Ansathu Malakata Lyrics by Nelu Adhikari

How lovely the moon is to the sky
How lovely a flower is to a tree
How lovely the waves are to the sea
That’s how sweet you are to me

Hiding this love deep in my heart
Making little signs as I come and go along the path
Those naughty teasing eyes of yours that won’t behave
If anyone else sees, it could turn into trouble

Your beautiful face, all through the watches of the night
I get no sleep at all, none
Why do you keep circling around me all the time
I felt like asking you, I really did

How lovely the moon is to the sky
How lovely a flower is to a tree
How lovely the waves are to the sea
That’s how sweet you are to me

Hiding this love deep in my heart
Making little signs as I come and go along the path
Those naughty teasing eyes of yours that won’t behave
If anyone else sees, it could turn into trouble

How sweet you are to me
Why long so greedily for a flower that belongs to no one
Love is a lovely thing in this world, always
A moon with no one to claim it grows restless
mmmm
mmmm

To tie up a little raft and float away
I truly was lost in a dream
Why did you grow as tall as a mountain in my mind
The little ones aren’t asleep, I have to go

How lovely the moon is to the sky
How lovely a flower is to a tree
How lovely the waves are to the sea
That’s how sweet you are to me

Hiding this love deep in my heart
Making little signs as I come and go along the path
Those naughty teasing eyes of yours that won’t behave
If anyone else sees, it could turn into trouble

hm
hmm

A young woman is falling for someone, and she is carrying it quietly, the way new love is carried in a village where everyone is watching. She opens by reaching for the things she finds most beautiful, the moon in the sky, a flower on its tree, the waves on the sea, and tells him he is as sweet to her as all of those. In Sinhala song this is a familiar move, you measure your feeling against the moon and the sea because those are the most beautiful things you know, so saying “you are that lovely to me” is the highest praise she has.

She hides the love in her heart but lets it slip out anyway, in small signals as she passes him on the path. She scolds his playful, teasing eyes that refuse to behave, half worried, half delighted, because in a small place if the wrong person catches those looks between them it could become a problem. Then come the sleepless nights, his face staying with her through every watch until dawn, and the gentle complaint she wants to put to him: why do you keep circling around me like this?

The line that gives the song its name turns it tender and a little sad. “Why be so greedy for a flower that belongs to no one,” she says, and “a moon with no one to claim it grows restless.” She is the unclaimed flower, the moon nobody owns yet, and she feels the unsettled ache of being wanted but not yet promised to anyone. Love is a beautiful thing, she admits in the same breath, so the feeling pulls both ways, sweet and unsteady at once.

By the end the dream gives way to plain life. She imagines tying up a little raft and drifting off with him, then catches herself, it was only a daydream. She teases him for letting her loom as large as a mountain in his thoughts, and then the everyday world calls her back: the children aren’t asleep, she has to go. That last line is what makes it ring true. The longing is real, but so is the ordinary day waiting for her, and she steps back into it with the feeling still glowing inside her.