Mage Punchi Duwe Lyrics by Rookantha GunathilakaWindy Goonatillake

My little daughter, who came wrapped in a gust of wind,
the road we travelled to bring you is a long one still, my daughter
turning the very hospital upside down, you cried out, my daughter
was it only a dream we saw, my little daughter?

I grew up cradled in mother and father’s arms,
at home I was forever quarrelling with my elder sister,
if only grandmother were still near, as she was back then,
it is her, her absence, that I feel here the most

Wherever you go, my child, stay well,
look after your husband with love,
raise good children and give them to the world,
and by the grace of the gods, may you prosper

Even when I am not near, I am still mother’s little one,
mother and father are like my own two eyes to me,
though I grow old, though I grow frail, I will stay close,
father, mother, aunt, uncle, I am your daughter

This is a tender family duet by Rookantha and Windy Goonatillake, moving between a parent’s voice and a daughter’s, a song about raising a child and letting her go. It opens in the parents’ memory: their little daughter who came wrapped in a gust of wind, the long road they walked to bring her into the world, the day she cried out and turned the hospital upside down at her birth. Looking back, it all feels as unreal as a dream, was it only a dream, my little daughter?

The daughter answers with her own memories of home: growing up in her mother and father’s arms, forever squabbling with her elder sister, and the ache she feels now for her grandmother, wishing she were still near as she once was. It is the warm, ordinary texture of a childhood, remembered from the far side of growing up.

The song then becomes a blessing and a promise. The parents send her off, wherever you go, stay well, love your husband, raise good children, prosper by the grace of the gods, the words parents give a daughter leaving home. And she vows back that distance changes nothing: even far away she is still their little one, her parents are like her own two eyes, and however old and frail she becomes she will stay close, father, mother, aunt, uncle, I am your daughter. It is a song about the bond between parents and a grown child that no marriage or distance can loosen.