Nilambare Sudu Parawi Ran Lyrics by Nanda Malani

May a day dawn when white doves fly across the blue sky
May a time come when ripples of smiles press from door to door

The red streams of tears that flowed since morning
sink into the deep blue sea and fade away
Hearts of the people, gone mad with fear, set on fire,
find ease in cool, gentle relief

May a day dawn when white doves fly across the blue sky…

From mouth to mouth, songs of blessing and well-being ring out
Ornaments of peace rest upon both ears
Lamp-like feelings lie treasured within hearts
The hot tears in both eyes run dry

May a day dawn when white doves fly across the blue sky…

This is a song that longs for peace. It is a prayer for the day when war and bloodshed end and an ordinary, gentle life returns to a country that has been living in fear. There is no single lover or storyteller here. The voice is the wish of a whole people, sung as a kind of blessing over the land.

The opening image carries everything. White doves crossing the blue sky are the worldwide sign of peace, and the singer prays for the day they fly free above us. Right after it comes a smaller, homelier picture: smiles passing from door to door down a lane, neighbours able to laugh with one another again because the fear is gone. Putting the great symbol and the small everyday one side by side is the whole point. Peace is not only an idea in the sky, it is people feeling safe enough to smile across their thresholds.

Then the song names the pain it wants to leave behind. The “red streams of tears” are tears mixed with blood, the grief of people who have lost their own, and the prayer is that this grief sink into the deep blue sea and dissolve, that the sorrow be carried away and finally fade. Hearts that have gone “mad with fear” and feel as if they are on fire are the hearts of people worn down by violence and dread, and the wish is that they find a cool, calming relief, the way cool water soothes a burn. Burning stands for suffering, coolness for peace, a very old Sri Lankan way of speaking.

In the last verse the dream of that healed country is drawn out tenderly. Instead of news of death passing mouth to mouth, it is “seth kavi,” verses of blessing, that travel from person to person. Where ears once heard cries and gunfire, now soft sounds of peace rest on them like ornaments. Hopeful feelings glow quietly inside people like small oil lamps kept safe, and the hot tears that have not stopped finally dry. What the listener is left holding is a quiet, aching hope, the longing of a people for nothing grand, only the chance to live without fear and to smile at one another again.