{"id":40756,"date":"2012-05-07T11:12:49","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T11:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=40756"},"modified":"2012-05-07T11:12:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T11:12:49","slug":"the-monk-who-left-the-monastery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-monk-who-left-the-monastery\/","title":{"rendered":"The Monk Who Left The Monastery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By\u00a0Prajakta Hebbar &#8211; The Indian Express &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-monk-who-left-the-monastery\/abinikmana01\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-40757\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-40757\" title=\"Abinikmana01\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Abinikmana01.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a>Hector Kumarasiri is short, with stooped shoulders, and uses a \u201cwalker\u201d while stepping outdoors. With pearly white teeth and hair to match, the Sinhalese director speaks with a thick South Asian accent. \u201cAlmost 75 per cent of the population in Sri Lanka follows Buddhism, but half of them think Buddhism is some sort of a fashion trend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Sri Lankan filmmaker and theatre person was on a visit to India for the world premiere of his first film Abinikmana, screened as part of five-day \u201cThe Inner Path: A festival of Buddhist films, exhibitions, philosophy, performances\u201d that concluded last week in Delhi. The 99-minute film deals with the dilemma of a Buddhist monk who is forced to forgo his spiritual ambitions as he still has worldly attachments.<\/p>\n<p>Filmed in just 14 days and on a shoe-string budget of Rs 50 lakh, the film has Sudarshana Bandara and Joe Abeywickrama in lead roles. \u201cMy protagonist is a Buddhist monk who is forced to discontinue his spiritual journey when he discovers his parents are seriously indisposed,\u201d he explained, adding, \u201cBut the struggle increases as his father passes away and he returns to the monastery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Working with theatre for 35 years now, and with more than 15 theatre productions under his belt, Kumarasiri, who himself practises Buddhism, said he is pleased at the response he got from Indian audiences in the Capital.<\/p>\n<p>Adding that he plans to make a socio-political film next, Kumarasiri was set to take a flight back home. But before that, he wanted to meditate for some time, as is his custom. \u201cAlas, today, I will have a lot of difficulty concentrating, since I\u2019ve met so many beautiful women today,\u201d he joked.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":40757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2201],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-from-foreign-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Monk Who Left The Monastery - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-monk-who-left-the-monastery\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Monk Who Left The Monastery - 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