Tharumini Ochcham Lyrics by ChinthyRaini Gunathilaka

Tharumini, you drift to me now,
my heart wraps itself around you in love,
this feeling rises in me.
My thoughts are painted with you,
in little signs and gestures, gently, quietly,
a melody comes together.

Without you, just empty robes and cloth.

Pearl, gold, gem,
a longing as dear to me as my own life.
Come away with me,
you came in love through a night dream,
and it led nowhere.

A world without you,
a longing as dear to me as my own life.
Come away with me,
in love, through a night dream, it slipped away.

Hold me close, today,
won’t you fall asleep, my love,
my fingers worn away,
my eyes turned only toward you.
Spring came and wrapped around me,
stay right here beside me,
say there’s no limit,
come into my world with me.

Without you, just empty robes and cloth.

Pearl, gold, gem,
a longing as dear to me as my own life.
Come away with me,
you came in love through a night dream,
and it led nowhere.

A world without you,
a longing as dear to me as my own life.
Come away with me,
in love, through a night dream, it slipped away.

In our young days, along with that first love,
in our young days, with my love for her right there,
I sold my whole life for love,
and now look at me, the big shot.
On the tarred road I scribbled my little notes,
hung around every street corner, I did,
printed one love story in the paper,
set every corner of the village ablaze with it.
Note after note after note, I scribbled and passed,
hunting, hunting for the dream I knew,
watching for a moment to get close.

She gave her answer,
a fragrance rising from the heart, blooming.

Tharumini….

This is a love song that goes back and forth between a young man and the girl he has fallen for, Tharumini. He sings her name like a spell, and from the first line you can feel how completely she has taken over his thoughts. His heart, he says, has wrapped itself around her, and every idea in his head is “painted” with her face. Even the little signs they trade, a glance, a small gesture, come together in him like a melody. This is new love at its most consuming, the kind where one person fills your whole mind.

The longing runs all the way through the chorus, where he reaches for the highest things he can name to say what she is worth to him. He calls her pearl, gold, gem, the three treasures a Sri Lankan would list to mean something priceless, and then says she is as dear to him as his own life. There is an ache underneath it too. He keeps returning to a “night dream,” love that came to him in sleep and then slipped away by morning, leaving nothing behind. “A world without you” is empty to him, and he pictures it with a quiet, almost startling image: without her, everything is just bare robes and cloth with no body inside, the way clothes hang lifeless when the person who gave them shape is gone.

The softest part is when he asks her simply to hold him close and to fall asleep beside him, telling her his fingers are worn and his eyes look only her way. Then “spring came and wrapped around me,” spring being the standing image in Sinhala song for love arriving and the heart coming back to life, the cold season ending. He begs her to stay right beside him, to say there is no limit to it, to step into his world.

The last section drops the dreamy tone and turns into a grinning, half-rueful look back at how they actually fell in love as kids in the village. He remembers scribbling little notes on the tarred road, loitering at every street corner waiting for her, even getting their love story “printed in the paper” so the whole village caught fire with the gossip. “Now look at me, the big shot,” he laughs, because he sold his whole life for this love. After all the chasing and watching for a chance to get near her, she finally gives her answer, and he feels it as a fragrance rising and blooming from inside his chest, the moment longing turns into something real. What you are left with is the full sweep of a young love, the sleepless ache of it and the silly, fearless village courtship behind it, all carried on her name.