Purane Lyrics by Rookantha GunathilakaSanuka Wickramasinghe

Longing for you, thinking and thinking of you, I wept in the days gone by,
because you would not speak to me, I stayed silent,
even on that day,
I stayed silent

In the past…

Today, comforted like this in her embrace,
my old sorrow comes back to me, and the heart weeps in secret,
feeling pity for my own self,
the heart weeps in secret

In the past… 2x

A short, quietly moving duet by Rookantha Goonatillake and Sanuka about how an old heartbreak lingers even inside new happiness. The singer recalls the past, puraane: longing for someone, thinking of them endlessly, he wept in those bygone days, and because that person would not even speak to him, he stayed silent, swallowing the hurt even on the day it mattered most.

The turn comes in the present. Today, he says, he is comforted in the embrace of someone new, at peace, and yet, precisely there, the old sorrow rises up and the heart weeps in secret. It is a very human thing the song catches: how, safe and loved at last, the memory of an earlier pain can return unbidden.

The most tender note is self-directed. He weeps, he says, out of pity for his own self, for the person he was who bore all that silent longing. The refrain, puraane, in the past, keeps pulling him back. It is a gentle song about carrying an old wound into a new love, and grieving quietly for the younger self who endured it alone.