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Asanka Hadirampela
Asanka Hadirampela is a Sri Lankan creative writer, author, program producer, director, presenter, columnist, sport journalist, singer, lyricist and critic. He moved to Colombo from Matale as a student and has been stationed there since. He is the producer of well known Sinhalese sports content on the internet such as Asidisi,Sports Masala and Top Picks.

He is known for his articles published on ThePapare.com. In a country where sports documentaries are a rarity, he has been pushing towards a change by producing sport documentaries for the internet. He is a sinhala live sports commentator who has offered his service to the Sri Lankan sports community. Some regard him as a creative writer who considers sports as an art. He is also known for his sarcastically brilliant writings on social media.

Early Life
Asanka Hadirampela was born on 12 June 1988 at Matale, Central Province Sri Lanka. His father, Ariyasena Hadirampela was a banker and his mother, Kumudini Benjamin was a teacher. He has two siblings. Buddhima, the elder sister is an entrepreneur. Eranga, the younger brother is an upcoming singer and a photographer. His primary education was completed at Vijaya College Matale which is also the primary school of William Gopallawa and Kumar Sangakkara.

He was known to be a quiet and active student in his childhood who took part in various activities. He was the chess champion of his primary school and, he had shown his talent in drama and singing. He earned the highest marks in his school for the scholarship exam in 1998 and then he was able to attend Royal College Colombo-07 from grade 6. All these years he was a diehard cricket fan. He and his father used to watch all the cricket matches that were shown on TV. Sri Lanka won its first cricket world cup in 1996. By the time he was still at the age of 8 and yet he remembers how they used to celebrate. His and his father’s favorite batsman was Aravinda De Silva.

At Royal College, he was known to be a singer and an actor. He took part in State Children’s drama festival at the age of 14. He became a part of the musical band of hostel as a rhythm guitarist. His father was his idol who also had a good taste of art and kept encouraging him to read, write and sing.

His father was passed away as he was turning 16. The incident made him strong as a person and also led him to be a rebel in the house as well as in school. At the time he was a hockey player in his school and as he was asked to come to practice he wasn’t responding, protesting that strict rules of hostel didn’t fit him. Although he was protesting against the senior students and the administration, his love for music and arts kept growing. He finished his Ordinary level exam in 2004 and Advanced level exam in 2008. He left out school in 2008 and began to explore the streets of Colombo.

He owns a diploma in Counseling and Psychotherapy at Horizon City Campus in 2013.

2008-2011
After he left school he began to look for spiritual ways as he was in question of not knowing who he was and what he should be doing. He was more into reading books on Buddhism and he went in search of happiness. He became a traveler.

Later he was hired to a job as a marketing executive for Time Magazine, which helped him to grow with good PR skills. Later in 2010 he became a banker just like his father at Pan Asia Banking corporation. After some time he realized that it wasn’t his place as he was obsessed with art. He was a part of ICC World Cup 2011 as an accreditation officer for DNA Networks India which is a subsidiary of Royal Challenge India.

2012-2016
He has been in tourist hotel music arena since. He has worked with various bands and musicians in Trinco Blu by Cinnamon, Heritance Kandalama, Hotel Sigiriya etc… He has been praised for his ability to sing in multi languages such as English, Italian, Latin, Sinhala, Hindi etc… He has had a great relationship with listeners from all over the world. While singing to foreign audiences and doing cover songs, he produced his own song “Black weather” in 2015.

From the early 2016’s he used to translate and write articles as a part timer for ThePapare.com, which is a popular sports website in Sri Lanka. Later in 2016 he was invited to write as a full timer. He took it as it was also one of his life interests.

2016-2020
He was the first ever full time Sinhala writer of ThePapare.com who has written many sports articles over these years. A year later he was asked to take the mic for small interviews as their former announcer resigned, so he did. It was the cradle of a well known Sri Lankan sports web presenter, a commentator, producer and an activist.

“Asanka n Asanka” was the first ever sports comedy program in Sri Lanka, which featured him became popular among the youth in 2016. Later in 2017 he produced “Sports Masala” which was a street Q&A segment which also became popular for its uniqueness.

In 2017 he wrote, produced and presented “Asidisi” which became a popular Sinhala sports knowledge program on the internet. Season 2 of “Asidisi” was launched in late 2018, which was also written, produced and presented by him is the first ever Sinhala sports biography series on the internet that has more than 50,000 active followers.

His voice was the first went on air in a live volleyball match webcast in Sri Lanka as he said “Suba udaasanak” (Good morning) at Munchee National Volleyball 2017 women’s semi final match between Air force vs MAS Casualline.

He has produced Sinhala and multi-language sports documentaries such as,

·        Graceful Fist (2017) featuring Sri Lankan women’s boxer Anusha Kodithuwakku,

·        On Your Wheels (2018) featuring Sri Lankan wheel chair tennis players,

·        The Last Straight (2019) featuring Sri Lankan athlete Dilshi Kumarasinghe.

·        Ride 4 Ceylon (post-production)

He has acted in a short movie called “Run Run Run” (2019)  which was directed by Tharaka Nayanapriya.

Charity
While being a young musician his love for travelling didn’t fade. He was travelling to rural parts of Sri Lanka and organized charity events with his friends.

He owns a Facebook page called “Hadira” which refers to his childhood nickname. He does a lot of charity programs through that page.

External links section
Example external link