Pata Podak Thilakala (Cover) Lyrics by HR Jothipala

A small dot of color set on her forehead,
dark curls falling loose across her eyes…//
Her pearly smile shimmering, swaying soft and light…
cooling my heart, her dark blue hair…

Feelings of love hidden in her youthful smile,
joyful, playful little dances..//
Love stories wrapped up in flower petals,
never to be stilled, O princess of love.

A small dot of color set on her forehead,
dark curls falling loose across her eyes…//
Ho ho ho….
Ha ha ha……//

The fragrance of love settles softly in the mind,
the scent of love in the city of flowers… //
Smiling at the distant sun, here a peacock dances…
Smiling at the distant sun, here a peacock dances…

Sweet songs of love come drifting gently by.

Ho ho ho….
Ha ha ha……//

Speaking tender, innocent, childlike words,
the scent of love in the flower garden,
a cool smile breaks out, and thoughts of love rise up,
a cool smile breaks out, and thoughts of love rise up.

In her cool, tender eyes it appears to me.

Ho ho ho….
Ha ha ha……//

A young man is dazzled by a girl, and the whole song is him taking her in, feature by feature, the way you do when you cannot stop looking at someone you have fallen for. He starts at her forehead, with the little dot of color set there, then her dark curls slipping loose across her eyes, then the smile that keeps pulling his attention back. He is not telling a story so much as describing a face he has memorized.

The images he reaches for are the ones Sinhala song always uses for a beautiful woman. Her smile is “pearly,” like a row of muthu (pearls), bright and clean. Her hair is dark blue-black, and he says it “cools” his heart, which sounds odd in English but is a familiar idea here: beauty that soothes rather than excites, the way shade or moonlight calms you. Then he scatters flower imagery everywhere. Love stories “wrapped in flower petals,” the “fragrance of love,” a “city of flowers,” a “flower garden.” In Sinhala love poetry the scent of flowers stands in for the sweetness and softness of new love, something you breathe in and feel settle over you. He even brings in a peacock dancing, the classic picture of joy and showing off, the heart so happy it can hardly hold still.

What carries the song is how light and playful it stays. The little nonsense refrains, the ho ho ho and ha ha ha, are pure delight, a man too pleased to put it all into words. He calls her his princess of love and notices her tender, almost childlike way of speaking, the innocence in it. There is no ache here, no separation, just a young man caught up in how lovely she is, finding the fragrance of love in everything around him because he is so full of it himself. That happy, dizzy feeling of early love is the whole of what he leaves you with.