[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":188},["ShallowReactive",2],{"person-en-augustus-vinayagaratnam":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"artistId":6,"birthYear":7,"body":8,"born":7,"description":153,"died":7,"era":154,"extension":155,"heroImage":156,"imageCredit":157,"imageLicense":158,"imageSource":159,"meta":160,"navigation":161,"notable":162,"path":163,"roles":164,"seo":166,"sources":167,"stem":186,"translated":161,"url":170,"__hash__":187},"peopleEn\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Faugustus-vinayagaratnam.md","Augustus Vinayagaratnam",594,null,{"type":9,"value":10,"toc":145},"minimark",[11,32,39,44,47,58,62,69,86,100,110,120,124,135,139,142],[12,13,14,15,19,20,24,25,19,28,31],"p",{},"Almost every Sri Lankan over forty can sing ",[16,17,18],"strong",{},"ගඟ අද්දර"," ",[21,22,23],"em",{},"Ganga Addara",". A great many can sing ",[16,26,27],{},"නිම් හිම් සෙව්වා මා සසරේ",[21,29,30],{},"Nim Him Sewwa Ma Sasare",". Rather fewer could tell you that the Sinhala words to both were written by the same man, and almost nobody can tell you how to spell his name.",[12,33,34,35,38],{},"That is not an exaggeration. There is no Wikipedia article about him in English or in Sinhala. Sri Lankan lyric databases give him as Augustus Vinayagaratnam; the song database behind this site holds him as Ogastas Vinayaagarathnam, ",[16,36,37],{},"ඕගස්තස් විනයාගරත්නම්","; neither romanisation has been settled by a record sleeve, a broadcasting credit or an obituary that anyone has been able to produce. This article uses the commonest published English form and states plainly that it is unverified. His birth and death years are likewise unknown to us.",[40,41,43],"h2",{"id":42},"what-is-documented","What is documented",[12,45,46],{},"The firmest description of him comes from a 2018 Daily Mirror feature on the making of a single song. Explaining how the composer Nimal Mendis, who wrote in English, got his lyrics into Sinhala, the piece says Mendis \"got a Tamil gentleman from Panadura: Augustus Vinayagaratnam.\" That single sentence carries most of what is reliably known about his origins: Tamil, and from Panadura on the south-western coast.",[12,48,49,50,53,54,57],{},"He also turns up in the history of Sinhala theatre. When the Daily Mirror's columnist D. B. S. Jeyaraj recounted how Tony Ranasinghe became an actor, he named the young bilingual enthusiasts of the arts, literature and cinema who formed themselves into the group ",[21,51,52],{},"Apey Kattiya"," — \"Our Group\" — around the playwright Sugathapala de Silva: Cyril B. Perera, Sugathapala de Silva, Dharmasiri Wickremaratna, Vipul Dharmawardene, G. W. Surendra, and Augustus Vinayagaratnam. Apey Kattiya's production of de Silva's ",[21,55,56],{},"Boarding Karayo"," took the best play and best script prizes at the national drama festival in 1962. Vinayagaratnam, in other words, was not a jobbing translator who wandered into music. He came out of the most argumentative and bilingual corner of Colombo's theatre scene.",[40,59,61],{"id":60},"writing-for-nimal-mendis","Writing for Nimal Mendis",[12,63,64,65,68],{},"His lasting work is the Sinhala half of Nimal Mendis's catalogue. Mendis — the Sri Lankan songwriter who reached ",[21,66,67],{},"Top of the Pops"," in 1968 and lived much of his life in London — composed his melodies to English words. Turning those into Sinhala that would sing, without losing what the English had meant, was Vinayagaratnam's job, and he did it repeatedly over more than a decade.",[12,70,71,72,19,75,78,79,82,83,85],{},"Their first collaboration named in print is ",[16,73,74],{},"උපුල් නුවන් විදහා",[21,76,77],{},"Upul Nuwan Widaha",", written for Lester James Peries's ",[21,80,81],{},"Ahasin Polawata"," and later carried by Milton Mallawarachchi. Then came the title song of Sumitra Peries's ",[21,84,23],{}," (1980), which Mendis had composed as \"Banks of the River\" and which Vijaya Kumaratunga sang — the performance that turned an actor into a playback singer and made the song inescapable.",[12,87,88,89,92,93,19,96,99],{},"For the same film Mendis wrote an opening-credits tune of pure nonsense: ",[21,90,91],{},"Tralalalala you, tralalalala me..."," Vinayagaratnam's Sinhala version of it is ",[16,94,95],{},"රන් ටිකිරි සිනා",[21,97,98],{},"Ran Tikiri Sina",", \"golden smile\", first sung by Victor Silva and the twelve-year-old Nirasha Perera with a chorus of primary schoolgirls from Sangamitta Balika Vidyalaya, Borella. Sources disagree on when: the Daily Mirror's interviewees remembered