Farewell to the father of "Street Drama" - Professor Gamini K Haththotuwegama

A well known university lecturer of literature, journalist, actor, film and drama critic, writer, drama producer and pioneer of street drama, passed away last week.
He has contributed a lot to those fields and his powerful criticism on social, political, cultural and economic issues had a great impact on people’s minds.
His novel introduction of street drama in 1974 with a young group of dramatists became very popular in Sri Lanka.
When we were university students some of our friends who joined his dramas, totally forgot why they entered university. They were going from one city to another with Professor Gamini Hattotuwegama and did not attend to lecturers for months. We too enjoyed watching his street dramas very much, and most of the time I was surprised to see the young dramatists’ courage to act on the streets.
His dramas were enjoyed by many from the streets, schools, villages, factories, police stations, army camps and even in jails, who had no time or way to go to the theatre.
His demise is a great loss to all the fields he had contributed to immensely.