Mandanawa Karanawa Lyrics by Nanda Malani

What’s the matter, what’s the reason, let’s go on our pilgrimage
I feel so terribly lonely, my dears

We did go to Kataragama, but the Manik River had run dry
And around the courtyard of Kiri Vehera the row of lamps had gone out

Sobbing and sobbing I wept, deep in the night in my sleep
The people in our group made fun of me up at Wedihiti Kanda

We waited half the way for the lorry, when it came in the dead of night
We snatched what sleep we could here and there, all the way to Tissamaharama

What’s the matter, what’s the reason…

This is a pilgrimage song, the voice of someone setting out on the long journey to Kataragama, the great shrine town in the deep south of Sri Lanka that draws devotees of god Skanda (Kataragama Deviyo) year after year. The opening line is a bit of everyday village banter, “what’s the matter, what’s the reason, come on, let’s get going on our pilgrimage,” and right underneath it sits a quieter ache, “I feel so lonely, my dears.” That mix of a cheerful group trip and a private loneliness is the whole mood of the song.

The places named are not decoration, they are the real stations of a Kataragama pilgrimage, and a Sri Lankan listener walks the route along with the singer. The Manik Ganga, the “Gem River,” is where pilgrims bathe to purify themselves before approaching the shrine, so finding it run dry is a small heartbreak, the very thing you came for has thinned to almost nothing. Kiri Vehera is the white dagaba beside the temple, and its rows of oil lamps are the warm, living glow of devotion at night; to find them gone out is to arrive and feel the place has dimmed, the welcome you imagined just isn’t there. Wedihiti Kanda is the hill shrine pilgrims climb as part of the visit, and that is where the others in the travelling party tease the singer for crying in the night.

The last verse is pure pilgrim’s road, the kind of detail only someone who has actually made the trip would put in. They wait by the roadside for a lorry to carry them part of the way, it finally rumbles up in the small hours, and they doze in snatches, here and there, all the long way down to Tissamaharama, the town near the shrine. It catches exactly what these journeys feel like, uncomfortable, sleepless, half-lit, and somehow holy anyway.

What stays with you is the loneliness running under the devotion. The singer makes the sacred trip with a whole group around them, gets laughed at for weeping, sleeps in fits on a borrowed ride, and reaches the holy town only to find the river low and the lamps cold. The pilgrimage is supposed to fill you up, and here it leaves the heart a little emptier, which is why that plain confession, “I feel so lonely,” lingers long after the lamps and the river and the lorry are gone.