In the search for novel themes for telefilms industry, award winning director Thusitha de Silva has released a series of telefilms, ‘Therani Geethaya’ telecast every Poya day at 9.30 pm on ITN.

Director Thusitha Chathurika in yellow robe
Influenced by ‘Theree Gee’ that we come across in Buddhist literature, each episode revolves around different female characters who were enlightened by the teachings of Lord Buddha and attained Nibbana.

“The period of time the stories are set in is an era where there was a lot of suppression on women by the male-dominant society. Establishing the order of female monk itself was a revolution by the Lord Buddha,” said Thusitha de Silva who earlier directed a series of telefilm ‘Paramitha’ based on Jathaka stories.

“It is said that sometimes the women decided to become Bikkhuni as they wanted to get rid of the suppression and suffering they underwent specially from the males,” he said.

Some of these Bhikkhunis developed their mental status to reach the level of Arahathhood and the stories that come in ‘Theree Gee’ are tales narrated by these female monks in the form of flashback, the director said.

Award winning script writer Somaweera Senanayake has written the scripts originally from Pali and the main role of all the stories are played by a female who tells her story as a narrative.

“In the original stories, these female monks have openly spoken about problems they faced in their lives as layman and this included even problems related sex which are now considered taboo for media. It reflects how open and liberal our literature was. But today we cannot use them in today’s media and this is mainly because of false Victorian mentality introduced by our colonial rulers,” Thusitha explained.

The first episode of the series was telecast on last Poya day and it was played by Kanchana Mendis. “Kanchana being a Christian played the role with lot of dedication and enthusiasm,” Thusitha said. Kanchana had to undergo a four and half hour makeup session of Jayantha Ranawaka patiently to turn herself into a bald-headed Bikkhuni.

Talking about his search for variety of themes for his tele-production, Thusitha said, “Our audience is fed up of the present teledrama culture which has limited family problems. We need a diversion and novel theme before our audience gives up the small screen,”.

Thusitha’s team of technicians for ‘Therani Geethaya’ include Jayantha Ranawaka, experienced prosthetic artiste in handling make-up, Thisara Thulwan as camera director, Nalani Malkanthi as art director and Kamini Rajapaksa as production executive.

Thusitha was grateful to People’s Bank and its chairman W. Karunajeewa for sponsoring the teledrama series.

from: http://sundaytimes.lk