Face 2 Face with Palitha Perera
Picture Credit: Google
By Dr. Tilak S Fernando
Palitha
Perera's rich, powerful and clear voice may not register with Sri Lankans these
days immediately, but definitely among the cricket enthusiasts in Sri
Lanka as he is still well known as a cricket commentator in Sinhala for
decades.
Palitha
joined the Radio Ceylon in January 1963 as a newscaster and his ability,
professionalism, talent and intellectual capacity took him to the position of
the Director of Sinhala Service in 1991.
Subsequent
to the 1994 political storm that swept across the country, Palitha got
entrapped inside a different kind of 'inhouse-political-tornedo' where nepotism,
skullduggery, back biting, posterior stabbing and belittling made him to write gate passes! When the tide turned against
him completely, he decided to throw the towel in and walked out of the Sri Lanka
Broadcasting Corporation building never to step inside again, even though
he realised that after 35 years of service, he had only Rs.917 in his bank
account, three children and a wife to support with no prospect of an
imminent job in the horizon.
The
psychological trauma that followed made him undergo a major by-pass heart
surgery. From the day he walked out of the SLBC (his 2nd home), he appeared
to be an emotionally broken man due to injustices, inequalities and
discrimination meted out to him by the work of a single individual. I met with
Palitha Perera during his recent visit to London at the invitation of Lilani
Perera and managed to have a face-2- face chat. In my mind he is a person hurt to the core, having received a lot of emotional sledge hammer blows; he is still
suffering from its gaping wounds. Most of the answers he gave
during the interview appeared to be still tainted with 'blood'!
Q. Your
motto is that, being very professional in your work, you never hold a
microphone or face a TV camera unprepared for an interview. So, in
that perspective, let me ask you, is there a special significant event
in your life that you cherish so much?
A. Nice
one Tilak, let me tell you : I have had only One school, One Job and
One wife in my life!
Q. When
did you start on your broadcasting career?
A. After
my university entrance examination I joined the Radio Ceylon in January in 1963
as a newscaster. In 1991 I became the Director of Sinhala Service.
Q. How
about your contributions to the Sri Lankan Television
A. At the
inauguration of Rupavahini, I was privileged to go as the first
announcer on air (live), and to send the very first greeting to the
nation immediately after it was declared open by H.E. the late
president, J. R. Jayawardene.
I
have been to the UK, Germany and the USA on training in broadcasting. I was
always fascinated by David Frost's BBC breakfast shows and had a dream to
emulate Frost one day on Sri Lankan television, which I did subsequently by
becoming the architect of breakfast shows in Sri Lankan television with
programmes such as Jana Manddelee, Suba Udasanak and Auybowan.
Q. Did
you really have the freedom in your programmes in the same manner as David
Frost did in his interviews?
A. As you
know Tilak, we do not have the same democracy or press freedom in Sri Lanka.
Having said that, although it was difficult to press a politician or a Minister
hundred percent on a question or on an issue, I was able to push my
interviewees to very fine and permissible boundaries.
Q. Did
you work both in the Radio and the Rupavahini simultaneously?
A. No, I
did TV shows only as a freelancer whenever my services were called upon, but no
editorial responsibility. I just presented a TV programme and went home.
In
1992 I presented a very popular programme called Pilisandara (face 2
face) from TNL channel. It was a 30-minute programme of hard talk where I
grilled prominent figures in Sri Lanka such as Ven. Sobitha Thero, UNP
Secretary Gamini Wijesekera, Gamini Fonseka, our minister of broadcasting
himself, A. J. Ranasinghe etc. Subsequently Mr. Shan Wickremesinghe
introduced Jana Handa from TNL and Mr. Wasantha Raja started Jana Mandalè at
the Rupavahini in 1995. Now of course, these type of political programmes are
very common on Radio also.
Q. What
made you give up your job as the Director of Sinhala Service at the SLBC?
