Me Rata Mage Rata Lyrics by Malani Bulathsinhala

(This land is my land,
the land where I was born,
the land that raises me and helps me grow,
my very own motherland…//)

(From its fertile soil,
from raindrops in the sky…//)
gems and pearls,
my Sri Lanka holds them all…

This land is mine….

(About my Sri Lanka,
I tell the whole world….//)
A land like a city of the gods,
there is none like it anywhere on earth…

This land is mine….

(With courage in them,
and no laziness at all…//)
the land where such children live,
this Sri Lanka of mine…

This land is mine….

This is a patriotic song sung in the voice of a child, a simple, proud declaration of love for Sri Lanka. There is no romance or longing here, just the open-hearted pride of a young Sri Lankan saying, again and again, “this land is mine.” The refrain “Me rata mage rata” repeats like a chant, the way children recite something they believe with their whole heart.

The song builds its picture of the country through its gifts. It calls Sri Lanka the land that gave it birth and the land that is raising it, naming the country as a mother (mau rata, the motherland), which is the oldest and warmest way Sri Lankans speak of their home. Then it points to the richness of the place: the fertile soil underfoot, the rain falling from the sky, and the gems and pearls the island is famous for. Sri Lanka has been known for centuries as Ratnadweepa, the island of gems, so calling it a treasure house of gems and pearls is not just poetry, it is the country’s real reputation.

The pride lifts higher in the middle verse. The child wants to tell the whole world about this island and says there is nowhere else like it, a place “like a city of the gods” (sura puraya). That image of a heavenly city is a way of saying the land is so beautiful and blessed it feels closer to paradise than to an ordinary country.

The last verse turns from the land to its people, and really to its children. It praises a country full of children who carry courage in them and have no laziness, the qualities a parent or teacher would most want to see in the young. That is the quiet heart of the song. The beauty and the gems matter, but what makes the homeland truly worth loving is the brave, hardworking children growing up in it. It leaves you with the warm, uncomplicated patriotism of a child who looks at the whole island and simply feels lucky to belong to it.