Hinipeththatama Lyrics by Bathiya and Santhush (BnS)

Climbing to the very top rung, showing what victory looks like
The sound of triumph rang out and shook the world
In the old days hearts were tied to the stars
And now the stars of the new wave are the ones taking the glory…//

Gamini and Malini made golden love that shook the bioscope
The one called Rukmani thrilled hearts and set box office records
Joe’s beams of light, Geetha’s eyes, Vijaya’s loving kisses like flowers
Freddie, Manel, Eddie, Lilian, and brother Cavey too, all playing alongside Maggie…

Dashing boys and bold girls stay tied up in love for weeks on end
Hindi songs and spiky hair, and now the girls are asking for beach parties
To the beat of this drum the baila came pouring out, line after line, and the boys came stepping in time
Tossing their hair and swaying their hips, the girls got into the groove…

To the very top…

Jothi, Milton, Karunaratne, M.S., the songs they sang ring out golden
Angeline’s songs are intoxicating, Sujatha, Latha, our nightingales
The wonders C.T. Shelton showed have never faded, they still drift to us today
The stars, shining with their glory, have thrilled our hearts for all time…

Dashing boys…
To the very top…

This is a celebration of the golden age of Sri Lankan cinema and music, a roll-call of the legends who built it. “Hinipeththatama” means climbing to the very top rung of the ladder, and the song is about all the artists who climbed there and planted the flag for everyone who came after. It is less a story about one person’s feelings and more a proud tour through the names that any older Sri Lankan grew up loving, with the singers reminding us that today’s new wave of stars is standing on the shoulders of those who shook the world first.

The names that fly past are the founding faces of local film and song. Gamini and Malini are Gamini Fonseka and Malini Fonseka, the great leading man and leading lady whose on-screen romances filled the old cinema halls (the “bioscope,” the old word for the movies). Rukmani is Rukmani Devi, remembered as the nightingale of Ceylon, who broke box office records. Joe is Joe Abeywickrama, Vijaya is Vijaya Kumaratunga, the beloved star, and the verse rattles off Freddie Silva, Eddie Jayamanne and others from the early comedy and theatre tradition. In the music verse it turns to the voices: Milton Mallawarachchi, M.S. Fernando, Angeline Gunathilake, Sujatha Attanayake, Latha Walpola, and C.T. Fernando, with the women called “kokilawan,” nightingales, the highest praise you can give a singer here.

Between the praise for the old guard, the song drops into a livelier verse about the young crowd of today, boys with spiky hair and girls who want beach parties and Hindi songs, the baila rhythm pulling everyone onto the floor to dance. It is a gentle, fond contrast: the world has changed, the kids move differently, but the same drum keeps the beat going. The point is not to scold the new generation, it is to say the line runs unbroken from then to now.

What the song leaves you with is gratitude and pride. The light those stars gave off has not dimmed, the songs still ring “golden,” and their wonder still drifts down to us today. For a listener who remembers these names from the radio and the cinema, it plays like a warm thank you, a reminder that the people who first climbed to the top are still lighting the way.