the session as 31 March 1978, while Wikipedia dates the recording to 1979. Either way the brief was the hard one — keep the spirit of a deliberately silly English lyric while making it work for an audience that would never hear the original. The song outlived the film, and the later Neela Wickramasinghe and T. M. Jayaratne cover is now better known than the first recording.",[12,101,102,103,105,106,109],{},"The best-loved of them all is ",[21,104,30],{}," — \"I searched the limits of samsara\" — which Amaradeva sang in the 1978 film ",[21,107,108],{},"Seetha Devi",", and which exists in English as \"Yesterday, Today or Tomorrow\". Here the record is genuinely contradictory. Wikipedia's article on the song credits Nimal Mendis alone as writer and does not mention Vinayagaratnam at all; Sinhala lyric databases and this site's own catalogue credit him with the Sinhala text. Given the pattern of every other Mendis song, the second reading is the more plausible, but it should not be stated as settled fact.",[12,111,112,113,19,116,119],{},"Away from Mendis, his name is attached to at least one song for other composers, ",[16,114,115],{},"මිදි ඇඹුලයි කියලා",[21,117,118],{},"Midi Ambulayi Kiyala",", set by Dayarathna Ranathunga.",[40,121,123],{"id":122},"the-film-credits-and-a-caution","The film credits, and a caution",[12,125,126,127,130,131,134],{},"An IMDb entry under the same name credits an Augustus Vinayagaratnam as writer of two Sinhala features — ",[21,128,129],{},"Kalana Mithuro"," (1971), directed by Kingsley Rajapakse, and ",[21,132,133],{},"Hithuwoth Hithuwamai"," (1977), directed by Lenin Moraes. Given his Apey Kattiya background a screenwriting career is entirely plausible, and it may well be the same man. It has not been confirmed by any second source, and IMDb does not distinguish between people who share a name, so it is offered here as a lead rather than a fact.",[40,136,138],{"id":137},"why-so-little-survives","Why so little survives",[12,140,141],{},"The gap is not accidental. Sri Lanka's record labels of his era did not print lyricists' names on the discs, and much of the paperwork behind Sinhala recording — the register books held by the labels — has been lost to damp and neglect. A writer who worked mainly by rendering someone else's song into another language sits in the blind spot of every credit system there was. Add the extra difficulty of a Tamil name written for a Sinhala public, in an era whose politics did not encourage anyone to fuss over getting it right, and the result is what we have: five or six imperishable songs, and a man reduced to a spelling problem.",[12,143,144],{},"If a record sleeve, an SLBC file card or a newspaper obituary for him ever surfaces, this entry should be rewritten around it.",{"title":146,"searchDepth":147,"depth":147,"links":148},"",2,[149,150,151,152],{"id":42,"depth":147,"text":43},{"id":60,"depth":147,"text":61},{"id":122,"depth":147,"text":123},{"id":137,"depth":147,"text":138},"The Tamil lyricist from Panadura who turned Nimal Mendis's English songs into Sinhala — and whose own name cannot be reliably spelt in either language.","1960s-1980s","md","\u002Fimages\u002Fpeople\u002Faugustus-vinayagaratnam.webp","Sarigama.lk","Unverified — fallback source","http:\u002F\u002Frasikalogy.blogspot.com\u002F2015\u002F04\u002Faugustus-vinayagaratnam.html",{},true,false,"\u002Fen\u002Fpeople\u002Faugustus-vinayagaratnam",[165],"Lyricist",{"title":5,"description":153},[168,171,174,177,180,183],{"title":169,"url":170},"The story of a song, an uncle, and a niece — Daily Mirror, 29 March 2018","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.dailymirror.lk\u002Fnews-features\u002FThe-story-of-a-song-an-uncle-and-a-niece\u002F131-147953",{"title":172,"url":173},"Tony Ranasinghe: Sinhala Cinema's Most Romantic Lover — Daily Mirror","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.dailymirror.lk\u002Frecomended-news\u002FTony-Ranasinghe-Sinhala-Cinemas-Most-Romantic-Lover\u002F277-215312",{"title":175,"url":176},"Ran Tikiri Sina — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRan_Tikiri_Sina",{"title":178,"url":179},"Ganga Addara — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FGanga_Addara",{"title":181,"url":182},"Nimal Mendis — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FNimal_Mendis",{"title":184,"url":185},"Nim Him Sewwa — Wikipedia","https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FNim_Him_Sewwa","en\u002Fpeople\u002Faugustus-vinayagaratnam","WKIMLJ_0V5GZnZWqVVrrncXDrNYJF0dWG5OPu-yRjlE",1787999331189]