Kawadi Baila

Naan deen thilaka nadin (drum syllables, chanted along with the beat)
Carrying the pot of neem leaves on your head
Dancing out onto the road to the molam beat
Cymbals, ankle bells and the thovil drum strapped to your shoulder
Got up in every kolam costume there is
Offerings held in both cupped hands, paying back the vow you made
Bowing before the god of Kataragama…

Come on, little brother, get in the line and come
With the scented pottu and the tilaka on your forehead
To dance the kavadi baila…

Naan deen thilaka nadin…

So get in the line and come
With the scented pottu and the tilaka on your forehead
To dance the kavadi baila…

(Holy ash rubbed over your body, the ritual cloth wrapped on
The kavadi made of peacock feathers held up on your shoulders
Your feet coming down in time with the jothidare rhythm
So let’s step into the middle and dance until the misfortune breaks…)

Naan deen thilaka nadin…

So get in the line and come
With the scented pottu and the tilaka on your forehead
To dance the kavadi baila…

(Telling everyone of the grace and the glory of Kataragama
I’m stringing this kavadi baila together from all four sides
Jumping in along the way, bringing flower garlands
So dance without stopping until the god comes over you…)

Naan deen thilaka nadin…

So get in the line and come
With the scented pottu and the tilaka on your forehead
To dance the kavadi baila…

Naan deen thilaka nadin…

So get in the line and come
With the scented pottu and the tilaka on your forehead
To dance the kavadi baila…

This is a festival song, built around the kavadi dance you see at Kataragama and at devale processions all over the island. The kavadi is the arched wooden frame, decked in peacock feathers, that a devotee balances on his shoulders while he dances to the drums in front of the shrine. The song is not telling a story about one person. It is a call, shouted over the drumming, for everyone standing around to stop watching and join the line.

The first verse is a list of everything a man carries into that dance: the clay pot of neem leaves on his head, cymbals and ankle bells, the thovil drum tied to his shoulder, the kolam costume, and the panduru offering held in both cupped hands. All of that ends in one line, bowing before the god of Kataragama, the deity Sri Lankans also know as Skanda or Murugan. The phrase “bhara haara” in the original is the key to the whole song. People make a vow to the god when they are in trouble, and when the trouble passes they come to Kataragama to pay it back, often by carrying kavadi. Every drum and bell here is the sound of a debt being settled.

The chorus is friendly and physical. He calls the next man “malli”, little brother, and tells him to get in the queue, put the scented pottu and the tilaka on his forehead and dance. The repeated “naan deen thilaka nadin” is not a sentence at all, it is drum-mouth syllables, the way a drummer sings the rhythm before he plays it, which is why it works as a chant the crowd can pick up without knowing any words.

The two verses in brackets go deeper into the ritual. Holy ash is rubbed on the body, the cloth is wrapped, the peacock-feather kavadi goes up on the shoulders, and the feet fall in with the beat. Then comes the reason for all of it: dance until the “dosa” breaks, the run of bad luck or affliction a person came to Kataragama to be rid of, and keep dancing without stopping until the god comes over you. That trance, “aarudha”, is the moment the dance is aiming at. In the last verse the singer says he is stringing this baila together from all four sides while telling everyone of the god’s grace, which is the honest description of what the song is doing. Baila is party music, Portuguese-descended and made for dancing, and setting a Kataragama devotion to it is very Sri Lankan: the sacred and the good time are the same event, and you get to it with your feet.