Kusum Sara Lyrics

The flower archer casts his glance in a young, teasing rhythm
Young men take their aim at that flower arrow
Every young girl who catches my eye looks lovely
It feels like that flower arrow has hit me too

The wonder of her walk, moving like a swan
I wasn’t staring, my eyes just went to her on their own
Seeing that lovely girl in the flower bowl of spring
A world of celestial maidens appeared to me, real and right there

The flower archer casts his glance in a young, teasing rhythm

Those two darkened eyes may only be throwing little hints
Pride is a weapon these young women carry
Yet that same heart sometimes gives itself up to desire
Deep inside, it stirs the whole lake of youthful feeling

The flower archer casts his glance in a young, teasing rhythm

This is a light, flirtatious song about the age when every girl who walks past looks beautiful and you cannot explain why. A young man is out among people, catching glances, and admitting with a smile that he has been hit. Nothing dramatic happens in it. That is the charm of it, the ordinary thrill of being young and easily struck.

The title image carries most of the weight. Kusum sara, the flower arrow, belongs to Ananga (also called Kama or Manmatha), the god of love in the Indian tradition that Sinhala poetry inherited. He carries a bow of sugarcane and arrows tipped with flowers, and anyone he shoots falls in love. So when the song says the flower archer is casting his glance “in a young, teasing rhythm,” it means love is out hunting that day, in a playful mood, and the young men are all lining up for it. By the end of the first verse the singer confesses he took one of those arrows himself.

The second verse is pure looking. Her walk is compared to a swan, which in Sinhala and Sanskrit verse is the standard picture of graceful, unhurried movement, a woman who glides rather than hurries. Then comes the honest little line that makes the song human, he insists he was not staring, his eyes just went there by themselves. Spring holding her like a flower in a bowl, and the sudden sense that a world of surangana (celestial maidens, the fairy women of Sinhala folklore) had opened up in front of him, tell you how far gone he already is.

The last verse shows he knows the game. Those made-up eyes give little signals, and pride is the weapon young women carry, held back, in no hurry to give anything away. But he has noticed that the same proud heart softens sometimes, and that is enough to stir everything inside him, described here as a lake of youthful feeling being churned. The song leaves you with that feeling rather than with a story, the sweet restlessness of being young and half in love with someone you have only looked at.