Manikela Ehemaya

On a certain day back in 2016,
on a slow-moving train,
a song, beggar-like,
and even that was beautiful,
the matters just as they were before,
the swift journey on toward the destination,
this moment, the blue sky is dark,
that is how Manikela is

Forever a sleepless bed,
dreams all scored through with cracks,
the endless relief that was left over,
that is how the leftover life is

Matters that everyone has forgotten,
once gained, everything is lost,
two tickets I hold in my hand,
the parrots that went to Pera and ate the guavas are silent

Carrying the most precious things,
a very swift, very far journey,
now, even the noon feels cold to me,
the matters just as they were before

A wistful, melancholy song set on a slow-moving train, that quietly mourns a lost love named Manikela. It opens with unusual precision, on a certain day in 2016, on a slow train, where even a beggar’s song sounded beautiful; life carried on “just as before,” the train speeding toward its destination, and yet, in this moment, the blue sky has gone dark. Manikela ehema ya, “that is how Manikela is”, the refrain names the loss without explaining it.

The middle turns inward to the ache she left. What remains is a “forever sleepless bed,” dreams “scored through with cracks,” and an “endless relief that was left over”, that, he says, is how the leftover life is, life continuing hollowly after the one thing that mattered has gone.

The last verses drift through memory and loss. These are matters everyone else has forgotten, and, he reflects, once you gain something, everything is lost. He still holds “two tickets” in his hand, a small, aching image of a journey meant for two; and the parrots that flew to Pera to eat guavas now sit silent. Carrying “the most precious things,” he travels very fast and very far, and yet now even the midday noon feels cold to him. Sung by Ruchira Lakshan, composed by Tharindu Damsara to words by the Ven. Ruhunuketha Dhammadewa Thero, it is a spare, atmospheric song about carrying a private grief through an ordinary train journey, where the whole world has gone cold and dim.