Happy Birthday Your Majesty - "Mangala on Sundays"

It’s not often I thank God or the Queen.. or… for that matter say God Save the Queen.

I do say so today for it’s her Birthday. Well, at least in New South Wales. Never mind she wasn’t really born on this day. Who cares about such little details when one can enjoy a long weekend on her account?

Cheers…Queeniee….I’ll ‘ave another half.

Seriously though, how confusing would that be for her Royal Astrologer to advise her if she should undertake tours down under or even walk her Corgis in the garden in Rahu time? Unless of course his name is Sumanadasa. He will have no problems in finding a suitable nakatha for her to abdicate whether she was born on 21^st April 1926 or 8^th of June 1826. He could be working for Prince Charles at the same time…so he could claim his reward either way.

Why is her Birthday a big deal for the modern day Australians? A significant percentage of today’s Australians would not be the descendants of the First Fleet officers or the convicts. Heck! They are not even the 10 Pound Poms. The Greeks, Italians, Germans, Lebanese and the Indo Chinese boat people of the 70s would not give a rat’s arse about the British Queen. Not to mention Irish and the Scotts whose relatives have been trying to secede from the clutches of the empire recently.

There was a time in the 80s when Australians debated whether they should be a Republic. They were not happy how the Queens representative the Governor General  Sir John Kerr could toss out the elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. He appointed Malcolm Fraser as PM.

Come to think of it, in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka the elected President could appoint a PM from a Party who does not enjoy a majority in the Parliament. That’s another story.

When we were Ceylonese, we had a photo of the Queen hanging in our parlour (hee..hee..the Queen was in the parlour!!).  Well, it wasn’t really a Parlour..we called it the Isthoppuwa. I recall how a friend who visited me found this photo amusing and very anti nationalistic. How dare we display such partisanship to Imperial Forces who had looted our country? I had no answer. But my father was actually working at the British High Commission at the time teaching the British how to write Queen’s English. When the BHC sacked him for excessive absenteeism, he actually took the Queen to Sri Lankan courts - for wrongful dismissal! At least, that was how the Communist Party news paper “Aththa Paththare” reported the court case. I kid you not! Needless to say, God or the Sri Lankan Courts didn’t have to save the queen, in that case.

In 1972, Ceylon did become a proud independent non-aligned Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. The Socialist bit may have been due to the flavour of the times. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Democratic bit was added subsequently in the 1978 constitution. Typical Sri Lankan style, ensuring survival no matter the prevailing world dominance is Red or Blue. Hey, I might be wrong about the name changes..but..if we can celebrate Queens Birthday on a different day…why can’t I add a bit a bit of spice.

All that spice has nothing to do with price of fish.

It’s Queens Birthday today- a Public Holiday, it’s all that matters to us plebs.

• Silibiris silly thoughts”