Aish Amma Gundu (Unapuruke Balu Walige) Lyrics by Anton Jude

The bull at the plough has no halter, yet it still pulls the load

That’s what hurts

Haaa
The bull at the plough has no halter, yet it still pulls the load

That’s what hurts

Many people are like this, only a few are not
That’s where we live
A child isn’t born just the way it pleases

Aish, mother, a lump

Where did we come here from, and where do we go from here
When exactly are we leaving
Not knowing where we stand, we keep dancing dances

You like some things, you dislike some things

Liking, disliking

Chasing after money, looking after wife and children
Tying up the bundle
When you go there’s nothing, you go with empty hands
When you go there’s nothing, you go with empty hands

The crafty ones sit on top, the fools carry the weight
That’s how the days are spent
On this spinning world we run out of breath
On this spinning world we run out of breath

Mmm, then I remembered

This is one of Anton Jude’s biting social commentary songs, the kind of folk-philosophy number Sri Lankans know him for. It isn’t a love song or a story. It’s a wry, almost weary look at the way ordinary people live and die, dressed up in plain village images and a half-laughing chorus. The whole thing works like a peasant shrugging at the unfairness of life while still getting on with the work.

The opening image is the heart of it. A bull yoked to the plough has no halter, nothing forcing it, and yet it still drags the heavy load all day. In a farming country that picture needs no explaining. We are that bull. Nobody is holding the rope, but we keep pulling anyway, out of habit, duty, and the simple fact that the work has to be done. “That’s what hurts,” the line says, and the ache is in realising we do it to ourselves. Most people live like this, the singer admits, only a handful escape, and even being born isn’t something a child gets to choose. The odd little cry “Aish, mother, a lump” lands like a baby arriving into the world without any say in the matter, tossed in the way a Sinhala speaker throws in a rough, throwaway phrase to break the seriousness.

Then come the big unanswerable questions, asked in the plainest possible words. Where did we come from, where are we going, when exactly do we leave. We don’t know where we even stand, he says, and still we keep “dancing the dances,” going through the motions of life, liking some of it, disliking the rest. The money verse is the sharpest. We chase after cash, raise our wives and children, tie up our little bundle of belongings, and then at the end “you go with empty hands.” That image of leaving with empty hands is the old Buddhist truth every Sri Lankan grows up hearing, that nothing you gather comes with you when you die. The next verse names the injustice that everyone feels but rarely says out loud, that the cunning sit comfortably on top while the foolish and the honest break their backs carrying the weight, and so the days just get used up.

It closes on the spinning world, a planet that keeps turning while we run ourselves out of breath chasing things that don’t last, and then a quiet “Mmm, then I remembered,” as if the singer suddenly recalls all of this mid-thought. What you’re left holding is that gentle, knowing sadness, the feeling of a man who has looked clearly at how life is rigged and how it ends, and decided to sing about it rather than cry. It is funny and tired and true all at once, which is exactly why Anton Jude’s audience loves these songs.