Oben Thora Lokayak Lyrics by Abewardana Balasuriya

Where is there a world without you?
a dream without you,
a path without you,
a song without you,
where could it be?….

Every image that I see
appears to me like your face,
in every song that I hear,
your voice is what I hear..

From dream to dream,
it is you who wanders through,
from one blink to the next,
you alone are there…

A tender, wholehearted love song, and a classic of Sinhala popular music, that measures the beloved’s presence by imagining her absence. Where, it asks over and over, could there ever be a world without you, a dream without you, a path or a song without you? The answer, left unspoken, is nowhere: she has become the very condition of everything.

The middle shows how completely she fills his senses. Every image he sees takes on the look of her face; every song he hears carries the sound of her voice. The whole sensory world has been overwritten by her, so that he cannot look or listen without meeting her.

The close is the most intimate. From dream to dream it is she who wanders through his sleep, and from one blink of the eyes to the next, she alone is there. Written by Prof. Sunil Ariyaratne and sung by Abeywardana Balasuriya, it is a gentle, devoted song about a love so total that the beloved has become inseparable from seeing, hearing and dreaming, from existence itself.