Sunday Oct 06, 2024
Sunday Oct 06, 2024
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We at CTC looked at promoting Sinhala art and culture. We sponsored many a cultural event including the annual Sinhala drama festival for several years. We gave interest free loans to talented dramatists to produce Sinhala plays. In the process I met Tilak who was relatively a newcomer due to his long stay abroad. While in Italy he had drawn and produced an animated film and had won accolades there. The film was based on a book he had done. He was keen to launch the book here.
The book was ‘Andare of Sri Lanka’. There are plenty of stories woven around Andare, the well-known character in folklore. He was the jester in the court of a Sinhala king. The book was based on Andare’s childhood days with one of the more popular stories being highlighted. It related how young Andare behaved himself at a wedding following his mother’s advice ‘Dena de kaapan – gonaa wage hitapan’ (Eat what is given – be like an idiot). The theme gave Tilak an opportunity to use a lot of situations for line drawings – his specialised skill – both for the book and the film.
The book was printed in Italy. When Tilak sought CTC’s assistance to launch the book, we had no difficulty in saying ‘yes’ to his request. The limited edition was a very neat publication. A lot of effort had gone into its production. Thick paper had been used. The design and layout was unusual- at leastfrom what we were used to then. A single line drawing in black and white on each page – not clustered. A caption in small type limited to not more than three or four words on the back of the page.
I can’t exactly remember when we had the launch. The book was published in May 1981 and Tilak was back in Sri Lanka possibly the following year. We had the launch at Galle Face Hotel and the chief guest was the genial Minister Anandatissa de Alwis.
The film was screened at the launch. It turned out to be a novel experience to the guests. The 17-minute animated film was drawn and directed by Tilak. Popular folk music was used as background music, directed by Dombagahapathiranage Peiris. He had plenty of opportunities to use ‘vannams’, ‘rabanpada’ and drums. The narrative was minimal with the line drawings doing the ‘talking’. The story allowed Tilak to introduce interesting village life situations and characters like stilt-walkers and kite flyers, drummers and dancers. Temple scenes added the religious favour.
The film represented Italy at the Oberhausen Film Festival in West Germany.
Tilak’s creations got further exposure when CTC put out a calendar in two successive years in the mid-1980s. It was a corporate calendar on the theme ‘Lending a hand to promote the arts’. There was no brand advertising. The company name was used just once and the logo elegantly placed on each page. Each calendar carried twelve reproductions of Tilak’s drawings and etchings. The calendars were in great demand and each page could be framed. In fact, many households still display them.
Tilak’s success is his attention to detail. He certainly has a lot of patience. He believes in perfection and strives hard to achieve it. I realised it working with him on the calendars. The end product is always a thing of beauty.
Highly respected art reviewer Ian Goonetileke had this to say about Tilak’s work: “Tilak’s drawings, in their texture and emotion, offer more than a hint of the quality and style, the concentration and originality, the variety and intensity of a Sri Lankan artist, blessed with the authentic flavour of his traditional culture and sustained by deeply national feelings, who has succeeded in evolving a uniquely contemporary idiom to reveal the unchanging image of ourselves in the glass of his creative alchemy.”
