of Romeo and Juliet, playing the lead female role in all of them. Rukmani performed her singing career as a simple singer on Sri Lankan radio in the mid-1940s. Gabriel Gunaratne, who was in charge of recording songs at the then His Master's Voice (HMV) Gramophone Records Company, was the permanent music director of the company. She was introduced to the H. W. Rupasinghe one day in October 1938 by Gunaratne. Rupasinghe, who saw Rukmani's singing prowess, chose her for the first album, which was launched by Master His Voice No. 9300. With her first audio recording of the famous song "Siri Buddhagaya Vihare" with Master in 1938 at the age of 15, she captured the hearts of the masses and she shaped her career from that of an actress to that of an actress turned singer. This song was recorded to 78 rpm (gramophone) record label HMV with the number N-9300 and issued in 1939 by the Cargills Ltd, local agents for HMV. Her unique voice attracted many music directors, as her singing career moved from the stage to the silver screen. Joining Rupasinghe Master's band as a regular singer, she faced three challenges at the time. That is, she had not studied Hindustani classical music properly as well as had to compete with renowned singers of that year such as Lakshmi Bai, Annie Boteju and Susila Jayasinghe. The third was the language challenge. She did not know how to read or write Sinhala and she used to write it all down in English. Due to the vocal training given by Rupasinghe Master through those songs, she soon became a simple classical singer as well as the most popular young singer on the His Masters Voice record company. During 1938–45, she recorded 44 songs for HMV Records. Rukmani sang almost all the Sinhala songs composed in Hindi and Vanga classical songs sung by Kumari Jutika Roy, then popularly known as "Bhajan Songstress" in India. It was also, around this time that her name underwent a change from Daisy Daniels to the well known 'Rukmani Devi'. There are two schools of thinking as to how the name "Rukmani Devi" originated. According to one school, the late H. W. Rupasinghe maestro created the name, while the other believe that Jayantha Weerasekara and Michael Sannas Liyanage who is in his 90s, created it. Entering the stage, Rukmani had the opportunity to perform