Me Irida Giya Irida Wage Nowanna

This Sunday, don’t be like last Sunday.
No gifts, no gifts, just come and see me.
Don’t let my thoughts and my hopes come to nothing.
Come with a word of love on your lips.
Come and see me, come and see me…..

The veena of love, its sound rose between us,
nothing has changed, who told you it had?
The veena of love, its sound rose between us,
nothing has changed, who told you it had?
It was my work, this job in the national service,
that is why I didn’t come, my dear.
Open your eyes, look at my face,
and ask me how I am before you go…….

This Sunday, last Sunday……

One look from you and my heart wakes up,
I turn brave, like a warrior king.
One look from you and my heart wakes up,
I turn brave, like a warrior king.
It’s because of you that I’m living now.
When will the two of us build our nest?
Open your eyes, look at my face,
and ask me how I am before you go……..

This Sunday, last Sunday……

Sunday is the one day they get to see each other, and last Sunday she never showed up. That is where the song opens, with a young man asking her to please make this Sunday different. He even tells her what not to bring. No gifts, nothing at all, just walk over and stand in front of him. When someone says “don’t bring me anything, only come”, you know how much the visit itself is worth to him.

The second verse hands the song to her, and she answers the accusation before she answers the question. Somebody has clearly been hinting that her feelings have cooled, so she says the sound of that veena of love is still ringing between them, nothing has changed, and who told him otherwise? The veena is a classical string instrument, and its whole character is that a plucked string keeps humming long after the finger has left it. That is her point about the two of them. Only after that does she give the plain reason for missing Sunday: her job in the national service kept her. Any Sri Lankan listener recognises that straight away as ordinary duty getting in the way of love, a roster you cannot argue with rather than a change of heart.

Then he comes back, and his side is all warmth. One look from her wakes his heart up and makes him feel brave as a warrior king, which is a big, half joking boast for a man who a minute ago was begging for a visit. He says he is living because of her, and then slips in the real question underneath the whole song: when are the two of us going to build our nest? Building a nest, like a pair of birds, is the everyday Sinhala way of saying setting up a home together, so he is talking about marriage without ever using the word.

What holds it together is that small refrain. Open your eyes, look at my face, and at least ask me how I am before you go. He is not asking for a promise or a gift or a grand answer, only to be looked at properly for a moment. The tune is light and easy to sing along to, the way this kind of Sinhala song usually is, and that lightness is exactly what lets the ache underneath sit so comfortably.