Adaraye Unusuma Laga (Nonstop) Lyrics by Janaka Krishantha (Jana)

Beside the warmth of love, sorrow does not reach you
A day without trouble and hardship is nowhere in sight
Comfort does not stay with you every day of life
Smile away, keep smiling, but time cannot be passed like that

Beside the warmth of love, sorrow does not reach you
A day without trouble and hardship is nowhere in sight
Comfort does not stay with you every day of life
Smile away, keep smiling, but time cannot be passed like that

A smile rests on the edge of her lips
Flowers of hope come into bloom
The world turns upside down and the flowers of hope are crushed
In a world where there is neither lasting comfort nor lasting sorrow
A smile rises, a tear rises, that is life

Searching out twigs and stems
Bringing leaves of paradal
Setting them on a branch, building a little bird’s nest
Building a little bird’s nest

Searching out twigs and stems
Bringing leaves of paradal
Setting them on a branch, building a little bird’s nest
Building a little bird’s nest

Spring has drawn near
Intoxicated by the koel’s song
A cool breeze drifts past on the air
The swaying tips of the bamboo rustle
She walks that path with a smile
Her two blue eyes have stirred my heart

The walk of her body is graceful
You are a jewel to the whole village
Heavenly maiden of the celestial world
You who have won my heart, my beloved
You are the daughter of fortune, my darling

She came, combing her dark hair
She came, and her gait stirred the heart
She lit up the whole village with the sweetness of the countryside
Like the rays of the full moon and the dark hills
She became a goddess of the heavens
The flowers dance, the wind sways and sways

A heavenly maiden, a celestial maiden
So full of love
She settles in the heart like the village lake

I am still a child, I cannot bear this
What I have seen and surrendered, I cannot ask back
Everything you ever said was a lie, you cannot keep deceiving me
Why give me sorrow like this, I cannot endure it
Ranga Nadeeka
The day you left and went away
Don’t go away from me again, Nadeeka

I am still a child, I cannot bear this
What I have seen and surrendered, I cannot ask back
Everything you ever said was a lie, you cannot keep deceiving me
Why give me sorrow like this, I cannot endure it
Ranga Nadeeka
The day you left and went away
Don’t go away from me again, Nadeeka

Ranga Nadeeka
The day you left and went away
Don’t go away from me again, Nadeeka

Ranga Nadeeka
The day you left and went away
Don’t go again, Nadeeka, mmmm

A young man is head over heels for a girl named Nadeeka, and this medley moves through the whole shape of that love, from the first rush of seeing her to the ache of being left behind. It opens almost like a piece of quiet wisdom passed between two people: even when you stay close to the warmth of love, sorrow still finds you, and no life ever runs as a string of trouble-free days. The line that ties it together is simple and true, a smile rises and a tear rises, and that back and forth is just what living is. He is telling himself, and her, that joy and pain come together, so you cannot wave hardship away by smiling at it.

Then he falls into the picture of her. The little bird gathering twigs and stems and paradal leaves to build a nest is the song’s gentlest image, in Sinhala love poetry the small bird patiently making its home stands for the longing to build a life together, a home of one’s own with the person you love. From there the season itself seems to fall for her too. Spring arrives, the koel (the koha, whose call Sri Lankans hear as the sound of new beginnings) sings until he is almost drunk on it, the breeze drifts and the bamboo rustles, and through all of it she walks down the lane smiling, her dark blue eyes turning his heart over. He piles the highest words he has on her: she is a jewel to the whole village, a suranganaawi, a celestial maiden from the world of the gods, the daughter of fortune. When a Sri Lankan lover calls a girl a suranganaawi, he is saying she is too beautiful and too pure to belong to this ordinary world, more like a being out of the old stories than a girl from the same village. Even the full moon and the dark hills, the flowers, the wind, all of it bends around her as if nature is bowing.

The turn comes hard at the end, and the song drops all that shimmer for plain hurt. He calls himself still a child, someone who does not know how to bear this kind of pain. He gave his whole heart, what he saw and handed over he cannot take back now, and it lands on him that everything she told him was a lie. The reproach and the begging come in the same breath, why hurt me like this when I cannot stand it, and then her name, Ranga Nadeeka, said over and over the way you say a name when you cannot let go of the person. His last words are not anger but a plea: the day you left broke me, please do not leave me again.

That is what gives the medley its weight. It runs the full arc of young love in one stretch, the worship and the wonder when she felt like a goddess walking the village lane, and then the small, broken voice at the end, still saying her name, still asking her to stay.