosemary and Patricia. Uncle Julius had no offspring. So the question did not arise.

My maternal uncle of Ganemulla who also spoke no English, and, like my father, also wore the tweed cloth and coat, started his life from humble beginnings as 'Gaban Appuhamy.' By the time his fortunes rose and he was elevated in rank, first as a Muhandiram, then as Mudaliyar, he was known as Don Gabriel Kumarasinghe Jayakody and he lived in a 'Walawwa.'

He named his only son, Edwin. But 'Edwin Aiya,' as I called him, named his son Kamalawarna who , in later years, was to take the Mahara seat in parliament in a surprising win over the more fancied favourite, Vijaya Kumaratunga.

There is no explanation as to how traditionally Buddhist families like mine, had Biblical names such as David, Gabriel and Andrew. In some of my extended, Sinhala-speaking families, children had names like Percy and Kingsley - names the parents couldn't even pronounce. They called them 'Posy' and 'Kingsilly.'

Getting back to the British days, many Sinhalese adopted English names. Even homes where the masters and ladies, had Sinhala names the servants were called Jane, Emmy, Laisa, Magie and Alice and what about John aiya and Martin Singho? ironically, even in non English-speaking homes dogs had names such as Buster, Tiger, Checkers, Tommy - 'o' as in only. A kinsman called his dog, 'Prince.' I used to tease him that his was the house of the Prince and the Pauper. I have never known of a dog with a Sinhala name.

The names of British governors are still perpetuated on the streets of Colombo and Kandy. Yet, some popular landmarks like 'Paranawadiya' which should have been retained, have been changed.

While I was holidaying Down Under in 1995, Australian commentators were making fun of the names of our cricketers. I could understand their having trouble with 'Pushpakumara' and 'Muralitharan.' But they even found it difficult to say easy first names.

An Australian newspaper carried a protest letter I wrote saying that commentators should do their home work before going on the air. I said Arjuna, Aravinda, Chaminda, et al were nice Sinhalese names with a meaning, and that our cricketers were not just any Dick, Tom or Harry.

In my reporting days, scoring the Underworld of Colombo, the names of stores, hotels, restaurants and other business places would fascinate me. Not to be out done by the Tamil owned Saree Palace, Ariyaratne who sold 'embul kesel,' put up a signboard, 'Banana Palace.' Abdul Cader next door, called his so-called eating house, 'Roti Palace.'

Hotel de Paris at the Maradana junction, was a favourite drop in for students of Zahira College next door. The nearby Buhari, just to be in line, also added a French flavour by changing its name of Hotel De Buhari, later to be taken over by President Premadasa. But that's another story.

Our Sinhala 'mudalali' was not going to let his Muslim counterparts get the better of him. He opened a restaurant a few yards away. Innovative or innocent, it was his very own - 'Hotel de Silva.

From Sujeeva Nivunhella - Our London Correspondent
When my good friend Eshan Gunasekera told me few months ago that he was planning to bring Channe & Upuli dance troupe to perform in London to coincide with the 50 years of Sri Lanka Independence, I was delighted.

Being a great admirer of Sri Lankan traditional dancing and music and I myself having studied oriental dancing under Master Somapala Mudunkotge at Ananda College, Colombo, I was really looking forward to seeing it. I thoroughly enjoyed his performance of Chitrasena-Vajira dancing troupe at Sadlers Wells theatre in London a few years ago. Channa who has his own troupe now, was a member of that troupe.

It was the 17th of July, and at the invitation of Eshan, I accompanied by my wife were guests at the opening performance of 'The Voyage', a performance by the 'Channa-Upuli Dance Ensemble' held at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Hall at the South Bank adjoining the river Thames.

Prior to the show there was a photographic exhibition at the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer by Eshan who is an expert professional photographer. He had wittingly selected scenery and places of historic interest in Sri Lanka from his collection for this exhibition, with a view to promoting Sri Lanka as a tourist destination.

