My Experience With Dr. D. B Nihalsingha

By Arjuna Ranawana –April 27, 2016

Arjuna Ranawana

Tributes for Dr. D. B Nihalsinha will come from far and wide; for he was a true giant in the movie industry, and an influential media person in Sri Lanka and other parts of Asia.

My tribute to him is part professional and part personal.

My first encounter with him was in the mid 1980’s when I was following the Diploma Course in Journalism offered by the University of Colombo. The course was taught by eminent personalities such as Dr. Nihalsingha and Prof J.B Dissanayake.

Until then, as a film buff, I had known him through his work; Welikatara was a particular favorite. His lectures for this course were not about film, but on journalism revealed the experience and in-depth knowledge he had on that subject.

Dr. D. B Nihalsinhe

In 1998 I was posted as a foreign correspondent to Kuala Lumpur. Just weeks after I moved there, my head office located in Hong Kong, informed me that they would be sending me a laptop and wanted to know if there was someone who could carry it to KL for me. I asked around and my friend and former Rupavahini colleague Rukmin Wijemanne told me that Nihalsingha and his wife Kalyani were in Hong Kong at the time and they would be able to bring the laptop with them.

I was hesitant to ask him for such a favour, since I hardly knew him. But he obliged.

A couple of days later the man himself turned up at my hotel with the laptop, handed it over and said, “let’s meet later” and disappeared.

After that brief meeting, I was fortunate to be included in a small inner-circle of Nihalsingha’s media friends from Sri Lanka who were working in the Malaysian capital. Every month we would be summoned to meet him at a restaurant of his choice and treated to food and drink. We listened to him as acolytes would – absorbing the pearls of wisdom he imparted. Nihalsingha would drink his one small beer while we ate and drank our fill. A man who observed a strict curfew, he would then drive us home.

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