Anupama Madhubhashinie Weerasinghe, popularly known as Anu Madhubhashinie is an artistic soul. But if we describe her more, she is also a singer, lyricist, dancer/dance instructor, choreographer, a commercial/academic/script and creative content writer, a compere, and also a voice-over artist. Anu recently launched her book ‘Healing Through the Arts’ through The Jam Fruit Tree Publications, carries the reflective journey of her healing process. A healing process that came through art.
“I wanted to include everything and encompass everything we do as art,” said Anu. “Even simple day-to-day actions have their own art such as the art of gardening, the art of cooking and even the art of making the bed. Everybody is an artist, hopefully everyone will realise that eventually.”
As a graduate of the University of Kelaniya, and postgraduate of the University of Colombo, Anu has seven years of experience as a Lecturer in the Department of English and English Language Teaching. But when it comes to her roots in language and writing, it was her grandfather who first heavily influenced her to read and write.
“He was a professor in English and was the first person who took me under his wings. I remember reading Russian and French classics with him and also the Bible. My father wasn’t very present in my childhood so my grandfather became a pivotal figure in my life,” recalled the author.
Anu has always been writing. But around 2016 and 2017, after she moved out of university, she had a change of heart and began writing for good. She mentioned how it felt like an awakening to the art of writing, as her little sister also reminded her that she used to write a lot as a kid. “I mostly wrote about my life, from my perspective according to my objectives. Later I got into writing jobs such as content writing and proofreading,” said Anu.
Creative personality
Anu wrote this book as an assignment for a content writing course she was enrolled in. Later she felt that it’s better to publish this book than keep it on the shelf. Therefore, instead of writing a new story, she rewrote her previous assignment and polished it up. She recalled how some of the information for the book was in her head and mentioned using bits and pieces from her journal as well.
The author explained how there are a lot of things that one can learn from art and how nurturing this art in oneself is really important. “Thriving in your creative personality is a very winding art and this alludes to people across different ages. Finding the art inside of me inspired me to live the life I’m living now,” said the author. “It’s okay to be authentic. This whole idea that you have to be perfect and flawless and can’t be damaged, is not true. There’s beauty and art in your human flaws. Authenticity is beautiful.”
Discussing more on finding the beauty of human touch in art, Anupama mentioned how she has been dancing since she was four years old and explained how even in her dancing, small mistakes don’t matter. While she’s singing, she mentioned how when at moments her voice doesn’t sound pitch perfect and is raw, she actually loves and enjoys it. “People and the audience need to know that we are not AI, we are human.”
Whatever the artistic formulae that we are using to heal, Anu believes that it’s important to get to the roots of it. In this day and age, she explained how social media is a huge part of our lives and that it is indeed a great tool for creating and enhancing your content as a business tool. But she mentioned how it’s also a place where almost everything, from best to worst is found.
“Social media also promotes, popularises and celebrates mediocrity way too much. Years and years of practice that some people put into their work do not get recognised anymore. People are after views and comments that are based on mediocre trends,” said Anu.
“There is so much talent out there that constantly gets overshadowed by these mediocre viral content. We have to stop celebrating mediocrity and instead celebrate excellence. Excellence doesn’t mean success. It’s simply the hard work and the best authentic creations you can put out into the world,” she said.
Anu recalled a quote from the movie, ‘Three Idiots’, “Don’t run after success. Run after excellence and success will run after you, pants down!”
To Anu, even something simple such as cleaning and cooking a meal, if done with authenticity to the best of your capability, is excellence. “It’s disheartening that many don’t celebrate effort nowadays but I have come to a place in my life where I do things for myself and not for others. It liberated me and brought me so much peace and joy,” said the author.
First concert
Reminiscing her own understanding of this joy of finding oneself in art and using art to heal, Anu recalled her first concert at the Nelum Pokuna. She was not well known at that time and she recalled being extremely grateful for the sudden opportunity.
It felt like a spiritual experience to her and she enjoyed it to the fullest. After the show, her sister came running towards her and told her that while others were really concerned about their surroundings and their performance, it was so obvious that she was enjoying every bit of it.
She was living in the moment and simply acting like a happy kid on stage with lights around, looking so comfortable and happy while performing. Her husband also later confirmed that it’s exactly who she is.
“I didn’t realise it then, but I now know that’s who I am and I want to continue being that person. When I hit my 30s, it gradually dawned on me that I should not bother too much about the judgement of others and live life on my own terms happily,” said Anu.
‘Healing Through the Arts’ is the first book from a three-book series. As the first book discusses whether you need healing and how to use art as a form to heal, the second book is about using art to figure out who you are during this journey of healing. The third book would be about creating revolution through art.
Motivating herself to write was definitely one of the biggest challenges Anu faced while writing this book.
The next challenge for her was to find the necessary funds to publish since it was during the inflation that she was getting ready for it. Anu recalled the struggles she had, where she had to spend the money she had saved for various other reasons. Thankfully she was finally able to find the necessary funds again for publishing.
Negative experiences
“I also encountered several negative experiences that broke me during the process of writing this book. I was literally living my book and healing through it,” she said.
“There is so much drama in the art industry, but I don’t care. You can still be living a chaotic life and still go with it. You don’t have to romanticise sorrow or let it take you over, you don’t have to grieve over it constantly. You just have to live with it and let life happen,” said Anu.
Just like many other writers, there were also times when Anu felt like she was not good enough. She has a very supportive family but she still had to motivate herself a lot.
“My writing is much nuanced since I was mostly brought up on classical literature. Therefore, catering to the audience in a way that anyone reading my book would understand my objective, but also not sacrificing my writing style was also a major challenge,” she said.
This challenge spreads through all of her art even into her dancing and singing. Anu always makes sure that her work has her excellence in it but can also be understood by the general audience as well.
Anu hopes that her book would bring out the artistic sense in her readers, even in the life of basic simplicity. She believes that none of us should be discouraged to live our authentic lives. She hopes that her readers would be encouraged to follow their dreams and heal through it, not aiming for perfection, but for excellence. “The idea of perfection doesn’t exist but excellence resides in each and every one of us.”
