When singer Srinivas took a song request from Ranil Wickremesinghe, the president of Sri Lanka

After a recent show for the Colombo-Indian CEO Forum, singer Srinivas reflects on what makes him return to the culturally curious, warm Sri Lankan audience

For singer Srinivas, Sri Lanka is familiar performance terrain. He has been visiting since the 1990s, first in his corporate avatar and later as a musician.

In his recent show for the Colombo-Indian CEO Forum’s 10th year celebration last week at the Taj Samudra, he had a special request from a member of the audience — a song from Bobby.  

It was the President of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe who asked for a song from the iconic album that made waves, exactly half a century ago. Wickremesinghe, who was the chief guest at the milestone event for the Indian business community in Sri Lanka, attended most of the concert, along with First Lady Prof. Maithree Wickremesinghe.

Srinivas sang ‘Mein shayar to nahin’, adding to his charming, largely retro Hindi playlist, dominated by the singer’s icon Kishore Kumar. It included Mohammed Rafi and Mehedi Hassan, apart from a couple of Srinivas’s own hits in Tamil.  

“I am at my happiest while performing songs of Kishore Kumar and Mehedi Hassan, my sources of inspiration,” says Srinivas. He is also particularly delighted to perform in Sri Lanka, where the audiences have shown him “unconditional love”, the kind “you rarely see”.  

He would know. For about 30 years now, Srinivas has sung to packed venues in Colombo, as well as Jaffna, including for a popular New Year’s Eve performance organised by the local television channel Shakthi TV.  He says, “I still remember my first trip. I was amazed at how strikingly clean and green Sri Lanka is.”

Besides having forged strong friendships with music lovers living in Sri Lanka, Srinivas also points to the significant contribution made by Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora in supporting classical art and film music shows across North America, Europe, and Australia. “They have gone through so much [during and after the civil war], but their resilience, and passion for the arts and culture is enormous.”