Gindara Pitawennata

The tarred road is so hot it could throw off fire
Both my soles are burning
The sun beats down so hard I can’t keep my eyes open
Sweat runs off me in streams
The fish I brought from Colombo has me worried
My throat aches from shouting for buyers
The load hasn’t gotten any lighter, so all day it grinds into my back
Creaking and squealing as I go…..

The money I borrowed to buy the fish has to go back with interest
Every bit of it, by this evening
The grocery shop owner hasn’t an ounce of pity either
I come home with his scolding still ringing in my ears
The medicine they told me to bring for my little one in the hospital
How am I supposed to buy that
And I can’t stay away from the bana house (a sermon being held) in the next garden
How can I turn up there with nothing…..

The tarred road is so hot it could throw off fire
Both my soles are burning
The sun beats down so hard I can’t keep my eyes open
Sweat runs off me in streams……

The people who used to watch the road until I came
Why aren’t they buying fish now
The ones who loaded up their bicycles and got here before me
It’s from them they’re buying now
Even the odd one who calls me over and means to buy
Is asking for it on credit today
In a little while, for the worthless bits of fish left on my hands
There’ll only be a few takers with an answer…..

The tarred road is so hot it could throw off fire…..

A man is pushing his bicycle down a tarred road at midday with a load of fish on the carrier, and the song is simply his afternoon, told out loud. He bought the fish in Colombo that morning on borrowed money, he has been shouting himself hoarse trying to sell it, and the heat is turning every hour that passes into a loss. That is the whole story, and the reason it hurts is that nothing in it is exaggerated.

The first verse stays entirely in the body. Burning soles, eyes he can’t hold open, sweat running down him, a throat raw from hawking, and the bicycle creaking under a load that refuses to get lighter. That creaking is the cruellest detail in the song. For a vendor, a heavy load late in the day is not strength, it means the fish is not moving, and fish that does not move in that sun is money rotting on the carrier.

Then the second verse opens the books, and you see what is waiting for him at home. The loan for the fish has to go back with interest by evening. The boutique keeper who gives him rice and dhal on credit has already scolded him. His small child is in hospital and there is medicine to buy. And there is a bana house next door, a Buddhist sermon at a neighbour’s place, where the whole lane will be present and where you cannot walk in empty handed. Any Sri Lankan listener knows that last one is not vanity, it is the shame of being seen to have nothing in front of people you live among.

The final verse is where the ground gives way. The customers who once stood at the road waiting for him have gone to vendors who pedalled faster and reached the lane first. The few who still call him over want the fish on credit. He knows exactly how this ends, and he says it without self pity: in a little while the leftover fish will be spoiled, and the only people with an “answer” for it will be the ones who take it off him for almost nothing.

Danapala Udawaththa built much of his catalogue out of lives like this, and here he never once asks you to feel sorry for the man. The song just walks beside him on the hot road, lets him list what he owes and to whom, and stops. What stays with you is the refrain coming back at the end with the road still burning, because tomorrow he will be on it again with another borrowed basket of fish.