Mala Giraviye Lyrics by Karunarathna Diwulgane

My dear parrot… my dear parrot… //
I long to fly off with you to our village
I want to show you the trees and leaves and flowers I know
My dear parrot… my dear parrot…

Even snakes from far away will gather and settle at our doorstep
Your little flower, my gold, will brush against my hand and watch over me
Who is it you ask, when you hang up that silk garment to dry?

Resting your head on my shoulder, you’ll slowly drift off to sleep
Our being poor, that much of it, tastes so bitter
So let us bear it a little longer still, my princess

A young man is speaking to the woman he loves, and all through the song he calls her his “mala giraviye,” his dear little parrot. In Sinhala this is one of the softest names you can give someone, the way you might call a sweetheart “my bird” or “my dove.” She is not literally a parrot, she is his girl, and the whole song is him daydreaming out loud about the simple life he wants to build with her.

What he wants is small and tender. He wishes the two of them could fly off together to his village, and once there he would show her every tree, every leaf, every flower he grew up with. That is the heart of the song, a man wanting to take the person he loves home and share the plain, familiar world that made him. When he imagines her resting her head on his shoulder and slowly falling asleep, you feel how gentle his hopes are. He is not asking for riches, only for her, close and at peace beside him.

The poverty comes in quietly near the end. “Our being poor, that much of it, tastes so bitter,” he says, and that one line carries the ache of the whole song. They do not have money, and he feels that lack sharply, but his answer is not bitterness, it is patience. “Let us bear it a little longer still, my princess.” He calls her a princess in the same breath that he admits they are poor, and that contrast is the point. To him she is royalty no matter how little they own, and he is asking her to hold on with him until things get better.

There is a folk warmth to the imagery too, the snakes gathering at the doorstep, the little flower brushing his hand, the silk cloth hung out to dry. These are everyday village pictures, the texture of ordinary rural life, and he offers them to her as something beautiful rather than something to be ashamed of. What the listener is left holding is the quiet strength of a love that has nothing yet promises everything, a man telling his girl, in the plainest words, that he will carry their hard days with her if she will only stay.