The show, titled 'The Voyage', start at 8 p.m. Sharp with the 'Pooja dance'. The girls who participated in this dance entered through the back door of the Hall with lighted lamps in their hands and passing the audience danced in front of the main screen of the stage. It was a novel idea for a dance troupe to use the audience hall for their performance, which is normally used by Bertold Brescht in his stage dramas. Channa used the same concept for the item 'Salupaliya' too. After the first item I was convinced we were in for an evening of great entertainment, full of surprises.

I think Channa has mastered the art to the full, adapting our traditional dancing without damaging the original dance. He used our traditional music and Vannam melodies mixing them with newer melodies to keep the audience spellbound throughout the show.

The hall was almost full with Asians, Europeans and Africans. According to Eshan there were about 800 people. Judging by the reaction of the audience after the show, they thoroughly enjoyed the whole performance. A white gentlemen seated in front of me clapped non-stop between items and once even shouted "Beautiful" after the item 'Tusker'. The rest of the audience echoed this sentiment by clapping after he shouted.

I should say I enjoyed almost all the items in the show, but with my hand on my heart I have to say that Lotus, Krishna, Kuveni, Tusker and Dialogue of drums were the items that I enjoyed the most.

Lotus is a dance, which explores the different expressions of the Lotus flower and its significance to Buddhism. Krishna is danced to the song Krishna of Colonial Cousins and it requests Lord Krishna to come and save the world. Kuveni is a ballet portraying the kingdom of Kuveni and the immigration of Prince Vijaya to Sri Lanka from North India. Tusker is an interpretation of 'Gajaga Van-nama' depicting the graceful movement of the elephant. Dialogue of drums is a powerful adaptation of a drum sequence using 'Gata Bera', 'Yak Bera,' 'Thammattama' and 'Daula'. Special mention must be made of young Jannanath whose playing of the 'Thammattama' was excellent.

The show ended with the traditional sprinkling of water and blessing to the audience.

Channa together with his wife and the entire troupe have done a marvellous job to bring this performance to such a level. Dancing, drumming and the music are of an exceptionally high standard. The styles and colours of the costumes had been selected carefully to enhance each performance.

Channa has taken a giant step forward to take our traditional dancing onto the world scene. His adaptations and variations to the traditional dances has placed him on a competitive level on the international stage.

When I called one of my friends to invite him to this show he said that he has seen Sri Lankan traditional dancing before and every performance is the same. I feel sorry for my friend because he missed an opportunity to see something exceptional.

We have to thank Channa, Upuli and Eshan for inviting us to such an extravaganza.

After the show speaking to me Channa had this to say. "What we do is adaptations of the traditional dances. Nothing can be done without going back to the roots. Some people blame us for not doing only traditional dancing and some say we copy from the West. They say this because they lack the creative power. The only thing we copy from the west is discipline". "I design the costumes at the same time I create the dance. What most of the people do is they create the dance and let someone else design the costumes. I don't like that".

"A good choreographer can paint, mould, dance, sing and play drums. Now there are so many dancing directors without any knowledge of dancing. Some people citicise my costumes. But I get the ideas from looking at temple paintings".

"I am happy that we got a professional hall with professional sound and lighting in London and we performed professionally. This is a professional product".

"Our 13 member troupe left Sri Lanka two months ago and we are like one big family. We have no arguments and no splits among us. This is the main reason for our success. We work very professionally. I have to thank my team. I also want to thank Air Lanka for providing us with tickets. My thanks also goes to Eshan, Nilanka and Kushani".

Channa's wife Upuli talking to me said that everyone is totally committed to the show. She said her six-year-old daughter had been left behind with her parents for two months and some of the troupe members too have left their wives and children at home. She said they are a dedicated team. "Gradually we are making our mark on the international stage. But we still have a lot to do. Our ambition is to keep our traditions and develop our dancing around these traditions to compete with the rest of the world", she concluded.