On Viragaya and choosing Sanath as Aravinda

Tissa Abeysekara is quite rightly celebrated as the best cinema script and dialogue writer, film director, film and literary critic, musicologist, an eloquent orator and arguably the best bilingual writer we had, certainly the best in our generation.  Surely posterity will remember Tissa as an iconic figure in the contemporary cultural landscape just as Lester J Peries, Martin Wickremasinghe, Amaradeva or Sarathchandra.

Celebrating Tissa Abeysekara’s works on his death anniversary (18th April), a critic recently lamented that Tissa’s sublimely beautiful cinematic masterpiece Viragaya (1988) had been destroyed for ever and the producer had arbitrarily shortened ("cut and chopped") the film whilst it was still running.  The writer also had implied that disheartened, Tissa did not make any more feature films. 

As a person who had been in contact with Tissa, I can vouch that Tissa always tried to resurrect his career as a filmmaker but could not find a producer.  Eventually he turned to his first love- fiction and produced two literary gems in English- as his sunset achievement. 

Between 2003 and 2007 I was in touch with Tissa on various issues including a book he was planning to write on Sunil Santha.  The subject of Viragaya including the role of the producer had featured in our discussions.  These discussions showed me a glimpse of the fascinating, intriguing and the enigmatic nature of this rare genius including his unusual stance on his masterpiece Viragaya. 

Tissa steadfastly refused to acknowledge "Viragaya" as his best work and always gave that place to "Mahagedara".  When I disagreed he provided a flimsy counter-argument that "Mahagedara" was his own story but "Viragaya" was not.  That "Viragaya" is the much superior film is undebatable. Officially it is ranked as the third best film ever made in Sri Lanka behind Nidanaya and Gamperaliya.

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