Nelum Male Pethi Kadala Lyrics by Mariazelle GoonetillekeMS Fernando

Let’s pluck the petals of a lotus and build a little boat,
and make a sail out of a cloud.
With a stem of the baloliya flower for a paddle,
we’ll raise a ripple on the river of love.
Let’s cross over the rainbow, rocking gently as we go,
in search of the world of fairies.
Let’s cross over the rainbow, rocking gently as we go,
in search of the world of fairies.

In the world of fairies I’ll become a breeze
and lull you with a soft fanning of air.
I’ll turn into a flower bud over a pond,
and send you my fragrance wrapped in the wind.
Then, searching for that flower, I’ll come flying with a hum,
all dressed up like a butterfly.
And when the lovely butterfly comes flying to the flower,
I’ll welcome it, spreading my petals wide.

Plucking the petals of a lotus, building a little boat…

Down where the stream tumbles over the rocks, turning over gems,
I’ll become a stream of blue water.
And I’ll be there in that water too, shining with a golden colour,
swimming along as a fish.
And then I think I’d really like to catch you,
so I’ll appear like a net of silver.
Your net feels good, and caught up in that net,
I sing a love song and dance.

Plucking the petals of a lotus, building a little boat…

This is a playful, dreamy love duet between a young man and a young woman who keep imagining themselves turning into things in nature so they can be near each other. There is no heartbreak here, no sleepless night. It is two people in love spinning a happy daydream together, the kind couples invent when they are giddy and just want an excuse to chase one another.

It opens with one of the prettiest images in Sinhala song. They will pluck the petals of a lotus to make a tiny boat, use a cloud for a sail and a flower stem for a paddle, and row off across a rainbow to find the suranganaa loke, the world of fairies. This is the land of make-believe in Sri Lankan storytelling, where magical fairy women live, so saying “let’s go there” is really saying “let’s run away into a fairy tale together.”

From there the song turns into a game of shape-shifting, and that is its real charm. He says he will become a breeze to fan her cool; she will become a flower bud by a pond and float her scent to him on the wind; he will come as a butterfly drawn to that flower, and she will open her petals to welcome him. In the last verse the chase continues in the water. She becomes a clear blue stream tumbling over gems and stones, he becomes a little gold fish swimming in it, then he wants to catch her so he turns into a silver net, and she happily lets herself be caught, singing and dancing inside it. The butterfly drawn to the flower, the fish caught in the net, these are gentle, teasing images of two lovers who keep finding new ways to come together.

What the song is really saying is simple and sweet. When you love someone, you want to belong to the same world they do, even if you have to dream up a fairy world to do it. Each new shape one of them takes, the other quickly becomes whatever fits beside it, the breeze for the flower, the fish for the stream, the butterfly for the bloom. It leaves you with the warm, light feeling of being so taken with someone that you would gladly turn into anything at all just to stay by their side.