Yannada Igilli Lyrics by Infaas

I barely even noticed how close I had come to you
Even in my dreams I never saw a face this near
Petal-soft lips, set down gently on the pillow
My heart now feels like it will never come back to me
I’m no longer my own, and these enchanted eyes, aren’t they no longer mine?
I’m no longer my own, and these enchanted eyes, aren’t they no longer mine?

Shall I fly away? I’m going
walking along the wind, in the flow of your hair
You troubled my heart, and now I’m going
carrying the dream you gave me …//

Blue eyes lingered, looking my way
strange garlands of flowers hung there, ones I didn’t know
the blue water lilies turned into a smile
even the dream has a fragrance I sink into
I’m no longer my own, and these enchanted eyes, aren’t they no longer mine?
I’m no longer my own, and these enchanted eyes, aren’t they no longer mine?

Shall I fly away? I’m going …//

This love I’ve come to know, this is the one
But is it real?
Why did it never come to me until now,
this love so lovely?

Shall I fly away? I’m going …//
Shall I fly away….

A young man has fallen in love, and the feeling has caught him so completely that he hardly knows what is happening to him. The song opens in that dazed, half-dreaming state right after love lands. He says he barely noticed how close he had drawn to her, that he never even pictured a face this near to his own, not even in a dream. His heart, he admits, feels like it will never find its way back to him. That is where the whole song lives, in the helpless wonder of someone whose world has quietly tipped over.

The line he keeps returning to, “I’m no longer my own, and these eyes aren’t mine either,” is the heart of it. He calls his own eyes “mayam,” enchanted or under a spell, because they will only look at her now. He no longer feels in charge of himself. The refrain, “shall I fly away, I’m going,” is not about leaving her. It is the giddy, weightless feeling of being so in love that he could lift off the ground. He pictures himself drifting along on the wind, moving in the same flow as her hair, going wherever this feeling carries him, holding tight to the dream she gave him.

The imagery is all soft and cool, the way Sinhala song reaches for tenderness rather than heat. He notices her blue eyes resting on him, and then the “nil manel,” the blue water lily, a flower that in Sinhala writing stands for calm, gentle beauty and a serene gaze. When he says the blue water lilies turned into a smile, he means her eyes themselves softened into a smile aimed at him. Even the dream, he says, carries a fragrance he sinks into, as if the feeling is something he can breathe in and drown in pleasantly. The “petal-soft lips set down on the pillow” hold that same hush, an image of closeness and sleep and the unreal softness of new love.

By the last verse the wonder turns into a quiet question. This, he decides, is the love he had always heard about, the real thing. But then he wavers, almost afraid to trust it: is this actually real? And if love is this lovely, why did it take until now to find him? That is what the song leaves you holding, the ache underneath the joy, the disbelief of a young man who cannot quite believe his luck and is half scared it might not last.