Adare Mathaka Lyrics by Kaveesha Kaviraj

Keeping the memories, the keepsakes of our love,
the longings of this heart drifted off on the wind
you who go far away into loneliness,
because you will never come back to me
Drowned in your lovely smile…
pain that clung on in the mist…
quenching the sorrow that burns in anguish…
let us be forever close in happiness…

Conjuring a thousand accusing eyes,
long ago you doubted me for no reason
and though you left, placing a full stop on the memory,
my love is still yours, forever
Drowned in your lovely smile…

On the flower-lined path where we met at dusk,
I walked alone, all by myself
though you are far away now, in his world,
never once do I hold it against you, my love
Drowned in your lovely smile…

This is heartbreak carried with unusual grace. The singer holds on to “the memories, the keepsakes of our love,” even as the longings of his heart “drift off on the wind” and he watches her go “far away into loneliness,” knowing “you will never come back to me.” Yet the tone is not bitter; twice he circles back to being “drowned in your lovely smile,” as if the memory of her happiness is sweeter to him than his own pain.

The middle verse reveals there was hurt between them. Once, “for no reason,” she doubted him, “conjuring a thousand accusing eyes,” and in the end she “left, placing a full stop on the memory,” closing the story like a sentence finished. And here comes the line that defines his character: despite all that, “my love is still yours, forever.” He does not withdraw it or wish it away.

The final image is quietly devastating and quietly beautiful. He walks alone at dusk on “the flower-lined path where we met,” retracing the place their love began, now by himself. And he acknowledges the hardest truth of all, that she is “far away now, in his world,” with someone else, and still he says, “never once do I hold it against you, my love.” What the listener is left with is the rare dignity of a love that has been doubted, ended and lost to another, and yet holds no resentment, only a tender, enduring wish for the happiness of the one who left.