A. It was
not a voluntary resignation Tilak, but a case of knife in the back situation
and getting kicked so hard to the extent of making me write gate passes being in
the position of Director of Sinhala Service! I, in fact, asked the
Director General once whether writing of gate passes was my executive
responsibility as the Director of Sinhala Service!
Q. What happened?
A. After
the 1994 general elections in the country, a political appointment was made of
the Director General's position of the SLBC. I was personally happy to see a
junior colleague from our News Section promoted to that level. I congratulated
him and assured him every support, as I knew he did not have any previous
experience or handled programmes before.
However, I guess, he seemingly felt I
was a threat to his prestigious position and saw me equally as a professional
peril! As I said before, when I was doing 'face-to-face' interviews on television, I built up an image in the country as a broadcaster. Once I did a serious
interview with Prof. G.L. Peiris, when he was a Minister in the PA Government
on the 'Devolution Package', which was a hot potato at the time. Professor
Peiris gave me some selected questions of his choice and expected me to throw
them at him at the interview. Instead, I decided to question him from my own
prepared list of questions on the live programme.
Q. I am
sure the Minister would not have been too pleased about it!
A. Yes
indeed! He reported me to the President after the recording at Visumpaya.
However, President Kumaratunge having watched the tape in the company of other
senior officials of the Rupavahini was highly taken up with my interviewing
techniques and, instead of a reprimand, I received an invitation to interview
the President.
Q. Did
you?
A. Yes. I
did a few interviews as she always insisted on me to interview her after the GL
Peiris saga. But the only problem was that the President, being very
informal and friendly at TV interviews, gives the impression to the audience
that the interviewer is a 'close buddy' of hers! This perhaps went against
me and, may be my Director General friend, among thousands of other viewers
across the country, thought I was very influential with the President. Seemingly
the new Director General began to develop cold feet and became paranoid!
Q. Quite
interesting, what happened then?
A . As a
radical move , the Director General started to re-organise the Sinhala Section
and started to air political programmes on Sinhala National Service, at the
SLBC. Later he brought a notion that he could not work with me and formed a
separate team and made life hell for me, and instructed me to write gate passes
only! Can you just imagine that? Didn't I too have some self-respect?
Q. So, it was not governmental politics in a literal sense then, but you were
harassed in a different kind of politics within the environs
of your job?
A. True.
Government politics did not enter the scene here at all because I had no
allegiance to any political party. I have worked under different
administrations in Sri Lanka, but never served under a single politician.
My service was always to the Government of the day and my strong areas were to
maintain justice and impartiality in discharging my responsibilities.
Whether
it was a weak or strong point, I must tell you that I never hesitated to call spade
a spade, and even when I was included in Interviewing Boards I never paid
any heed to outside pressures, which always tried to influence management
decisions. In that sense whatever the government that came into power,
I appeared to be on the other side of the fence, because it is the way
that the Sri Lankan society is based on, and how governments are conducted!
Q. Well,
the Director General obviously had the powers to hire or fire any of his
subordinates, didn't he?
A. Correct.
But my protest and the struggle was always to maintain our cultural identity
through the National Service of the Radio rather than letting it slide down to
unacceptable levels. I always maintained that we had a responsibility from the
Sinhala Service to protect our country's old Sinhala values and traditions because the SLBC Sinhala Service was the only broadcasting house, which had such
a format to safeguard our traditional and moral values.
Q. What
kind of impact the did the SLBC experience with the emergence of
private broadcasting stations that cropped up?
A. During
my time, when I was fighting single-handed to propagate our cultural values Sirasa
Radio sprung up. They were doing completely the opposite and their slogan
was that they brought the Radio from the kitchen to the sitting room.
