Ra Sihinen Lyrics by Namal Udugama

In a night dream, I find my peace beside you
In truth, my heart trembles thinking of you

This love we share, when will I ever speak of it
Calling you “my love,” how could I ever say the words
In a world of our own, when will the two of us be alone

Soothing her, I sing these verses
In that sweet world, I will find my peace
My princess, why is it you never think of me

A young man can only reach the girl he loves in his sleep. The song opens in a night dream, where she is beside him and, for once, his restless heart goes quiet. That is the ache underneath the whole song: in waking life he cannot be near her, so the only place he feels at peace is in a dream he cannot hold on to. “In truth, my heart trembles thinking of you” tells you the rest, that even the thought of her shakes him.

From there the song is one long, unspoken question. He carries a love he has never said out loud, and he keeps asking when, when will I get to speak of it, when will I be able to call her “my love” to her face, when will there ever be a world small enough for just the two of us. In Sinhala the phrase for “a world of our own” carries the idea of a private place away from everyone’s eyes, the simple wish of two people who only want to be left alone together. He is not asking for much. He is asking for the one thing he cannot seem to have.

So he does the only thing left to him. He sings to comfort her, even if she is only there in his imagination, and tells himself that in that sweet dream world he will find the peace that waking life keeps refusing him. The last line turns the whole song over and lands on its real wound: my princess, why is it you never think of me. Calling her “kumari,” princess, is the tender, almost worshipful way a Sinhala lover lifts the woman he adores above himself, and it makes the closing question hurt more. He has built a whole inner world around her, and he is left wondering whether he ever crosses her mind at all.