Nanda Malini Love Songs

[Barb Frison]

MirihanaArachchige Nanda Malini Perera (Sinhala:නන්ද මලනී: born 23 August 1943), popularly as Nanda Malini, is a Sri Lankan musician. One of the best known and most honoured singers of Sri Lanka, Malini's choice of singing themes are based on real life and social-cultural situations.[1] Her songs intricate notional ideas of relationships, life-circumstances, and emotions that stem out of human realities.[2]

Nanda was born on 23 August 1943 as the fourth child to a rural family of nine in Lewwanduwa in Aluthgama, Sri Lanka. Her father, Vincent Perera was a skillful tailor and ready-made coat maker. Her mother, Liyanage Emily Perera was a housewife.[3] She has four sisters and four brothers. She moved to Kotahena in Colombo as an adolescent and was admitted to Sri Gunananda Vidyalaya where she came under the tutelage of T. N. Margaret Perera.[4]

Nanda continued her training after achieving fame, learning under B. Victor Perera.[7] She studied for a year at Heywood Institute of Art and moving on to Bhatkhande Music Institute in Lucknow, India in 1963. She would later return to the University to obtain a Visharada degree in 1984 with a First Division Distinction.[4]

Upon her return to Sri Lanka, Malini appeared on W.D. Amaradeva's program "Madhuvanthi" singing the songs Sannaliyane and Ran Dahadiya Bindu Bindu. Malini has had a string of successful releases. Her lyrics depict realistic life situations, love, relationships, and emotions.[3] The songs Pipunu Male Ruwa, Sudu Hamine, and Kada Mandiye attest to her effort to expose the hearts of women.[7] Some of Nanda's popular songs, such as Manda Nawa Karanawa, show a humorous and sensitive account of a young woman's experience of loneliness.[2][8]

In 1971, Nanda collaborated with Amaradewa in the "Srawana Aradhana concert". In 1973, she started her first solo concert series, and after having 530 shows the series ended on 22 May 1979. In August 1981 she started another concert series "Sathyaye Geethaya". She played 500 shows and ended in August 1984.[3] She conducted her next solo musical concert series "Pavana" in June 1987 which ran for 18 months with 205 shows. Her songs in "Pavana" were banned in SLBC and SLRC where the concert was also banned.[7] After 22 years her newest solo musical concert titled "Shwetha Rathriya" was held with the collaboration of Sirasa FM in 2010.[9]

Malini has produced 25 cassettes such as Malata Renu, Saadu Naada and Sari Podiththak.[4] On 8 September 2007, she launched her CD Etha Kandu Yaye comprising a collection of 16 award winning songs. The launching ceremony was held at the BMICH Open Air Theater at 7.30 p.m. In 1993, she composed a CD "Kunkuma Pottu" which has songs sung in Tamil. Another of her CD's titled "Andaharaya" is made up of music composed of computer software.[11]

Nanda malini is a Sri Lankan singer. Her traditional style of Sri Lanka music has gained her praise and popularity and won her 12 Sarasaviya Awards and 10 Presidential Awards for Best Singer and the Most Popular Singer.

Malini continued her training after achieving fame, learning under B. Victor Perera, studying for a year at Heywood and moving on to Bhathkande University at Lucknow, India in 1963. She would later return to the University to obtain a Visharada degree in 1984

Malini has had a string of successful releases: Perada Maha Re, Pahan Kanda, Sathyaye Geethaya, Hemanthayedi, Tharuka Es, Pavana, Sindu Hodiya, Kinduriyakage Vilapaya, Madhu Bandun, Tharu, Malmada Bisau, Cinema Geethavalokana, Kirimadu Vel, Londonyedi Geyu Gee, Yathra, Handahami, Sanka Padma, Pembara Lanka, Kunkuma Pottu, Gramaphone Gee, Araliya Landata, Malata Renu, Nilambare, Sari Podittak and Pirith Pen.

After signing quite a few love songs, she turned her attention to devotional songs. For instance her song Danno Budunge sung for Sadhu Nada cassette is treated as a second national anthem. This is a very rare honour for any vocalist. Later she turned her attention to signing songs for children. For instance, Handahami had 14 songs the lyrics of which had been written by Ananda Rajakaruna, Kumaratunga Munidasa, and Ven. S. Mahinda Thera. This was followed by Sindu Hodiya (1990) carrying 16 songs meant to introduce the alphabet.

