Remembering a dear friend

Following traditional Buddhist custom in remembering a person after three months of his death, the ‘thun maase pinkama’ will be held in memory of my good friend Nihalsinghe mid-next week by the family.  

So much was written about D.B. Nihalsinghe immediately after his death that readers learnt much more than what was generally known about him. For example, I hardly knew about the role he had played behind the scene on behalf of his motherland when he was employed in Malaysia until I read the appreciation written by Ranga Kalansuriya, who was attached to Sri Lanka’s Embassy in Kuala Lumpur at that time.

Nihal had never spoken about it although every time he visited Sri Lanka to see his mother (which he did regularly) we always had at least a chat over the phone. That was a symbol of his simplicity. 

Ever since I got to know him in the mid-1960s after the recognition he received at the Commonwealth Film Festival in Cardiff for his short documentary ‘Bhakti,’ we became family friends and met regularly. Both of us being old Anandians (he was much junior to me, of course) we had much in common to discuss, and even more about university days as he and I were both at Peradeniya campus. 

My interest in the arts brought us even closer and I was possibly the first to do a lengthy column about him in the newspapers when I devoted ‘In Focus’ to him in the Arts page in the ‘Observer Magazine Edition’ (as the weekend ‘Observer’ was then known) on 30 December 1967, almost 50 years ago. 

I titled it ‘Wizard with a camera’ and the picture I used remained a classic shot capturing him at work. The article also carried a picture of Nihal with Dr. John Grierson, acclaimed as the father of the documentary film who was so taken up with ‘Bhakti’ that he presented it to millions of television viewers on his TV series ‘This Wonderful World’. 

In the introductory para in my column, I wrote: “A year ago, hardly anyone spoke about him. He was an unknown man in the Sinhala film world. Within a year he had shaken the industry so much that today he is the most talked-about man in town. He has thrown up new ideas. He has given a new look to Sinhala films. The most significant contribution to Sinhala cinema in 1967 was made by him.” 

I ended by saying: “Nihalsinghe has to fight a battle in his efforts to forge ahead and make the Sinhala film more meaningful. But he has the courage to fight through.”

He was certainly a man with ideas. Right up to his end, which no one expected would come so early, he was looking for avenues to build up youngsters to take to cinematography in a much more professional way that it has been. His film crews got a superb training under him that most of them ended up as award-winning cameramen, editors and directors. So were the young men who worked with him in television commercials and tele-dramas. 

After he returned to Sri Lanka after a fairly long stay with Astro in Malaysia, he gladly shared his knowledge and experience through seminars, workshops and training courses. Towards the final years he planned a university degree course in cinematography and implemented it at the Kelaniya University. 

He had to fight his way through to get results when he was given a job to do – whether as the head of the Government Film Unit or of the State Film Corporation. Through his publication ‘Public Enterprise in Film Development – Success and Failure in Sri Lanka’ (2007) he exposed the fate of the Film Corporation due to lack of foresight and vision by the successive managements of the Corporation leading to disastrous results over the years. 

I don’t intend re-visiting the long list of films that he was involved with because they are well remembered by many.

As I wrote a few years back in my column ‘Kala Korner’ in the ‘Sunday Times,’ I will always remember Nihal as the clever young man I met on his return after collecting the Commonwealth Film Festival Trophy at Cardiff in 1966. He won the award for the Most Promising Filmmaker.

Nihal is not someone who can be easily forgotten for his enormous contribution towards the forward march of the Sri Lankan film industry – much of it silently.