Sulangak Wee Man Yanawa Lyrics by Edward JayakodyNatasha Perera

I’ll become a wind and go off
to wander the far sky.
Daddy, how then will you hold on to me?
The path my girl walks is like the sky,
and I’ll spread soft cotton clouds across it.
That’s how, my little one,
that’s how I’ll keep you safe.
You’re like my own breath, my girl, that’s how I’ll keep you safe.

I’ll turn into a great flood and rush along so fast,
tearing out the big trees, the vines, the rows of hills,
and throwing them down to the ground.
Daddy, how then will you stop me?

I’ll become a vast ocean and keep watch, alone, until you come.
I’ll wait by the road with love,
I’ll gather you to my chest and calm you.
Isn’t it always close to me, my girl, that you find your peace?

I’ll throw a pretend tantrum,
I’ll cry until my eyes turn red.
Even held against your chest
I’ll keep on without being soothed.
Daddy, how then will you settle me?

Louder than my girl, harder than her, that’s when I’ll be the one in tears.
I’ll take away my girl’s tears,
I’ll cry until my girl is soothed.
And when I cry, isn’t it you, my girl, who comforts me?

I’ll become a wind and go off
to wander the far sky.
Daddy, how
will you hold on to me?

The path my girl walks is like the sky,
and I’ll spread soft cotton clouds across it.
That’s how, my little one,
that’s how I’ll keep you safe.
You’re like my own breath, my girl, that’s how I’ll keep you safe.

This one is a back and forth between a little girl and her father, and it is one of the most tender ideas in Sinhala song. The child keeps teasing him with impossible escapes, and each time she ends her line with the same playful challenge, “appachchi kohomada,” which is a daughter’s way of saying “daddy, how on earth will you manage that?” She is daring him to fail, and the whole sweetness of the song is that he never does.

Watch how she keeps raising the stakes. First she says she’ll turn into the wind and float off into the far sky, so how could he ever hold on to her? He answers that he’ll lay a path of soft cotton clouds across the sky for her to walk on, and that he’ll guard her because she is “pana wagei,” like his very breath. Then she threatens to become a raging flood that rips up trees and hills, and he says he’ll become the whole ocean, waiting at the end of the road to gather her in and calm her. Every element she becomes, he becomes the larger thing that holds it. The wind has a sky, the flood has a sea. In Sinhala this is the old image of a parent’s love as something vast enough to contain any storm a child can throw at it.

The most moving turn comes near the end. The girl says she’ll throw a fake tantrum, cry till her eyes go red, and refuse to be soothed even in his arms. The father’s answer breaks the pattern. He says he’ll cry harder than she does, louder than she does, until she forgets her own tears and ends up comforting him instead. That is the quiet truth at the heart of the song. The surest way to settle a sulking child is to let her feel needed, to let her become the one who consoles. Anyone who has held a crying child knows that small trick of love.

What stays with you is the gentleness of the words he uses for her, “dū,” “doṇi,” “duwa,” all soft, old names for a daughter, and the promise underneath the play. She imagines running as far as wind and water can carry her, and he calmly answers that there is nowhere she can go that his love has not already reached first.