Much has been written and spoken about 'cultural shock' that many migrants seem to undergo when moving to a foreign country like Australia.
As much as this is an inevitable social circumstance faced by all of us Sri Lankan Australians at one time or the other , we have managed to successfully adjust to the foreign soil, within a few hard spent years. However, it is difficult to believe if any of us would leave behind the cultural wealth we inherited from our motherland in the process.
Language(our mother tongue) comes first of course, but there are other interests and values which are associated with our language that we bring along with us and which we continue to appreciate and enjoy at our leisure. Music is undoubtedly one of the arts that is foremost among these. Though music is internationally accepted as a universal language, the melodies you enjoyed most from birth to adulthood are unlikely to be replaced even with the greatest of those you hear elsewhere in the world.
Anyhow, as the time goes by , trapped within an alien society , we begin to embrace a new culture and its values. Though we have easy access to the wealth of resources of our culture, especially Sri Lankan music, we struggle hard to sustain our passion for them while being entangled in our day to day chaos. How many times would you have wished to slip out of the hectic life to listen to a good piece of music or watch a drama of your choice as you used to do?
Now imagine how you would react , suddenly when you hear that all time greats of Sinhala classical music are in town. Well that's what we experienced few days ago in Sydney (as well as in Melbourne and Canberra). Auditorium of the University of Western Sydney( UWS) in Parramatta, became the hunting grounds of the Sri Lankan community on 13th March to witness the rare appearance of Pundit Amaradeva, Vihsaradha Nanada Malini and Victor Ratnayake performing together to help raise funds for the Tsunami relief in Sri Lanka. Wasn't it a cultural shock of some sort, to listen to the greatest and the best of our musicians performing the wealth of our music on one stage? I would call this a "Cultural Re-charge' instead, for it brought back many of our lost memories and especially our deteriorating taste for good music. The trio kept us spellbound for 3 - 4 hours at the UWS auditorium though it had its limitations for a performance of this standard.
It was wonderful to see Maestro Amaradeva pulling himself together magnificently to take us through the memory lane, Nanda as usual displayed her strength as the iron voice of Sinhala music. It was not less than 20 years since I last saw Victor who was at his peak performing 'SA' the most successful Sinhala solo concert ever.
This great musical phenomenon wouldn't have been possible if not for Rohana Weerasinghe the musician par exsalonce.
Finally many thanks SPUR -Sydney for providing us this once in a lifetime opportunity and for their great efforts towards helping Sri Lanka.
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