Mage Mola Kati Puthune Lyrics by Lankika Perera

Don’t sit cursing the darkness,
Go and find a spark of fire…
With patience, light it…
And bring the light, my son…

My clever son,
I give you this advice…
So that it stays in your heart,
Written there like an etching…

Sweating the sweat of hard work,
Thinking of your country…
Don’t forget your roots, my son,
Carry out the duties you owe.
Your mother and father, like your very life,
You must protect them, my son.
As long as you live in this world,
Stay happy, my son.

This is a mother’s song of advice to her son. There is no romance or longing here, just a parent passing on the things she most wants her child to carry through life. She calls him “mage mola kati puthune,” which is the warm, half teasing way a Sri Lankan mother praises a sharp, clever child, and then she settles in to tell him what matters.

She opens with an old piece of wisdom that Sri Lankans say in many forms: don’t sit there cursing the dark, go and find a spark and light a lamp yourself. The darkness stands for hard times and problems, and the lamp for the solution you make with your own effort. Her point is gentle but firm. Complaining changes nothing; patience and your own work bring the light. She wants this lesson set down in his heart “lekiri wu lesine,” like something carved or written in, so it stays for good and not just for a day.

From there she names the things she hopes will hold him steady. Work hard, even to the point of sweat, but keep your country in your thoughts as you do. Never forget where you came from, your roots, your “mula,” because in Sinhala culture a person who forgets their origins is the saddest kind of success. Do the duties that fall to you. And protect your mother and father as if they were your own life, because to her, looking after aging parents is not a chore but the heart of being a good person.

She closes the way every mother closes, with the only thing she truly asks in return for all of this. Live long, and live happy. After all the advice about effort and duty and roots, the last word is simple love. Stay happy in this world, my son. It is the quiet ache and comfort of any parent letting a child go out into life with nothing to give but what they have learned and a wish for the child to be well.