Yakada YakaYakada Yaka is the second part of the Burgher trilogy that began with The Jam Fruit Tree When the conquering British roll out the first railway steam-driven locomotive in Sri Lanka, it causes quite a stir. The smoke-spewing, banshee-wailing, fearsome black thing hisses like a thousand cobras... and the villagers declare that this Thing is an Iron Demon—a yakada yaka. The Burghers who drive these Iron Demons have a penchant for challenging authority and courting trouble, sometimes just to liven things up in the railway outposts... and so it is that Sonnaboy and Meerwald chase a large group of villagers all across Anuradhapura, mother-naked but not much bothered by it, Ben Godlieb conjures up a corpse in his cowcatcher, Dickie Byrd single-handedly demolishes a Pentecostal Mission and is hailed as the messiah of the Railway fraternity, and Basil Van der Smaght filches a human heart and feeds it to the Nawalapitiya railway staff ...and to cap it all, Sonnaboy takes French Leave to act in The Bridge on the River Kwai! '(Muller) tells his tale with a gentle humour often bordering on tenderness, but couched in the vigorous rugged localese. Almost immediately we find ourselves empathizing with Muller's roistering band that sins and prays with equal zest.' —Business Standard '... The Burghers ...believed in living life to the hilt. Every situation occasioned wild revels, and there was nothing that could not be solved through a brawl.' —India Today. |
Contents
Chapter | |
Chapter Three | |
Chapter Four | |
Chapter Five | |
Chapter | |
Chapter Seven | |
Chapter Eight | |
Chapter Nine | |
Chapter | |
Chapter Eleven | |
Chapter Twelve | |
Chapter Thirteen | |
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Common terms and phrases
Anuradhapura arrack asked baby Balapitiya Beryl bloody Bloss boiler boys brake bridge British brother buffaloes bugger Burgher Byrd Carloboy Ceylon Colombo coming devil Direcksze Diyatalawa door drink Duggy Edema elephant Elsie engine driver eyes fellow firebox fireman footplate Galle Gampola garden girls Godlieb Gonpala head heart hell Hoff hooted husband Jackieboy John jungle Kandy Kinno Kirby Kitulgala Koelmeyer Leah lived look Maradana Meerwald monkeys mother Murunkan Nawalapitiya Never mind nice night passengers Peebles Plinkett Poddi Pukka rail railcar railway bungalow railway town Revathy road Romiel running bungalow scream shouting signal Sinhala Sinhalese Sinnathamby sleepers Smaght Sonnaboy Sonnaboy’s Sri Lanka station stationmaster Stembo stomach stop Talaimannar talk Tamil tell there’s thing thought told took Totoboy track train tree Trincomalee Vavuniya wagons wait waves Wellawatte What’s wheels whistle wife woman you’re