Indikatu Wahivi Lyrics by Abhisheka Wimalaweera

Needles will rain down,
and it will hurt so badly//

Bear it, the way the sun does,
and where you cannot bear it,
when you feel like burning up,
then dance, like a shower of rain//

Holding hands, class after class, in the days we simply wandered,
weren’t there dreams as vast as the sea, in that playful butterfly time?
laughter scattered like rain, in the days we had no palaces,
how did so much sorrow come flooding to the chest in a single second?

That is how time is, dreams are fragrant,
fortune falls as the land decides,
that is how time is, dreams are fragrant,
must we weep on the day laughter is due?

On rose-coloured pages, in fragrant letters, we wrote our lives,
those days we laughed for no reason at all, month after month,
how is fortune in far lands now, where has the flock of birds gone?
we who were once in the same class are now not in the same class

That is how time is, dreams are fragrant,
fortune falls as the land decides,
that is how time is, dreams are fragrant,
must we weep on the day laughter is due?

A bittersweet song about growing up, drifting apart and the ache of nostalgia, wrapped in a gentle refrain about endurance. Needles will rain and it will hurt badly, it warns, then offers its philosophy: bear it the way the sun bears the day, and where you cannot bear it, when you feel yourself burning up, then dance, like a shower of rain. Pain is met not with resistance but with a kind of graceful surrender.

The heart of the song is school days remembered. Holding hands, moving class to class, simply wandering, when dreams were as vast as the sea in that playful butterfly time, and laughter scattered like rain even though they had no palaces, no wealth. And then the sharp turn every grown-up knows: how did so much sorrow flood the chest in a single second, how did all that lightness give way so fast?

The refrain offers weary wisdom, that is how time is, dreams are fragrant, fortune falls as the land decides, and asks the aching question, must we weep on the day laughter is due? The final verse makes the loss concrete and modern: friends who once wrote their lives on rose-coloured pages and laughed for no reason are now scattered in far lands, the flock of birds flown, and, in a line that puns on classroom and social class, we who were once in the same class are now not in the same class. Written and sung by Abhisheka Wimalaweera, it is a tender lament for lost friendships, vanished ease, and a shared youth that life and migration have quietly pulled apart.