Menaka speaks about Sri Lankan attitudes towards divorce

My leaving the wife and child ... and marrying Nehara is seen in a wrong perspective ....  because of a problem in Sri Lankan genes .... because of a lack of education

Tele-drama actor Menaka Rajapaksha left his wife and daughter and started a new alliance with tele-actress Nehara who left her husband with the intention of marrying him. There was a sensation in the past over this and they even did not come forward to the media to talk about it at the beginning. Later on they celebrated the wedding even after having imposed taboo on the media.
Menaka who joined in a dialogue with a newspaper about divorce and a second marriage, after his marriage says that society looks at the decision taken considering the happiness of both of them in a squint-eyed manner and that there was no one to share the happiness.

What he says as reasons for this is that there is a fault in the genes of  Sri Lankans and that Sri Lankans have had no education as that of those of developed countries which has contributed towards this attitude. This is how he spoke about it to a weekend newspaper:

* Did you marry Nehara as another love scene or because you really met the person you were looking forward to in life?
  I don't think we would ever meet the person we search for in life. Menaka Rajapaksha is someone who craves for love beyond bounds. I saw Nehara as an individual who could give love to the extreme. What I look at is not whether Nehara received or receives love from me .... whether I receive it. In love, I am exceedingly selfish. Nehara is a woman who has a sense of love which I can't express. Other than that I still can't think whether it's Nehara whom I was dreaming of. This isn't a love scene. This is our real life. We got together also because we loved each other. 

* Do you think that you have got the correct person in your family life?
  For the moment I think that I have got the person I like best. Now it's 8 months since we got married. There's no family life where there aren't problems. Life is .... solving the problems and living in the proper way. I think that I have got the right person.

* Other than Nehara is there any other woman whom you love in your private life?
  Yes .... there is a woman. That is my mother. In the same way, I love my sister also a lot.

* What prevails in society about divorce and marring a second time is a blameful matter. Why don't people look at it in a humanistic way?
  What I see is that it is a flaw in our genes. Our people .... when somebody falls into trouble ... come together to help. But in the case of somebody's happiness ... joining in to share that happiness ... it is less. Whenever there's some change in life .... people look at it from a different angle. They have problems in their own families too .... but they see it in issues of actors-actresses, players. They make up an issue --  and say that happened to that person because of so and so .... and make a hulabaloo about it. For instance, if I was not an actor, I would view it in the same way that you do. This is a problem about education. What I think is that we should look at developed people in foreign countries and reform ourselves.

Discussion -- Ruchira Dilan / Kumarini Prathapasingha
Photos -- Madhusanka Siriwardena