Since then she has won awards almost every year. She was invited to Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, Germany, The Soviet Union, United kingdom, Italy, and France, Middle-east countries and Maldives countries where she gave very successful concerts. In 1988, December 16, she performed her 250th concert and for 22 years has been inactive. Enchanting vocalist Nanda Malini in partnership with Sirasa FM will launch a musical extravaganza consisting of 25 concerts Island wide featuring live solo performances by the songstress from September 2010.

Nanda Malini Perera, was born to a family with very modest means in 1945. Both her father, Vincent Perera and mother, Liyanage Emily Perera, hailed from Lewwanduwa, a remote village off Aluthgama. Her father was apparently a skilled tailor specialising in coat-making. In fact he had been known as coat baas unnehe. She was the fourth in a family of five girls and four boys. They had moved to Kotahena when she was very small.

"We were very poor and had nothing by way of assets. We lived in a rented house, surviving on whatever my father earned. He was a very determined man and managed to feed the family without getting into debt. He was my main role-model, growing up, and in fact I sometimes wonder if everything I do is nothing more that a continuation of what he did. In other words, I ask myself, ‘are you not your father?’

While the oldest in the family attended St. Benedict’s College, Nanda and five others, due to economic hardships, had their early education at Gunananda Vidyala. The youngest two had gone to Kumara Vidyalaya. Gunananda Vidyalaya was an isolated nondescript school, surrounded by Christian schools. According to Nanda, it had very poor facilities.

"Still, it was a place where arts-related activities were valued. Every other Wednesday, we had a ‘samithiya’ where the students got the opportunity to display their creative talents. We got by with what we had. I remember Victor Wickramage, who later became very well known in the fields of nadagam and nurthi providing the rhythm by drumming on a desk. I was often called upon to sing kavi and soon this became an invariable item at our Wednesday cultural gatherings. In fact I won a gold medal for our school at a ‘padya gayana’ competition held at the Borella YMBA in 1956."

Nanda noted with gratitude the encouragement given her by her class teacher, N. Margaret Perera. "She had a kind of a third eye and she was able to guage my potential as a singer. She took me to the Broadcasting Corporation and got me involved with the Lama Mandapaya. There I met people like Sarath Wimalaweera and Karunaratne Abeysekera. Things were much more formal then, there being no auditions to select people. Still there was discipline. I had to wait for two years before I was allowed to perform by myself. Before that I would sing in a chorus or read a letter sent by a listener."

At that time everything was done "live". The first song that Nanda recorded was Budu sadhu, written by Asoka Colombage and set to music by D. D. Danny. Although the upper age limit for the children’s programme was 16, Nanda, because she looked young, stayed on until she was 18 or so. She said she got to know a lot of people and that she learnt a lot during those years. It was through this programme that she got to know and learn from W. D. Amaradeva.

It is indeed strange that during all this, Nanda had had no formal music training. After passing the equivalent of the Advanced Level, she had proceeded to the Aesthetics Institute, Heywood. Strikes and general unrest had made her quit after a year. Thereafter she did a music diploma under the guidance of Victor Perera. She had gone to the Bhathkanda Sangeeth Vidya Peeta after this, along with Gunadasa Kapuge, but it had taken her 10 full years to obtain her Visharad certificate due to numerous family problems. But she ended with a First Division Distinction.

Although there have been many singers who have taken up political issues in their work, Nanda Malini is clearly the foremost exponent of the political song in this country. She said that as her understanding of things and processes grew, she began to wonder if music was only about pleasing the ear. "A slogan was slowly forming in my mind. It said ‘the song has a social purpose to fulfill’."

"The social conditions of that time compelled us to come out with pavana. If we hadn’t done it, we would have had to ask ourselves what our purpose in singing was. I did say that those songs were valid only for that time and the people were free to throw them away if they so desired. But I believe that those issues have not gone away. They are still with us, and so the songs too are still valid. It is becoming clear that we are fast proceeding down the same path of destruction that we had to suffer in the late eighties."

Over a period of almost 30 years, Nanda Malini has produced twenty five cassettes. Her latest, ‘Sari Podiththak’, which is to be released shortly, includes songs which were recorded by the SLBC in the seventies where she herself had composed the music. She said that cassettes had become her main medium, partly because things have changed in the SLBC to the extent that people have begun to wonder if the SLBC had a music department.

I come out with a new cassette every year. Here I must mention the help afforded by Singlanka Company. They never imposed conditions not interfered with the production. A lot of hard work and research goes into this exercise. In fact, I take about two months off after releasing a new piece because it is exhausting. Even for my latest cassette I spent a lot of time at the SLBC music library recording my early songs because I wanted to be faithful to the music when the final recording was done."

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