Selena Lelena Lyrics by HR Jothipala

Swaying and bending like a tender shoot,
your hips sway, your hips sway, your hips sway,
those budding, half-opened lotus buds,
rising in a smile, rising in a smile, rising in a smile.

Graceful, like a pot brimming with sweet water
balanced on your hip, on your hip, on your hip,
as you walk away brushing past the flowers,
turning your back on me, your back on me, your back, oh your back…

Today the moon shows on your forehead,
a row of golden peacocks gleams in your tousled hair,
bangles slipping on your wrist, ringing softly as you rise,
and the way you walk makes me feel love for you.

This budding bloom of mine, where were you born?
In what corner of the deep forest did you come crying into the world?
Chewing on a wedge of betel,
your lips reddened deep red,
why, my jewel, do you run from me so quick, so quick?

A young man can’t take his eyes off a girl walking past him, and the whole song is him describing her out loud, half teasing, half completely smitten. She is walking away from him, and that turned back is exactly what sets him off, so he reaches for every lovely image he knows to capture her.

He starts with her body and the way she moves. He likens her swaying walk to a tender young shoot bending in the breeze, soft and supple, and her smile to lotus buds just beginning to open, that fresh, half-shy look right before a flower blooms. Then comes a very Sri Lankan image, a woman carrying a clay pot brimming with water on her hip. Anyone who has seen a village woman walk back from the well knows the careful, swaying grace it takes to keep that pot from spilling, and he uses it to praise both her figure and the poise of her step.

The middle verse piles on the classic marks of beauty. He puts the moon on her forehead, the standing image in Sinhala song for a calm, glowing, perfect face. Her dark hair, loose and tousled, shines like a row of golden peacocks, and the soft ring of her bangles as she lifts her arm is part of the spell. It all adds up to one simple confession, the way she moves is making him fall for her.

By the last verse the admiration turns playful and a little frustrated. He pretends to wonder where on earth this girl came from, asking in what hidden corner of the deep forest she was born, the way you might say someone is too beautiful to be from any ordinary place. He notices her lips stained deep red from chewing betel, the everyday red that village lips carry, and then comes the real complaint underneath all the praise, she keeps slipping away from him, quick and out of reach. He can describe her endlessly, but he can’t make her stay, and that is the sweet ache the song leaves you with.