Pitarata Wisthara Mewwa Lyrics by JayaSri

These stories from abroad,
all of you, listen well.
Think it over twice,
and then decide whether to go.

They mortgage the land and houses they have in the village,
trying to go abroad in search of money.
Fooled by shillings, pounds, dollars and euros,
they risk their lives, packed inside a shipping container.

In boats out in the middle of the sea, wrestling with death,
making the frightening journey through mountains, slopes and jungle.
Is this game you are playing worth your life?
If you die on the way, who will answer for it, tell me, moon.

These stories from abroad…

The comfort of going round and round the junctions of your home town,
you can’t get that comfort here, once you come over, every single time.
Don’t waste the beautiful years of your life in sorrow.
Think it over carefully before you come, I told the truth, quickly.

These people talk it up with false praise,
once you arrive, you’ll find out the deadly suffering you have to bear.
Don’t go to a country meant for endurance and just paying for your past deeds.
Don’t be deceived by this country, by their hollow tune that says “come here.”

These stories from abroad…//
(They think about coming,
they think about going…///)

This is a warning song, one Sri Lankan speaking plainly to others who are dreaming of leaving for work abroad. The voice is steady and direct, the kind of advice an older relative or a friend who has seen the reality gives you before you sell everything and go. The opening line, “these stories from abroad,” is almost weary, as if to say: you have heard all the glossy tales, now sit down and actually listen.

The picture it draws is the real cost behind the dream. Families mortgage the land and the house they own in the village, the only things they have, just to scrape together the money to get out. The song names the bait directly, shillings, pounds, dollars and euros, the foreign currencies that look like easy wealth from a distance. And it names the danger people accept to chase them: hiding inside a shipping container, crossing the open sea in small boats while death waits alongside, climbing through mountains and jungle on smuggling routes. The hard question sits in the middle of it, is this gamble worth your life, and if you die on the way, who will even answer for you. When he turns and asks the moon that question, it is the old Sinhala habit of speaking to the moon as a quiet witness, a way of saying the loss would go unanswered, with no one to blame and no one to mourn properly.

Then the song does something tender. It reminds you of the small comfort you already have and would be giving up, the simple pleasure of riding around the junctions of your own home town, the ordinary ease of being where you belong. That feeling, it says, cannot be bought again once you are far away. Don’t waste the best years of your life in misery chasing it. The Sinhala word for “abroad” carries a bitter double meaning here, the country you are running to is a place of pure endurance, somewhere you go only to suffer through and pay off your fate, not to live.

What the song is really angry at is the people who oversell the dream, who dress it up with false praise to lure others out, and the cheap, hollow tune of “come over here” that keeps the deception going. The closing plea is simple and human: don’t be fooled, think it through, the truth was told to you in time. For anyone in a Sri Lankan village weighing whether to leave, this is the voice begging them to look past the shine and count the real price first.