Mal Kakulakata Adare Kiyanna Lyrics by Lakshman Hewawitharana

Little butterflies aren’t forbidden
from telling a flower bud they love it.
If they’re allowed to come close and whisper their poems,
why am I forbidden
to kiss those fair cheeks of yours?

Hiding far away, as far off as the sky,
it sends a shower of dew down to the ground.
If the sky is allowed
to kiss your curls of hair,
why am I forbidden
to kiss that same hair?

Hidden from the trees and the leaves and their stems,
in the dead of night it comes close to you.
If the wind is allowed
to kiss your whole body,
why am I forbidden
to kiss that same body?

A young man is in love, and the whole song is one gentle, playful complaint he keeps making to the girl he adores. He looks at the little things in nature that get to be close to her, the butterfly, the dew, the night wind, and asks the same hurt, half teasing question each time: they are allowed to touch her, so why am I the one who is forbidden? It is the voice of someone whose love is tender and shy, not bold. He is not demanding anything. He is just aching at being kept at a distance while the world around her gets to come close.

He starts small, with a butterfly and a flower bud. In Sinhala love songs the girl is often the half opened flower and the man the butterfly drawn to it, so when he says a little butterfly is never scolded for loving a flower bud, he means the most natural thing in the world is for him to love her. The butterfly gets to settle close and murmur its poems to the bud. If even that tiny creature is given permission, he asks, why is he forbidden to kiss her fair cheeks? The complaint is sweet, not bitter.

Then he widens it, and this is where the imagery really opens up. He points to the sky, sitting impossibly far away, that still manages to send a fall of dew down through the whole night to settle on her hair. The dew kissing her curls is the sky reaching her from a distance he himself cannot cross. Next comes the wind, sneaking past the trees and leaves and stems in the dead of night to come right up beside her and brush against her whole body. Each verse the toucher gets closer and bolder, butterfly, then dew, then the wind that wraps around her, and each time he is left outside, asking why everything in nature may touch her except him.

What you are left holding is the soft frustration of unspoken love. He never says a harsh word. He simply lays his longing beside the butterfly, the dew and the night wind and lets her see how unfair it feels that they may come near and he may not. It is the feeling of loving someone you are not yet allowed to hold, dressed up in the gentlest images Sinhala song has for it.