Diya Podak Wemin Lyrics by HR Jothipala

Like a drop of water to lips parched and dry with thirst,
Like a nuga tree to one overflowing with sorrow,
Like a flower that bloomed on a bough where no flowers grow,
You are more precious to me, today and tomorrow.

Parrots and mynas chattering words without meaning,
Even tomorrow this small, soft babble will rise again.
You stand startled and trembling, are you the timid one?
For us too there is the cool of dawn to be seen.

In thoughts of comfort that offer up your loving words,
Why did you carry away, untold, so much of my ease?
On the day I found your fragrance, my hands turned to empty sand.
My golden flower, why do the stars keep shimmering away from me?

A young man is pouring out everything one person has come to mean to him, and he reaches for the things in life that save you when you are at your lowest to say it. She is like a drop of water on lips cracked with thirst, the relief that arrives just when you cannot bear another moment. She is like a nuga tree, the great spreading banyan that villagers shelter under in the heat, the shade that takes you in when grief has overflowed. And she is like a flower that opened on a branch where flowers were never supposed to grow, something good that came out of nowhere, against the odds. After three images like that, the plain line lands hard: you matter to me more than all of it, today and tomorrow both.

In the middle the tone softens and turns almost teasing. The parrots and mynas chattering away with words that mean nothing are the small idle talk of the world around them, the gossip and noise that will start up again tomorrow just the same. He notices she is shaken, standing startled and trembling, and gently asks if she is really the timid, fearful one here. There is no need to be afraid, he tells her, because the cool of dawn, the calm after a hard night, is there for the two of them to reach as well. In Sinhala song the cool of morning stands for peace after suffering, the light that comes once the dark is over.

Then the ache returns. Her loving, comforting words were the very thing that stole his peace, and the day he finally found her fragrance, the moment she became real to him, his hands closed on empty sand. The fragrance here is her presence, the sense of her, the way a scent fills a room before the person arrives. Holding sand that runs through your fingers is the feeling of having someone close and still not being able to keep them. He calls her his golden flower, the dearest, most treasured thing he has, and then asks the question the whole song has been circling toward: why do the shimmering stars keep slipping further away from me? The stars are everything he longs for and cannot quite hold, beautiful, right there above him, and forever out of reach. What the listener is left with is that mix of devotion and helplessness, loving someone so completely that they become your shade and your water, while feeling them shimmer just beyond your grasp.