Level Ekata Pass Wenna Lyrics by Gypsies

To pass the exam,
To collect all the prizes,
I paid 500 rupees for a charm.
The results of that came, and my heart sank with grief,
in the end I failed every single one of the five subjects.

You’re useless, you’re useless, that’s a good lesson for you.
You’re useless, you’re useless, that’s a good lesson for you.

I went back to the charm-maker to ask what had gone wrong.
At the answer the man gave me, I saw stars.
I’d been caught for a fool, the charm did nothing at all,
the 500 I’d borrowed was money down the drain.

Now I’m swimming in the river,
swallowing water and drowning.
Just as my breath starts to give out,
I make it to the bank.
The waves are at my throat,
I’m saying I’ve had enough of life,
and the moment the train pulls close, we get up and go.

Climbing hills, coming down hills,
suffering for months on end,
I trained myself for the big cycle race.
I let out my full speed and took the bend,
slipped on a mango peel and flew off into the air.

You’re useless, you’re useless, that’s a good lesson for you.
You’re useless, you’re useless, that’s a good lesson for you.

The ones who were behind me
shoot past me at speed.
I scramble back to my feet and start pedalling again.
Gasping for breath I pedal on,
and at the very end, worn out, to the winning post
I came up to the line in the middle of the jeering.

Now I’m swimming in the river,
swallowing water and drowning.
Just as my breath starts to give out,
I make it to the bank.
The waves are at my throat,
I’m saying I’ve had enough of life,
and the moment the train pulls close, we get up and go.

I went around chasing the film director,
running errands here and there.
I finally got into the movies by paying out of my own pocket.
Bowing to the producer, making offerings, helping the cameraman,
the only acting I got was a single scene, man.

You’re useless, you’re useless, that’s a good lesson for you.
You’re useless, you’re useless, that’s a good lesson for you.

To watch the gala premiere I gathered my friends around me
and went to the hall like a lion king.
Even that one scene I was in,
under little brother the editor’s scissors,
got chopped off clean like a cut throat, there’s nothing left now.

Now I’m swimming in the river,
swallowing water and drowning.
Just as my breath starts to give out,
I make it to the bank.
The waves are at my throat,
I’m saying I’ve had enough of life,
and the moment the train pulls close, we get up and go.

This is a comedy song, and a much loved one from Gypsies. It is the tale of a hopeless hard-luck fellow who keeps trying his best at one thing after another and fails spectacularly at every single one. The whole thing is told with a wink, so the right way to read it is not as a sad story but as someone laughing at his own string of disasters, the way friends in Sri Lanka rib each other.

The structure is a list of flops. First he is a student so desperate to pass his exams that he pays 500 rupees for a charm or magic spell (a yanthara), the kind of folk talisman village people sometimes buy when they have run out of real options. The charm fails, he flunks all five subjects, and when he goes back to complain, whatever the charm-maker tells him makes him “see stars,” our way of saying he was shocked or hit hard by the answer. Then he trains for months for a big bicycle race and, at full speed, slips on a mango peel and goes flying, the cycling version of the classic banana-skin pratfall. Last, he scrapes and grovels his way into a film, pays out of his own pocket, even bows to the producer and carries the cameraman’s bags, only to land a single scene, and that one scene gets snipped out by the editor before the premiere. He has invited all his friends to watch him shine, and there is nothing left of him on screen.

Running through all of this is the taunt “Umba naadan, umbata owa hoda paadan,” roughly “You’re a useless one, and that serves you right as a good lesson.” It is the voice of everyone around him, and maybe his own voice too, mocking him after each fall. Then there is the strange, dreamlike chorus, “I’m swimming in the river, swallowing water, drowning, the waves are at my throat, I’ve had enough of life.” This is the song’s dark joke. He is so beaten down that he keeps trying to drown himself, but he can’t even do that properly, he always floats back up to the bank, and just as a train is coming to finish the job, he gets up and walks away. Even quitting life is one more thing he fails at.

What lands here is the gentle, knowing humour of it. This is a song for anyone who has worked hard and still come up empty, who has been the butt of the joke, who has had every plan slip out from under them like that mango peel. It does not pity him and it does not preach. It just lets you laugh, a little ruefully, because most of us have had a season in life exactly like his.