Rangamadala Thama Tharunai Lyrics by Abhisheka Wimalaweera

I loved you beyond measure, didn’t you ever feel it?
When will the frost-struck water-lilies ever bloom again?
Did he kiss you in a way you felt more than mine?
Or do you say you feel it only because you cannot bear to hurt me?

Just because you said you loved, does that make it love?
Did the flower that bloomed in starlight die in the plain light of day?
Was it your heart that he kissed? Is love a blaze of fire?
Do you even know which heart it is that hurts the most?

Am I still there in that heart of yours, the way you are in mine?
Like last night, will you murmur his name again tomorrow too?
That playful night, drenched in the water of tender na-leaves, was it mine?
My beautiful actress, was your love only a piece of acting?

Wasn’t it enough that I wrote my very name into yours?
Can you swear an oath about the dreams you see at night?
I will keep it unsaid, is love really as cheap as this?
The stage is still young, may I take my leave?

My beautiful actress, was your love only a piece of acting?
The stage is still young, may I take my leave?

A raw, jealous heartbreak sung to a beloved the singer calls his beautiful actress. He begins wounded and disbelieving: I loved you beyond measure, he says, did you never feel it? He asks when the frost-struck water-lilies will ever bloom again, an image for a love gone cold, and whether another man’s kiss meant more to her than his, or whether she only pretends to feel, unable to bear hurting him.

The middle sharpens into painful questions about what love even is. Just because she said she loved him, does that make it love? Did the flower that bloomed in starlight die in the plain light of day? He draws a bitter line between body and heart, another man may have touched her, but is real love a fire of the heart, and does she even know whose heart, in all of this, is hurting the most? His.

The last verses turn the actress metaphor into the whole point of the song. He asks whether he still lives in her heart as she does in his, whether she murmurs the other man’s name tomorrow as she did last night, and whether that tender night was ever truly his, or just, as he finally asks, a piece of acting. The refrain, ragamadala thaama tharunai, the stage is still young, lets him bow out with dignity: the play is not over, but he asks leave to walk off it. It is a song about suspecting that a love you gave everything to was only ever a performance, sung by Abhisheka Wimalaweera to his own words, set to music by Malith Perera.