Mewalam Mokatada Metharam

Why have you put on so many ornaments, my butterfly?
The pair of high heels goes flying off in the rush of the crowd
The colour of flower petals must be smeared on those soft lips
Is that what you went to Colombo and learned, my girl?

The walls and bonds and rules of a love that has cracked apart
Hiding inside a rose, the bees carry the pollen away
Though the trembling windows of my eyes let me weep
Why are these drops of tears so cruel to me alone?

Why have you put on so many ornaments…

Sobbing through the three watches of the night, the flower of my heart in half sleep
Without knowing it, I waved my hand at the moon and the field of stars
You kept safe the learning you were sent to get, my love
But it was by your own hand that our pure bed of love came down

Why have you put on so many ornaments…

He barely recognises the girl who came back. She went to Colombo to study, and the one standing in front of him now wears heels, jewellery and lipstick he has never seen on her. The whole song is one question asked in a hurt, half teasing voice: is this what you went there and learned? He still calls her his butterfly and his girl, so the tenderness is intact, and so is the sting.

The first verse stays with small, ordinary details, which is what makes it sharp. A pair of high heels flying off in the crush of a crowd. The colour of flower petals smeared on lips he remembers bare. He will not say the word lipstick. Calling it flower petals keeps her beautiful while still marking that something has been painted over the face he knew.

The second verse turns bitter. He calls the love a cracked wall, all the boundaries they built around it split open, and then gives the reason in one image: bees that hide inside a rose and carry off the pollen. In Sinhala verse the bee moving from flower to flower is the standing picture of a man taking what he wants and leaving, so without naming anybody he tells you what he believes happened to her in the city. Then he turns on his own tears and asks why they fall this cruelly on him and nobody else.

By the last verse it is the middle of the night. He is sobbing through the three watches, his mind half asleep, and he catches himself waving at the moon and the stars without meaning to. That wave is a goodbye he never decided to make. The final two lines carry the weight of the song: she protected the education she was sent for, and the pure bed of their love came down by her own hand. He does not blame the city, or her teachers, or the other man. He lays it on her, quietly, and that is what makes it ache.