Wakkada Langa Diyakadiththe

At the little weir by the sluice-gate,
the tiny titta fish
that used to dance hide-and-seek,
every one of them has died,
oh, Dingiri uncle,
what wrong did the little titta fish ever do?

The dandi fish, the minnows,
the isgediyas, the nalahandayas,
there is no play like there used to be,
what is this cruelty done to them?

They sprayed pesticide on the paddy field,
poured oil into the weir as well,
and floating belly-up, drifting, drifting,
they are carried away down the water-stream,
who was it that gave them poison?
what would the little titta fish even know?

A gentle, sorrowful environmental song told in a child’s voice, about the small fish of the paddy-field waters killed by farm chemicals. At the little weir by the sluice-gate, the tiny titta fish that used to dance hide-and-seek have all died, and the child turns, bewildered, to Dingiri uncle with the question at the song’s heart: what wrong did the little fish ever do?

The second verse names the vanished creatures one by one, the dandi fish, the minnows, the isgediyas, the nalahandayas, the whole small ecosystem a village child knows by name, and mourns that there is no play like there used to be. The loss is measured not in statistics but in the silence where life used to move.

The last verse names the cause plainly: they sprayed pesticide on the paddy field and poured oil into the weir, and now the fish float belly-up, carried away down the stream. The child’s final questions land the whole indictment gently but unanswerably, who gave them poison, and what would the little fish ever have known of it? Sung by Harshana Disanayake to words by Admiral Somathilaka Disanayake, with music by Sunil Dayananda Konara, it is a tender, quietly devastating song about innocent creatures destroyed by agricultural poisons, seen through a child’s uncomprehending eyes.