Wankagiri Gamanak Lyrics by Kalpana Kavindi

Even met by chance, we count the days until we scatter,
it is a diary of love, pricked out with the tip of a pen,
though it feels like ours, we walk on, each of us alone,
it is a journey to Vankagiri, the instant the road turns

Bundles of sighs become a little wind and drift away,
on the memory-mountain’s peak, close by the heart,
I felt you searching for me, but you never came again,
ever since the day you came, it is myself I search for

Near a spring where the flowers won’t bloom in their season,
the turning-away wings came on ahead,
even as the rainbow faded, we smeared on our colour,
I remember her who once lived inside you

A poetic, melancholy song about a love that feels doomed almost from the moment it begins. Even a chance meeting, the singer says, already starts counting the days until we scatter; their love is a diary written with a pen’s sharp tip, and though it feels like theirs, each of them still walks alone. The title image says it all, this is a journey to Vankagiri, the harsh mountain of exile in the Vessantara story, and the road turns to hardship in an instant.

The middle drifts into memory and absence. Sighs gather into a little wind and float off; on the memory-mountain’s peak, near the heart, she sensed him searching for her, but he never actually came back. And the loss reshapes her: ever since the day he came, she says, it is herself she has been searching for, love has left her unsure even of who she is.

The close holds onto fading colour. By a spring where flowers won’t bloom in their season, the turning-away wings arrived ahead of time; and even as the rainbow was fading, the two of them smeared on our colour, insisting on love as it slipped away. She ends remembering the person she once was inside him, before the road turned. Sung by Kalpana Kavindi, composed by Tharindu Damsara to words by Ruhunuketha Dhammadewa Thero, it is a wistful, literary song about a love that felt like an exile’s journey, beautiful, brief, and bound to change.