Nishagandhi (නිෂාගන්ධි) : The Lunar Whisper

How "Nishagandhi" was camposed?

Yes. I remember the song "Nishagandhi" being created quite by accident. I was at my sister's restaurant that day. I don't remember the exact time. It was probably midnight. I was watching YouTube with my laptop on a desk in the restaurant. The restaurant was closed at that time. I was the only one inside. All the lights were off. Only the laptop's screen light was on. My sister's restaurant was right next to the main road. There were large glass windows instead of walls on the street side. So I could see the vehicles and everything else on the road, from inside. Since it was late at night, there were rarely any cars passing by.

Suddenly, a cab stopped in front of the restaurant. A girl and a boy got out. They walked closer to the restaurant, talking with each other. Because it was dark inside, they didn't see me. But I saw them clearly. The girl had a white flower in her hand. The two of them sat near the glass in front of the restaurant. They hugged for a while. And a while later, I saw they were smoking some cigarettes. They left about an hour later.

Then I turned on some lights inside the restaurant. At that moment, I saw the white flower that the girl had been holding was on the ground where they were. I went outside and picked it up. It's a "Kadupul  flower" (Queen of the Night flower). At that time, I was artistically inspired.

I quickly went to the laptop. I wanted to create a musical piece with that vibe. I opened the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) called FL studio on the laptop. Because, in FL Studio, it is very easy to use the laptop keyboard as a midi-keyboard. Then it is easy to compose. [Technical fact] 

In the meantime, I had composed something. Luckily for me, I had a Mackie soundcard and a SoundKing condenser microphone in my bag at the time. I quickly went to the room, got them, and recorded the melody from inside the restaurant. Also, the words in the chorus of the song, "නොදනිමි ආලේ සීමා (I don't know the limits of love)" were written at that moment. All the other lyrics were written later...

Sandesh joined...

I began to musically narrate each piece of that story that I saw. I improvised. I started writing lyrics to the melody I crafted for that story. In the end, nature wrote me lyrics that fit the story. I finalized "Nishagandhi" - musical narration and exported it. 

At that time period, I was working at a place called Saliya Electricals. I went to work there with my friend Sandesh. Sandesh Rathnayake is a guitarist. He plays guitar in most of my musical works. So, I showed him this song while we were working. His response at that time was very good. Later, when we met at his home, I played this track again. I remember, at that time, he picked up his guitar and played something. I realized that the parts he played added a divine vibe to the song. I paid him right away, and I invited him to play guitar on the song. That's how he gets involved in the creation. From there, we worked as hard as we could to create the visual and final export of the creation. 

And usually I let my family to listen the song. Because they're probably good music fans. They give me some suggestions. Maybe, there are times when I consider them. Tharu akka needs to be mentioned in here. The suggestions she gave during the creative process had a very positive impact on the creation.

In Trailer Visuals...

Sandesh and I spent a few days planning the visuals. We wanted to leverage our resources and skills and do the work to the highest quality we could. First we planned a trailer for the song. And we shot it. We had to shoot this at around 12:00 am. Because it was difficult for us with the traffic on the road.

Sandesh Rathnayake @ Nayagala, Biyagama - Sri Lanka

During the scenes on that road, I was supposed to act a scene where I was walking with a glass of alcohol in my hand. At that moment, a police bike arrived and shone a torch in our faces. And asked us, "මොකද කරන්නේ මෙතන? (What are you doing here?)". Then I explained that we were shooting a video and they left. And we were supposed to take some shots at the restaurant. But there were always people there, so we had to wait until it closed. And I wanna remind, the words written in the book in that trailer were beautifully written by my brother Prabhath Disanayake, the man my sister married. Everything was recorded by Sandesh Rathnayake with his Samsung S9 mobile phone. And we didn't have a gimbal to record with. We got it from Zonu (Akash Naveen).

Zonu (Akash Naveen)

So that's how the shooting of that trailer ended. Later, We released the trailer on January 10th at around 6:30 pm.

The Main Visuals...

As I remember, the song is based on the script we wrote the second time. Yes. The first script was a bit complicated. It had animation. And since it felt too complicated, we went for another script. I remember clearly, Sandesh and I were sitting on a worn-out bench by the Kottunna paddy field and discussing the script. At the end of the day, we had finalized a script and decided to shoot it at Elakanda beach, Wattala. I think, it was early morning when Sandesh went home that day, haha. We didn't sleep well that night. We sat on the bench in front of our house and talked about the song until morning.

We were going to visit the location the next day, but Sandesh had to go home immediately. So I went alone to see what the view was like at the Kiribathgoda Jogging track. The jogging park was full of people that day. I was like, "Can we shoot here?". After I told Sandesh about it, he said, "Let's go tomorrow morning."

Actually, the next morning there were only us and a few other people in the park, so it was very comfortable for us. We finished the shoot there in about 2 hours.

Creative Discussions

@ Sandesh Rathnayake

After finishing our shoot there, we returned to our home again. Because we still had a few shots left inside the house. After darkening the entire room, Sandesh used his warm light strip to create colors. After that, we focused on the elements of the video and completed the indoor shoot in about an hour. 

Then around 3pm we left to shoot some shots on the beach. But, we didn't go to Elakanda beach. We chose Panadura beach. So we set off for Panadura. It was around 5 when we reached Panudura. The sky was overcast. We called Zonu to see if he was still around because he often comes to campus in Panadura. But he wasn't there. Somehow we arrived at Panadura beach. There were hundreds of people on Panadura beach at that time. We got upset when we saw that crowd. But we waited until people were moving around and then took a few shots.

There's a scene in the video where I'm sitting on a log. After shooting that shot, I came back and watched the video. When we looked back, someone who was playing had come and pushed the log into the face. It wasn't in a condition to be reused. So we had to change a scene in the script. We saw a wooden boat, but there were few people in it at the time. But they only stayed for a short time. As soon as they left, we went there and did the shoot in the boat.

Wooden Boat @ Panadura Beach

We spent the entire evening at the beach. Our last bus was at 8 pm. It was almost 7PM when we got back from the beach. We were very hungry at that moment, and the smell of the shops near the sea increased our hunger more and more. We ate Biriyani at a nearby restaurant and boarded the last bus at around 8pm. That day was very tiring! 

And I also need to mention the Editing process. Sandesh must be mentioned there. It's usually around 6 pm when he gets home from work. When he gets home from work, he calls me right on the bus. And says,

"මචං, මම එනගමන් ඉන්නේ. උඹ ඔහොම්ම පාර පැත්තට එනවද? මාත් එක්කම යමං. Edit එක ගහන්න පුළුවන් අද. (Bro, I'm on my way. Can you get ready and come with me? Cause we can edit the video today bro.)" 

After that, when we start editing, I come back from there around 12 midnight. I definitely want to give the credit for that friendship!

So, the song is created that way. But, creativity is a very beautiful place you know? There we can take the creation to another dimensions we want. So, this creation may also have a different story. Something from a different dimension. Keep exploring...

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Exploration 2.0 - Conceptual Artwork @ ArtQuest -
https://nipun_artquest.artstation.com/projects/vbZR3d

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#nishagandhi #nipungeesath

NISHAGANDHI!

The Lunar Whisper