Vee Kurullekuta

Forbidding a paddy-bird from singing its song,
and sending it off to learn its letters at a school in the far-off city,
without you there is no joy in our village,
when will you ever come back so we can see you?

Forbidding a paddy-bird from singing its song,
and sending it off to learn its letters at a school in the far-off city,
without you there is no joy in our village,
when will you ever come back so we can see you?

On Poya days, when the crowds went off to the temple,
remember how you plucked flowers, leaping over the stiles?
today Poya came, and secretly, at the village temple,
the baby birds told their sorrow, knowing you are gone

At the crossings where the titta-birds go grazing,
remember paddling the oru and paaru boats, leaping into the clear water?
today the tank is full, and secretly plucking lotuses for you,
the baby birds told their sorrow, knowing you are gone

Forbidding a paddy-bird from singing its song,
and sending it off to learn its letters at a school in the far-off city,
without you there is no joy in our village,
when will you ever come back so we can see you?

A tender, aching village song about a child sent away to the city to study, and everything left behind that misses them. The title image is the whole song in miniature: it is like forbidding a paddy-bird from singing and packing it off to learn its letters at a school in the far-off city. Education pulls the child out of the fields where they belonged, and the village is left asking, when will you come back so we can see you?

The memories are all of small village freedoms now gone quiet. On Poya days the child used to run to the temple with the crowd, leaping over stiles and plucking flowers; but this Poya, at the village temple, the baby birds told their sorrow, missing the one who used to be there. Nature itself is written as grieving the child’s absence.

The last verse recalls the tank and the boats, paddling the oru and paaru, jumping into clear water; now the tank is full again, and the birds secretly gather lotuses for the absent child, still telling their sorrow. Sung by Harshana Disanayake to words by Udayashantha Kumarasinghe, it is a gentle, poignant song about how a rural childhood is quietly lost when a child is sent away to the city, and how the whole village, its birds and temples and waters, goes on missing them.