Pol Katu Handa Mita Wage Lyrics by Desmond De Silva

Like a coconut-shell ladle, her beauty, my love
She won’t come back again, her brain is full of kerosene
Oh she never come right again
She got kerosene oil in her brain

She never come right, she never come right
She never come right again

A true story took place in the city of Colombo
A young lad got himself a job in that tale
He carried the pretty madam’s baby on his hip
The little one keeps crying and he can’t soothe it, what a fuss

The baby is crying, the baby’s mummy is scolding
The boy is crying, he’s trying to run off to his village
To get the little one to settle, this is what he says
Don’t cry, baby, I’ll sing you a song

They’re laying tar on the Galle road and the bus goes by
The lorry goes by, hey, the taxi goes by
They’re laying tar on the Galle road and the bicycle goes by
There go those folks, hey, and off we go too

Galle road tar is putting bus is also going
Lorry also going, hey, taxi also going
Galle road tar is putting bicycle also going
You are also going, hey, we are also going

This is a baila song, the cheeky, fast, dance-floor party music that Desmond De Silva made his name in, and like most baila it is built for laughs more than for tears. It does not try to break your heart. It sets up a silly little scene and lets the rhyme and the rhythm do the rest.

The opening lines are the kind of teasing comedy baila loves. The singer describes a woman’s beauty by comparing it to a polkatu handa, the ladle made from half a coconut shell that sits in every Sri Lankan kitchen. Calling someone’s looks “shaped like a coconut-shell ladle” is a backhanded joke, not a compliment, and then he adds that her brain is full of kerosene, the local way of saying someone is a bit cracked or not quite right in the head. That is why he keeps repeating, in plain English, “she never come right again.” It is gentle nonsense meant to make you grin.

The middle of the song tells a small “true story” set in Colombo. A village boy takes a job minding the baby of a fine lady, and the whole thing turns into a domestic comedy. The baby won’t stop crying, the lady of the house is scolding him, and the poor boy is so fed up he is crying too and ready to bolt back home to his village. To calm the child, he promises to sing it a song, and that is the joke that sets up the famous ending.

The “song” he sings to the baby is the Galle Road verse, just a list of traffic rolling past while they lay tar on the road, the bus, the lorry, the taxi, the bicycle, everyone going somewhere. It is deliberately silly, a sing-song of ordinary street life, the sort of thing a tired minder really would chant to distract a fussy child. Repeating it in broken English (“Galle road tar is putting, bus is also going”) doubles the fun and is a signature De Silva touch. The whole piece is meant to be sung and danced to at a party, a slice of everyday Sri Lankan life turned into a grin, with no message deeper than the pleasure of a good laugh and a good beat.