Kiyanna Sulange Lyrics by Annesley MalawanaLilanthi Karunanayake

Tell me, O wind, from what place do you come?
Now and then you arrive softly, then rush away //

Wherever you come from, however you come, why should I ask?
You come from places in the deep forest where no one has ever seen you

The branches and leaves of the trees, did they dance to the rhythm you blow?
On your way here, what did you see as you came?

A herdsman’s son went out in the morning, driving his herd of cattle
He saw how a paddy field swayed, waving at me again and again

They move together from place to place in one flock, they say
In the middle of the jungle, didn’t you see the animals, gentle breeze?

A little chick that had lost its mother bird went searching
A deer gathered it close and gave the little one her milk to drink

The whole world knows the Buddha’s sacred footprint is there
O wind, did you not go around Samanala Peak?

You children, I wonder what it is you are asking
This morning too, I bowed to the Sacred Footprint

Looking over the country, sharing out the cool air to everyone
If only I too could go from place to place like you //

This is a song built as a conversation with the wind. A man calls out to the breeze the way you might to an old traveling friend, asking where it has come from and what it has seen on its way. The wind is forever moving across the whole country, slipping through forests, fields and mountains, so he treats it as a witness to everything quietly good that happens out there. The melody, by Clarence Wijewardena, and the words by Karunarathna Abeysekara give it a light, wandering feel that matches the wind itself, arriving softly and then rushing off again.

What makes the song lovely is the gentleness of everything the wind has seen. The man asks the breeze to tell him, and the pictures it brings back are all small acts of kindness in nature. A herdsman’s boy drives his cattle out at dawn and sees a paddy field swaying, the rippling green stalks waving back at him like a friend. The animals of the jungle move together in one harmonious flock. Most tender of all, a baby bird that has lost its mother goes searching, and a deer takes the little orphan close and feeds it her own milk. In Sinhala feeling this image of one creature mothering another’s lost young is the height of compassion, the kind of quiet mercy the wind quietly carries word of from place to place.

Then the song lifts toward Samanala Peak, the mountain in the central hills known in English as Adam’s Peak, famous across the world for the Sri Pada, the sacred footprint at its summit that Buddhists honor as the Buddha’s own. The man asks the wind whether it too circles that holy mountain, and he mentions that he himself bowed to the Sacred Footprint again that very morning. So the breeze becomes something close to a fellow pilgrim, touching the same sacred ground he reveres.

By the last lines the man’s wish comes clear. The wind wanders over the whole land and shares its coolness with everyone it passes, asking nothing in return, and he longs to be able to do the same, to roam freely and bring a little comfort to all. It is a simple, warm song about kindness, about a country seen through gentle eyes, and about wishing you could give the way the wind gives.