Vijaya Nandasiri's methodically articulated dialogue lines, his duly discipline gestures, moods and appearances, calculated to tickle the comic sensibilities of mass viewers, have induced generations of patrons of the legitimate theatre, cinema and television, to yearn for his brand and style of fun-evoking performances.
He was adept at the mastery of the humour rhythm and comic timing. Over the years he evolved an inimitable personality as a comedian who could be rated a mass icon. He carefully shunned crude, uncouth vulgar expressions and those questionable double - entendre, that titillating teetered on the verge of obscenity.
In his long thespian life, he acquired the entertaining ability to emulate well-known personality to the untrammelled joy of his audiences. In real life, he has always been a person of marked cultural habits. Fame could not, in any way diminish his appealing quality of humility. One is invariably moved to mark the passage of Vijaya Nandasiri and personalities of the ilk because their professionalism is widely needed in our day.
Society is driven by violence and conflict. The news is monopolised largely by unceasing waves of massacres, murders terrorism, heart-rending crimes and episodes of diabolical cruelties. In such a context of depression and anxiety, the masses at large, require therapeutic effectiveness of civilised forms of comedy and humour, as they are a potent antidote to widespread angst. Vijaya Nandasiri, a well established professional comedian, lavished prolonged hours of his career, to soothe troubled minds and to quell the agitation of the souls of those threaten by ever-lurking menaces of death and dangers. Considered this way we mourn the passage of a soul healer who elevated comedy in Sri Lanka to an advance status of civilised entertainment.
In the role of Prince Dhanuddhara in Maname, Vijaya Nandasiri has already been crowned as a leading thespian in Sri Lanka. A vast swath of art lovers will feel the loss of this great entertainer.
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