Paradeese Lyrics by Athula Adikari

In my eyes I keep the feelings of love written

Who was it that captured the feelings in my heart?
Paradise… left me…
in loneliness… it went away…

In my eyes I keep the feelings of love written

Her love is a kind of pain
all I asked for, the happiness of the world, where did it appear?
to me, pain… love, an offering… wandering and worn
she left me out of mercy

Your love, all through life
will I find it, dear one, will I find your love, dear one
Love… an offering through saṃsāra (the cycle of rebirth)… carrying these hopes
will she ever come looking for me?

In my eyes I keep the feelings of love written

Who was it that captured the feelings I held in this world?
Paradise… left me…
in loneliness… it went away…
Paradise… left me…
in loneliness… it went away…
in loneliness… it went away…

A young man carries a love he has lost, and he keeps it the only place he still can, in his own eyes. The opening line says he holds the feelings of love written in his eyes, and that image sets the whole mood. The love is gone, but the longing is still there to be read on his face by anyone who looks.

Then comes the question that gnaws at him. Who took these feelings out of his heart? He does not blame her by name. He just keeps asking, again and again, who came in and emptied him out. The word that gives the song its title, paradeese, means paradise, and that is what the love was to him. It was his paradise, and it walked away and left him in paluwe, in loneliness, in the empty quiet that settles in once the person you loved is no longer there.

The middle of the song is where the ache deepens. He calls her love a kind of pain, because loving her hurt as much as it healed. He had asked the world for just one happiness, and it never showed up. In Sinhala devotional and love song the word puda means an offering, the kind you place before something you hold sacred, so when he speaks of love as puda he is treating her almost like worship, laying his feeling down like an offering even though it left him wandering and worn out. He even tells himself she left him out of mercy, the painful thought that letting him go was somehow the kinder thing.

By the end he is still hoping. He wonders whether he will find her love again, somewhere across saṃsāra, the long cycle of birth and rebirth that runs through so much Sri Lankan thinking about love. To carry your hope across saṃsāra is to say this is not a wish for one lifetime but for all of them, that he would wait through every rebirth to be loved by her again. The last lines circle back to the beginning, paradise gone, loneliness left behind, the question never answered. He is left holding a love that was his whole heaven, and the quiet ache of wondering if she will ever come looking for him.