Prasanna Ratnayake

From A. Sivanandan: Prasanna was a searcher, an inquirer, a seeker of what he believed to be the universality inherent in the human condition. He was a patriot in the finest sense of the word − in the every sense that Tagore   evoked in his poem: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. From Gitanjali

I met Prasanna for the first time at the end of 2009 in Sri Lanka. This was late in his life, and I am not among those who have known him for a long time. Nevertheless this meeting opened up for a close cooperation of great importance to our work and a friendship that has meant much to me. When we met I was about to organize regional workshops with children and young people on conflict management and peace building in Asia, Africa, South East Europe and Latin America. When Prasanna heard about this, he immediately proposed to make visual documentation. And so he did. He joined our group and documented the four workshops, in Kathmandu, Sarajevo, Kampala and Guatemala. Each of them included around 40 children and young people and their accompanying adults. Prasanna’s professionality as a cinematographer was evident from the very beginning. He filmed what was happening without disturbing the activities. He showed a deep respect for all; he made contact with the participants and valued t...

My name is Rebecca Cody and I formed part of a team that visited Sri Lanka in the Spring of 2006 to make a Channel Four documentary about the rise of religious fundamentalism. Prasanna was our appointed local producer or “fixer” in Colombo. This dedication is from Mark Dowd, the programme presenter, who cannot be here today due to long established conference commitments in Canterbury. Mark penned this tribute to Prasanna and asked me if I would be happy to share it with you today. I seriously doubted whether there were such things as militant Buddhist monks as I had read in the press. But when our team winged into Colombo in 2006, within half an hour, Prasanna had convinced me. I knew within minutes I was in the presence of a charmingly eccentric and inspiring human being. For a week, Prasanna played an amazing hand. By day, we were shadowed by the local state minder and filmed mind-numbingly boring sequences of palms trees, beaches and Buddhist temples. By night, however, in this Je...

From Priyath Liyanage Prasanna Ratnayake Activist, filmmaker, journalist For me, Prasanna was an enigma. He was humble, knowledgeable, and available but mysterious at the same time. At times he was so optimistic and positive but I have only met a very few who are as cynical as him. I vividly remember meeting him for the first time many years ago. It was a shock to hear about his sudden departure. Then again, it is nothing unusual about him to go missing for few months. He will be missing for weeks, and out of the blue he will call, “Machan, bastards have written something about you again. .. “ he is ringing to see if I was hurt by the filth our mutual friends had written about me. Then he reminds me about my radio documentaries and writing and says sweet things to me, and fill me in with some gossip or an unknown facts about the “buggers who write shit”. Prasanna knew everyone who is worth knowing in Colombo. He also knew everything worth knowing about everyone he knew. He had ...

My tribute to Prasanna This is one of the hardest and darkest pieces of writing that I've ever attempted. This is because there simply are no words to express what Prasanna Ratnayake meant to me. Astonishingly, I only knew him for a year and five days. In such a short time he became an integral and loving part of my life. It was Prasanna's idea to make a documentary of my life after we met through a mutual friend. And so we worked on it together: he with his great talent, patience and sensitivity and I with my natural talkativeness, openness and many a tale to tell. What a fulfilling and exciting enterprise! Though I entered into it reluctantly at first, Prasanna sparked my enthusiasm and responsiveness. We had a smooth routine: first a session in front of the camera till my words dwindled into nothingness, sometimes for an hour straight. Then Prasanna had a scone and tea as we relaxed into wide ranging conversation. Talked about everything we did: bits of personal life, b...

Prasanna was a dear friend of mine and those who were close to Prasanna know very well that he built up and maintained his friendships in forms of clusters; whoever belonged to one of Prasanna’s cluster of friends didn’t know those who belonged in the other. I belonged to one such cluster of his. It was only once Prasanna passed away that I came to know that he had lot of faith and trust in me and considered me as being one of his closest of friends. Therefore, it is indeed a privilege to pay tribute to him and celebrate his life with his partner Margret, family members and friends. Prasanna and I met at the Safer World Sri Lanka office nearly 15 years ago. He came to Sri Lanka to make a documentary film for Safer World on issues related small fire arms. We agreed to travel to the North Central Province to hunt locations and on our way we planned to discuss the plot of the documentary. On this journey Prasanna brought along a bottle of Bombay Sapphire; it’s the first time that a...

When Margaret, Prasanna’s dearly beloved wife, passed the message of Prasanna’s demise to me in a trembling voice overwhelmed with grief, my mind has freeze my brain has benumbed for few seconds. I’ve never experienced such a phenomenon earlier. Margaret said it is a catastrophe. Indeed, it is. After few minute when the tragic voice of her vanished into thin air, I sensed  at once that I was journeying into late few decades. For the first time, I met this young man Prasanna, meaning ‘pleasant,’ at the Vibhavi Cultural Centre in Colombo. In ‘90s the Centre was making very effective contributions towards cultural life in Sri Lanka. Basically working through both languages, Sinhala and Tamil, it was not only conducting serious talks of criticism on contemporary fiction, drama, films, etc., but also publishing books, organizing seminars on related issues, film festivals, literary festivals etc. Prasanna was a regular relentless participant and contributor for all said events. And, ...

I first met (actually, saw) Prasanna in his window at his London home, smiling. This happened a few times and eventually we became friends. I live a few blocks further up the street. 
Prasanna was the best neighbour one can have. He knew everything about our street, even dogs and plants. He was caring and funny, one day he read my palm: someone in one of the countries he visited gave him this gift. He loved the Meursault Investigation that I gave him as he was planning to go to Algeria. We used to share stories about the microcosmos of our street as well as art and politics: 
- abandoned bikes, air-bnbs and eternal scaffolding - people rushing to shower in the gym - window (and indoor) plants - love stories of neighbours in their '90s - his 'crush' on Donald Trump - Jeremy Corbyn building Momentum - the flowers and peacocks in Holland park - the Rassells nursery (they sell the best bulbs, true!) - the Brook café and charity shops in shepherd's bush road - ho...