Ada Katha Naththe Mokada Uba Latha Lyrics by Gypsies

Why aren’t you talking today, Latha?
Don’t cry, my dear.
I just happened to get some, that’s why I drank.
Don’t cry, serve me a bit of rice.
I just happened to get some, that’s why I drank.
Don’t cry, serve me a bit of rice.

On my way home after work,
I ran into a friend who pestered me,
He kept on at me, so I went for a small drink.
That’s the only reason I was late getting home.
My dear, don’t cry, don’t shed those tears.
Latha, come on now, talk to me.
My dear, don’t cry, don’t shed those tears.
Latha, come on now, talk to me.

I meant to have just one and stop,
But by my rotten luck one became two, two became three.
You came into my mind on the way home,
And my friend kept pushing me to have another.
My dear, don’t cry, don’t shed those tears.
Latha, come on now, talk to me.
My dear, don’t cry, don’t shed those tears.
Latha, come on now, talk to me.

Are you crying more just to hurt me?
If I’ve wounded your heart, then forgive me.
My golden love, please, listen to this:
Never again, not on any day after this, will I drink.
My dear, don’t cry, don’t shed those tears.
Latha, come on now, talk to me.
My dear, don’t cry, don’t shed those tears.
Latha, come on now, talk to me.

Why aren’t you talking today, Latha?
Don’t cry, my dear.
I just happened to get some, that’s why I drank.
Don’t cry, serve me a bit of rice.
I just happened to get some, that’s why I drank.
Don’t cry, serve me a bit of rice.

Don’t cry, serve me a bit of rice.
Latha, Latha, come on now, talk to me.
Latha, talk to me now, please.
Latha, talk to me now.
Latha still won’t say a word.

This is a comic song, a husband who has come home drunk and is now trying to coax his sulking wife, Latha, back into a good mood. She has gone silent on him, the worst sign there is in a Sri Lankan household, and the whole song is his fumbling, half-apologetic attempt to win her over. Anyone who grew up here knows this scene by heart, which is exactly why it is funny.

He opens with the classic drunk man’s defence. He didn’t go looking for it, he says, it just landed in his lap (“I just happened to get some, that’s why I drank”), so really it wasn’t his fault. A friend cornered him after work and kept pushing, he meant to have only one and leave, but one became two and two became three. He even blames “my rotten luck” (karuma, the idea of bad fate catching up with you) for how it spiralled. These are the excuses every wife in the country has heard, and the song knows it, the comedy is in how flimsy they are and how earnestly he offers them.

The little details are what make it land. He keeps begging her to “serve me a bit of rice,” because the real punishment of an angry wife is that the kitchen goes cold and the man who came home tipsy gets no dinner. He calls her “my golden love” (ran kanda, literally “pillar of gold,” a tender old term of endearment) and swears he will never drink again on any day for the rest of his life, the promise drunk husbands have been making and breaking forever. There’s even a sweet little excuse buried in there: he tells her she came into his mind on the way home, as if thinking of her somehow led to the extra drink rather than away from it.

The song ends without letting him off the hook, and that’s the charm of it. After all his pleading, his apologising, his grand vows, the last line simply reports that Latha still won’t say a word. He has talked and talked and gotten nowhere, and you can almost see him standing there, hungry and sheepish, still waiting. It’s affectionate rather than cruel, a warm, knowing laugh at married life and at every man who has ever had to talk his way back into the house.