Rasa Ahara Kawala Lyrics by MS Fernando

Feeding it tasty food, keeping it in a golden cage,
the pet parrot we raised
why do you people tell me to set it free?
Did you think it would just leave me and fly away?

When I asked the parrot, “Have you eaten your rice?”
it says, “Yes, I have eaten.”
“Shall I take you to the forest, parrot, and set you free?”
“Oh no, no, please don’t,” it says.
Even though we raised it shut in a golden cage,
feeding it tasty food until its belly was full,
“They say parrots fly off and escape if they get the chance,
so will you leave me too, the same way?”
“The flowers in the garden won’t bloom, the home has no glow,
without you, none of these things are here.
Other parrots are no good, this parrot isn’t like them,
even if you let it go, it won’t leave you behind.”

“Fly off into the sky with your own flock,
go to the paddy field and gather and eat,
spend the nights in a tree out in the forest,
don’t you want to live that way?
Wander among the lovely flower gardens,
tear through the clouds and soar,
pluck the fruit, bring it back and eat,
don’t you want to live that way?
Live that way, let me see if you’d like to,
I’ll leave this cage door open for you.
You can’t leave me and go, can you, tell me,
I want so much to know that for sure.”

On the surface this is a song about a pet parrot in a golden cage, but it is really a tender little conversation about love and freedom. The voice is someone who keeps a parrot they have raised with great care, fed the best food, kept safe behind golden bars. When people around them say “let the bird go free,” they push back, hurt by the very idea: did you really think it would just leave me and fly away? In Sinhala song the caged parrot (girawa) is an old image for a cherished beloved, someone you hold close out of love, and the whole song lives in the tension between holding on and letting go.

The middle is a sweet back-and-forth between the keeper and the bird, almost like a couple teasing each other. The keeper asks, did you eat, shall I take you to the forest and set you free, and the parrot answers, no, no, please don’t. Then the doubt creeps in. People say parrots always escape when they get the chance, so the keeper worries: will you do the same to me? And the answer is the warmest part of the song. Without you the garden flowers won’t bloom, the house loses its glow, nothing feels alive. Other parrots may be flighty, but this one is not like them. Even with the door open, it would not go.

The last verse is where the love really shows itself, because instead of clinging tighter, the keeper opens the cage. Fly off with your own flock, the keeper says, go eat in the paddy fields, sleep in a forest tree, drift through flower gardens, tear through the clouds, pluck fruit in the wild, don’t you want to live free like that? The paddy field, the forest tree, the open sky are everything a real bird is meant to have, the natural life the cage denies. There is real ache underneath the offer, because the keeper is testing the thing they most fear. They leave the door open on purpose: live that way if you want to, let me see. And then the quiet, vulnerable line at the heart of it all, you can’t really leave me and go, can you? Tell me. I just want to know for sure.

What makes the song land is that it understands the deepest kind of love is the kind that sets the other free and still hopes they choose to stay. Anyone who has loved someone enough to want their happiness more than their company will feel the catch in that open cage door, the love and the fear sitting side by side, waiting for an answer.