Thaththe Lyrics (තාත්තේ) by Abhisheka Wimalaweera

Father..!

At the dragon-arch, laying down my offerings, I go down to the cold stream,
below the cliff I can hear sister-lihini bird’s lament..
Father, I am climbing the tall Samanala mountain all alone..!
at the mountain’s foot, the Samanola slopes and the range of hills come into view

When weariness comes over me.. by the wayside rest-hut,
I lie down against the railing..
“oh, where have you come walking from,
are you tired, son?” you would ask,
lovingly lifting me up onto your shoulder,
you would climb the steps, slowly..
walking on to the service of the sunrise,
and once again the dream breaks..!!

I cannot lean my weight on the hand-rail, I see so many broken links..
ever since the day I let go of your steadying hand, father, I feel afraid!
holding back a thin, choked sob,
I climb up to the mountain’s peak,
and laying my forehead on the sacred footprint…
I worship your two feet

A deeply moving song about a grown child climbing Sri Pada, Adam’s Peak, the sacred mountain also called Samanala, and remembering a father who is no longer there. The pilgrimage is real, the dragon-arch on the summit path, the cold mountain stream, a bird’s cry below the cliff, but the whole climb is shadowed by one fact stated plainly and painfully: father, I am climbing the tall Samanala mountain all alone.

The middle slips between memory and grief. Resting weary by an ambalama, a wayside shelter, the child remembers how the father would ask, tired, son? where have you walked from?, and lift the little one onto his shoulder to carry them up the steps toward the dawn worship at the peak. And then, heartbreakingly, again the dream breaks: it was only a memory, the father is gone, and the child wakes alone on the mountainside.

The last verse turns memory into fear and then into worship. The child cannot trust their weight to the hand-rail, sees so many broken links in the chain, and confesses that ever since letting go of the father’s steadying hand they have been afraid. Swallowing a choked sob, the child climbs to the summit and lays their forehead on the Sri Pada, the sacred footprint, and in that act says the truest thing of all: I worship your two feet. Bowing to the holy footprint becomes bowing to the father himself. Sung by Abhisheka Wimalaweera to words by Suharshini Dharmarathne, it is a tender, tear-bringing song in which a pilgrimage up a sacred mountain becomes a child’s grief and reverence for a lost father.