Namal Mitak Lyrics by Randir

A handful of na flowers gathered in her cupped white hands, where did she go this frosty morning?
Dressed in heavenly robes, she walked just above the earth, like a maiden from the heavens
Stealing a glance, just barely, from the corner of her dark eyes
The proud way she walks is lovely now
If she were truly mine, O moon, I’d become a chakravartin (a universal king) and conquer the whole universe

If I could rest my face in the cool shade of her blue-lotus eyes
If I could soothe my ears with her words sweet as nectar
I’d scatter pearls at your feet and build you a Taj Mahal
If you would only speak to me, I’d turn the whole world into a festival

A handful of na flowers…/

If you want an ornament for your hair, I’ll bring you flowers of stars
If you must go into the dark of night, I’ll bathe you in moonlight
If you sit beside me and murmur softly, I’ll listen for hours on end
If one day you become mine, I’ll stay alive until then and never die

From the edge of my eyes you drift far, far away
You float and float away, and never come back to me
That joy I saw fill my heart, only in a dream
only in a dream it slips away, why is that, my dear?

If I could rest my face in the cool shade of her blue-lotus eyes…

If you want an ornament for your hair…

A young man has caught sight of a girl walking by on a cold morning, a handful of na flowers held in her cupped hands, and he cannot look away. That is where the song lives, in the few seconds of seeing her and the flood of longing that follows. He does not know her, not really. He just watches her pass and lets himself imagine everything he would do if she were ever his.

The way he describes her tells you how far gone he is. She is not just pretty, she moves “just above the earth” like a sura angana, a celestial maiden, too lovely to be ordinary. Even her pride, the proud little way she walks, charms him rather than puts him off. And when he reaches for the biggest thing he can think of to match how he feels, he says he would become a chakravarti, a universal monarch, and conquer the whole world, just to be worthy of her. He swears it to the moon, the way you make a promise to something larger than yourself.

The middle of the song is one long string of “if only” promises, and they grow sweeter and grander as they go. Her eyes are nil upul, blue water lilies, and in Sinhala song that is the standing image for eyes that are cool and calming to look into, so he says he wants to rest his tired face in their shade. Her words are like ama, the nectar of the gods. He offers to lay pearls at her feet and build her a Taj Mahal, the world’s most famous monument to love. He will bring her flowers made of stars to wear in her hair, bathe her in moonlight so she never has to walk in the dark, sit and listen to her soft murmuring for hours. He even promises to stay alive, refusing to die, until the day she finally becomes his.

Then the dream breaks. In the last verse she drifts away from the corner of his eye, floating off and never coming back, and he realizes the whole beautiful thing was only a dream. The joy that filled his heart was something he saw in his sleep, and now it is leaving him. His final question, why does that happy dream slip away, my dear, is the ache the song leaves you holding. All those golden promises were built on a girl he never actually had, a stranger he saw once on a frosty morning, and the song is the sweet, hopeless distance between what he imagined and what was ever really his.