Kamalinee's unexpected fate

Kamalinee who said 'Ayubowan' in the past ...
becomes dumb forever .... after having been thrown out from Rupavahini

    The whole country knew about Kamalinee the Tamil announcer who joined the Ayubowan programme of the National Rupavahini which viewers watched right round the country.

   However, she is now not to be seen. Most people do not know what happened to her. After she was dismissed all of a sudden from from the post she held with the National Rupavahini in the year 2009, she has suffered mental pressure; is now unable to speak and is forever dumb. Do you know that she presently spends her time now in a flat,totally dumb? Mediamen of Sarasaviya newspaper who visited her at her home in the flat at Anderson road, Narahenpita were able to unravel this information. The information according to their report is as follows:
  When we went there, only Kamalinee and her only son Adeesayan was there in the house.

     She was with viewers of Ayubowan Shanida programme of the National Rupavahini as the Tamil announcer. Kamalinee who addressed all of us through the Rupavahini those days .... her charming smile is no more to be seen on her face. She has become sick both physically and in beauty, she has now become helpless. The only person who stays beside her to share her loneliness is her only son. Kamalinee who in the past spoke to us in Sinhala, English and in Tamil ... coupled with a dazzling smile is today isolated in a lonely world of her own just looking into space. She does not talk to anybody. She shows some reaction only when her says something. It is simply a solitary life that she now leads simply because of her hopeless ailing condition. Though I inquired about something, expecting an answer in return, there was no response from Kamalinee. If there is any pain of mind she suffered from ... only she is aware of it. What she did and said; and about her friends and associates and the contribution she made to the media is known only to her. Her son being unaware of it all only makes them more helpless at a moment like this. It was only her son Adeesayan who who was able to give even a wee bit of information about Kamalinee.

    "My mother worked at Rupavahini Corporation for 30 years as an Announcer.All of a sudden she was dismissed from the Corporation in 2009. Upto now I don't know for what reason it was done. From that day onwards mother's usual behaviour and activity began to flag gradually. In the end, my mother gave up the idea of speaking .... something similar to losing her mental balance seemed to take place. I don't know because of what problem   such a thing happened. When my mother began to lose her memory, I became more helpless. I am the only child my mother has. My father too died 20 years before this. He himself was a good artiste ... a member of a popular family of artistes. Selvayur Selvaraja ... he was a poet as well as an actor. He was involved in the Arts. Not only that .... he did script-writing for dramas, did creations in poetry, drama creations,translations and acting also. My father was a popular character. After he passed away, it was my mother who looked after me. At the time he died, I  was a small child.By now I am 30 years old.

     Not only announcing, my mother on the other hand took part in acting also .... and even dubbing. I also heard that she acted in Mayana Kandam and Gnana Saundari stage dramas.

    Though she acted in a number of other dramas ... I don't know their names. My mother and father both acted in the film 'aadara kathava'. The two of them have acted in the film 'komaalgal'. My mother had been in a large number of Tamil radio dramas. She has won a number of awards. She had also won the Radio Janadhipathi award for the Most Popular Tamil Drama Artiste awarded by the Radio Broadcasting Corporation in 1995.

    Because of my mother's lack of memory I was not able to get to know about anyone who associated her. Because of that I have become even more helpless. Today I am able to get a little bit of strength for myself because of my mother's younger brother and younger sisters who give a helping hand.They try a lot to treat my mother. And it is I who feed, wash the clothes and care for her and do all these things. I cook and give my mother to eat, to the best of my ability. On occasions that is not possible, what I do is getting something from the boutique and fill her stomach. I too don't have something to call a permanent job of my own. What I do is handle translations. That also is not regular. It is only from the money I receive from translating letters that I look after my mother.  

I can't go out and do a job because there's nobody to look after mother. Even if I go to a neighbouring house, in this flat, I lock the door and go. Today I am hopeless in every way. I told several people who worked with my mother ..... telling them about mother's condition ... but none of them even came to see her.There is a person in this flat itself who did announcing together with my mother and I told that person too ... but there wasn't any form of assistance even by word of mouth. When my uncle comes, he takes my mother to the kovil. Apart from that,my mother spends her time only with me; isolated in this house surrounded by these four walls.

    What Arosha of the Jana Karaliya drama troupe told Sarasaviya newspaper is something like this:
                                                                                                                                                                                     "Kamalinee madam worked as supervisor of our Jana Karaliya Dance Troupe. However there were only a few instances where she worked with us intimately and she communicated with our troupe only with the higher officers. Even today we don't know what happened to her. About 2 or 3 years ago we invited her for certain events; but she never turned up. We also were not always in Colombo because of our drama activities and most of our time was spent in far away locations.  

  When there was no news about madam, we came to this house in search of her and it was only then that we came to know about her plight. We even informed about this situation to those whom we knew and whom madam knew and what they told us was that this is the way of life. However when nothing was happening positively, we decided to tell the media. It was like that that we told the Sarasaviya newspaper. We did so with the idea that at least somebody would come to know about the plight of madam through the newspaper".

   We were able to see from our own eyes how Kamalinee's  son is trying so hard to keep the mother alive and to see her cured. It was also with a great sense of sadness that Adeesayan told us that even the telephone connection to the house has been disconnected because they do not have money to settle the bill. "What I want is not money," he says. "To cure my mother ... to cure her ... please give some help for it. That's enough for me. If my mother is cured .... that actually is more than enough for me". Giving the mobile phone number 0716 419 264 what Adeesayan finally told us was, "Help me make my mother recover".

Narration -- Chandana
Photos     --  Marlon Karunaratna