Twinkles of yesteryear

Down the years, Dr. Wijeyananda Dahanayake has been famous for coming up with a political gem on occasions historical. Here is he on Sir John

Twinkle, twinkle, good Sir John,

How you’ve fooled our fair Ceylon.

Looking young in spite of age,

Like an actor on the stage.

When the girls at ‘Temple Trees’

Crowd and dance like buzzing bees,

Then you sing your sweetes song,

Twinkle, twinkle, all night long!’

But if you care to see the woe

Of starving men who come and go,

Then you’ll sing a sadder song

And twinkle like a wiser John.

 

**************************************

“Under the Temple Trees

He loves to lie at ease;

And turns the Premier’s post

Into a dancing host.

Come hither, come hither,

come hither,

Here shall you see

No policy,

But birds of the same feather”.

 

**************************************

On the then Finance Minister,

J. R. Jayewardene

 

“Twinkle! Twinkle! J.R.J.

How I wonder what you pay,

Up above the scale is high,

Down below we hear them sigh;

 

When the Budget speech in done;

Then begins the real fun,

Then you show your Colombo Plan,

Twinkle! Twinkle! all you can;

 

Then the clerk with little pay,

Sees the game you often play,

And knows that he must surely die,

When you twinkle! in the sky!”

 

**************************************

I thought I saw a kangaroo

In shervani on the beach,

I looked again and found it was

J.R’S Budget Speech;

“I will sell you bags of rice” he said

“At a price beyond yours reach;”

 

*************************************

Twinkle! Twinkle! J.RJ.

Hlow I wonder what you say

Up above the world so high

Is there petrol in the sky?”

 

**************************************

A more sober Dahanayake

on President

J.R. Jayewardene

 

The Devas save our

gracious President,

Long live our noble President,

The Devas save the President,

Make him victorious,.

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us,

The Devas save our President!”

 

************************************

On S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike

 

“I do not love thee Banda dear,

The reason why is very clear,

I do not love thee Banda dear,

Because you change from

year to year.”

 

**************************************

An ode to a Prime Minister

which he recited on the occasion

of Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s

visit to Galle in 1964.

 

“And the child of Lanka has answered

The Pride of the past has mingled,

With a glow of a golden morn

And a woman leads her people

To a happy glorious dawn.’

(With apologies to Rev. W.S. Senior)

 

**************************************

On Ronnie de Mel’s Eleventh

Budget – 1987

 

“Twinkle! Twinkle! Ronnie de Mel

Your budgetary feats none excel,

The teacher and the clerks

Get from you full marks

Now they know the way to go

Because you twinkle! twinkle! More,”

 

“Your ten budgets told the story

Of Lanka’s developing glory,

Now darkest clouds of fearful fright

Are with us all the day and night,

Yet Ronnie’s eleventh is

the silver line,

That brings to all our people

Hope divine,

 

**************************************

On Sir Oliver Goonetilleke

 

“O.E.G. had a little clerk,

Whose pay was very low,

And everywhere that O.E. went

The clerk was sure to go

To get a little more!”

 

***********************************

 

On the 100th birthday of one of his gurus, at the Government Training College, Roderik Kriekenbeek, this ode was written:

 

“Dear friend and teacher,

This day to thee we send

A most joyful prayer

And blessings without end,

You led a pure and gentle life,

Free from taint and earthly strife,

Teaching the poems that showed the way,

How best to live, and work, and play;

To love the trees and birds and springs,

And all Earth’s simple, beauteous things;

The Psalmists three score ten you beat

That showed the secret of your feat,

And now you are a hundred old

Because you have a heart of gold!”

 

*****************************************

 

Pussy’s in the well

 

While Dr. W. Dahanayake, then Member for Galle, was severely criticising one of the

Budgets of Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s United Front Government in the 1970’s, the quorum bell of the House began ringing.

 

“Ding-dong bell”, said Dahanayake.

“Pussy’s in the well,” prompted another Member

And immediately Dahanayake recited this

impromptu parody;

“Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?

To Temple Trees, to see the PM I’ve been

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you see there?

I saw the Prime Minister asleep in her chair!

Why sir” continued the irrepressible voice from Galle,

“We now have it straight from the cat’s mouth that Mrs. Bandaranaike’s Government is in a

state of CATALEPSY – sudden suspension of body and mind.”

 

*****************************************

 

Bill Athey (the name is pronounced like the Sinhala word for ‘enough’ – ethi) was a member of a visiting English cricket team which toured Sri Lanka in the early 1980s. They played a match in Galle against a Galled Team and Athey scored 180 runs – the highest by a batsman on the Galle Esplanade, Dr. W. Dahanayake, then Minister of Co-operatives as well as President of the Galle District Cricket Association, wrote this verse dedicated to Bill they.

“When you scored a hundred

We shouted ‘Athey!’

Which means enough

But your score was eighty more;

You beat the rest. In your career best,

And the highest score of all

On our playing field at Galle!”

 

*****************************************

 

It used to be said that if one wanted to meet him

between 4 and 6 p.m one had only to go to

one of Galle’s two cemeteries and he was sure to

be there. In fact, the Lankadipa newspaper had

this to say several decades ago.

“Gok – Kolayak adina thenaka

Bera padayak gasana thenaka

Mala – miniyak thibena thenaka

Dahanayake indi konaka!”

(Where gok [tender coconut] leaves have been strung. Where a drumbeat is heard. When there is a funeral, you are sure to find Dahanayake there!”)

 

Caption: Dr. Wijeyananda Dahanayake