Awa Soya Adare Lyrics by HR Jothipala

On a tray of gold coins and silver,
you call to me with a soft, falling voice…
My feet rise up… I am coming to you…
seeking you, seeking you… seeking you, my love…
Whether my eyes are open or closed,
your heart, your face come back to me…
A smile across the sky, the mountain stream rises…
seeking you, seeking you… seeking you, my love…

From among a thousand lovely flowers
your eyes appear to me…
Through the scent of saffron and sandalwood
your fragrance comes to me…
In my heart, my blood,
endless feelings stir…

As if I have lived a thousand ages,
I understand it again and again…
If you are away from me even a moment,
that little while feels as long as an age…
That life is sweet,
I feel only because of you…

A young man is so taken with the woman he loves that her presence colors everything he sees and hears. The song opens with him hearing her call, and the way he describes that voice tells you how he holds her in his mind. He pictures it falling like coins poured onto a tray of gold and silver, that bright, soft, ringing sound. The moment he hears it, his feet lift on their own and he is already moving toward her, and the refrain “awa soya adare,” seeking you, my love, runs through the whole song like a heartbeat.

What carries the song is how completely she has filled him. Eyes open or shut, her face and her heart are right there in front of him. He sees her smile in the sky and feels her even in a mountain stream rising. When he looks at a thousand flowers, it is her eyes he finds looking back. The scent of saffron and sandalwood, the kunkuma and chandana that Sri Lankans link with temples, weddings and everything sacred and pure, does not smell of itself to him anymore; it smells of her. By tying her to those scents he is saying she is something he holds holy, almost like worship.

The last verse is where the feeling deepens past simple longing. He says it feels as though he has loved her across a thousand kalpas, the vast ages of Buddhist time, as if this is not a new love at all but one carried from life to life. And yet a single moment apart from her stretches out and feels as long as one of those ages. That is the ache at the centre of it: a love that feels older than this lifetime, paired with a need for her that cannot bear even a short separation. He closes by admitting the simplest truth of all. If life tastes sweet to him, it is only because of her.