Kaali

The day the love as dear as life turned traitor, the soul grew hard and cruel,
soft whimpers and playful smiles now burn the little rooms of my heart,
amid a rain of accusing arrows, my chest was cleaved in two,
and once the hatred filled up, it only overflows the more

Trees that bear fruit have worth, there is no doubt, that much is true,
but barren, I am reckoned a margosa tree, bitter as the kaduru fruit,
even for an offering to the Buddha, only the flower-decked branch is chosen,
yet for my lord I gave up my very life and loved him, my lord, truly

This heart, split as if into seven pieces, somehow I will sew whole again,
the scars of all this resentment I will bury at the soles of your feet,
never mind that saṃsāra is long, I will go and meet Yashodhara,
and ask her how she bore the sorrow the day her lord left her all alone

A fierce, grief-stricken song in the voice of a woman betrayed by the love she held dearer than life. When that love turned traitor, she says, her very soul grew hard and cruel; the soft whimpers and playful smiles that once meant tenderness now burn through the little rooms of her heart. Under a rain of accusing arrows her chest was split in two, and the more hatred fills her, the more it overflows. This is heartbreak curdled into something close to rage.

The middle turns to a bitter self-image drawn from village trees. Fruit-bearing trees have worth, she admits, but she feels barren, reckoned a mere margosa, kohomba, bitter as the kaduru fruit, and unwanted. Even for an offering to the Buddha, she notes, only the flower-laden branch is ever chosen, never the plain one. And yet, she insists, for her lord she gave up her own life and loved him truly, and that devotion counted for nothing.

The last verse lifts her private grief into a shared, sacred one. Her heart is split into seven pieces, but somehow, she vows, she will sew it whole, and bury the scars of her resentment at his feet. Then comes the song’s deepest turn: never minding how long saṃsāra is, she will seek out Yashodhara, the wife the Buddha left behind when he renounced the world, and ask her how she bore the sorrow of being left alone. By binding herself to Yashodhara, the archetypal abandoned wife of Sinhala Buddhist memory, she gives her heartbreak dignity and company across lifetimes. Sung by Kanchana Anuradhi, composed by Tharindu Damsara, to words by the Ven. Ruhunuketha Dhammadewa Thero.