Loke Jeewath Wannata Lyrics by Clarence WijewardenaLatha Walpola

Film: Janaka saha Manju (1978)

(To live in this world, you need beauty
For the world to be beautiful, it takes two…//)
Manju… Manju…

Born in a palace made of the spring breeze
A girl who feels boundless kindness and love
Little bird, what are you building in your nest?
Weaving a cradle to sleep curled up close

To live in this world….

In the wind of youth, the flowering branches swayed and bathed
At the butterfly age, every thought began to tremble
My tender heart was drawn toward you
From both banks of the heart, love came flowing

To live in this world…

This is a love duet from the 1978 film “Janaka saha Manju,” a young man and a young woman answering each other as they fall for one another. He opens with a gentle truth that sets the whole song: to really live, you need beauty in your life, and the world only turns beautiful when there are two of you to share it. Then he calls her name, Manju, like he can’t help himself.

The way he describes her is pure tenderness. He imagines her as someone “born in a palace made of the spring breeze,” which is the Sinhala way of saying she is light, fresh, and lovely, the kind of beauty that arrives with the new season after the dry months. He calls her a “little bird” (kirilli) busy at her nest, weaving a cradle to curl up and sleep in. In Sinhala song the little bird building its nest is the image of a girl quietly dreaming of a home and a life with someone, so he is gently asking what future she is shaping in her heart.

The last verse is where the feeling spills over. He reaches for “the wind of youth” and “the butterfly age” (samanala wayasa), the phrase Sri Lankans use for that bright, restless early-twenties time when the heart is light and easily moved, like a butterfly going flower to flower. In that season his every thought starts to tremble, his soft heart is pulled toward her, and love flows “from both banks of the heart,” the way a river fills from both sides at once. It is not a dramatic song. It is the simple, warm feeling of two young people deciding that the world is worth living in because they have found each other.