But the intellectual majority of listeners started to boycott it. I was accused
by personnel at Sirasa Radio as ‘an old fashioned stooge who was unable to
move with the times’. I had a market share of 29% of the listening audience
officially at the time, and I could not possibly disappoint or maroon them, even
if I wanted to. It's fascinating, however, to see today that Sirasa Radio who
criticised my programmes then, are doing the same format of programmes at
weekends now. I am pleased to see today that Sirasa Radio, who started
walking inside mucky drains those days, has been able to come out today and is
walking on the proper road.
Q. What
regrets have you now?
A. Tilak,
the only disappointment is that I am still a capable performer and a
broadcaster. I read a lot. If you visit my home you will see only
four chairs in my sitting room to sit, and the rest is full of
bookracks and a comprehensive library. On a daily basis, I update my knowledge
on a wider scale. I can still challenge (without being pompous) any young
journalist in Sri Lanka today on any subject - be it internal politics, world
politics, cricket, culture, drama, cinema and you name it and I am on the ball!
I am a person who try to become a new man every day, but my greatest regret
is that in Sri Lanka talent and capability appear to go unrecognised
still! In that sense it is sad to see that even my ability, my knowledge, my
experience and the broadcasting know-how is becoming my greatest enemy today.
Q. Why
haven't you been able to find a suitable job? Is it because you are unwilling
to shift from a confined ‘Director of Sinhala Service’ frame in the past?
A. No
Tilak, you are wrong there. When I resigned from the SLBC, I approached
Newspaper establishments and all other broadcasting houses purely because I
needed the money to raise three kids and look after a wife. I tried Sirasa as
well, because a very senior director friend of mine at the Maharaja Organisation
requested me to submit my application to Sirasa.
Q. So,
what what was the outcome?
A. My application was
lying there for two months. Later, when I found out that it was stagnated in a
pigeonhole of an officer, who once worked under me at the SLBC , I withdrew my
application.
Q. Were
there no other openings or requests?
A. Actually
two Ministers from the PA and three politicians of the UNF invited me to come
and work with them, but I had to decline such offers because I would not have
been able to work in a political environment for more than a few days the
longest!
Q.Why
sound very remorseful still , after all these years?
A. Tilak,
at an Enquiry Board comprising the Media Minister, the Director General along
with a full panel ofSenior Executives of the SLBC to resolve the differences
between the DG and myself, I produced all hard documentary evidence to
prove that the DG was after my blood for no fault of mine. I
It became crystal
clear to everyone at the enquiry, including the Minister, that I had been
subjected to unwarranted trauma. But when I heard the words that came out of
the Minister's mouth, I quote: " Palitha, you realise that I cannot
sack the Director General, therefore, you take your own decision', I felt
as if my heart was going to split open. I felt like jumping out of that
building and ending my life at that very moment. On thefollowing day I
handed over my resignation and have never stepped into the SLBC building. I was
so sad to note that after working for 35 years, there was not a single cultured
person in that establishment at least to give me telephone call besides saying
'thank you' or to acknowledge what I had contributed to the Sri Lankan Radio
over the years!
Q. H ave
you reconciled now?
A. Ever
since I left the SLBC, I have been a freelancer and have been a presenter
whenever I was invited to perform. That is why I am here today in London.
I have no choice and that is the only way of existence now. I have presented
programmes in all Sri Lankan TV channels, and I am quite known as a sports
commentator as I was the first official SLBC broadcaster who introduced Sinhala
cricket commentary and continuing it up to date.
In 1971 I
was awarded the BBC's Best Feature Presenter award. As I said before
Tilak, unlike others, now I do not have to get up in the morning to go for a job as
such, and with my talents, experience, and with the updated knowledge on a daily
basis, I need to await patiently till my telephone rings from a prospective
enthusiast who needs my services! That is Sri Lanka, I am afraid, and as Ven.
Madihe Pangnasiha Thero said: " Before the country, you should
develop the citizens in the country" (Rata hadanna kalin minisa hadanna öne
).
“I love
my country but we can't remould the people.")
London – 2003 – News Lanka