Ilankai Tamil Sangam
Association of Tamils of Sri Lanka in the USA
Published by Sangam.org

Thank You and All

by Mandalam, July 2, 2009

Firstly, Thanks to our parents
And all those who ‘touched’ our lives

Everybody makes mistakes sometimes
Yet let us be Thankful to all

Oftentimes everyone is self serving
Yet we too enjoy fruits of their doings
So let us be Thankful always

I am Thankful to the Portuguese
For introducing tobacco cultivation in Jaffna

Thanks to the Dutch for the standing Jaffna Fort
And for ‘Court-yard Houses’ now bombed out

To the American Mission, British Methodist Mission
and to the Church Missionary Society of London

For giving Jaffna English Schools as early as in 1816
20 years even before Royal College, the first English school
in the South, was set up by the British government

Thanks to the British for rewarding English fluency
And taking English-fluent Jaffna youth to Malaysia & elsewhere
For help in administration and plantations there

And making us million plus thankful Tamil Diaspora
For building the railway to KKS and the blocked A9 Highway

Be thankful to all Sinhala nationalists and politicians
Who for 100 years kept reminding us we are Tamils after all

Our Thanks to the ‘Unseen Hands’ carrying the Freedom mantle

Thanks for old times and all times and foremost of all

Thanks to all who made the ultimate sacrifice to make Tamils live

Thanks to All