Adare Maha

Telling me love is a beautiful thing, girls line up and look my way
Dreams in every colour came drifting past me
Stars came out and faded through the night, but this girl isn’t like that, is she?
Girls line up and look my way
Dreams in every colour came drifting past me

(She’s no beauty queen, she didn’t come walking with a queen’s slow grace)
Listen a moment, shall I tell you a secret?
How much I really love you
Flock after flock, the ring-necked parrots paired off and flew away
I have a loving set of earrings and a necklace with me too
Telling me love is a beautiful thing, girls line up and look my way
Dreams in every colour came drifting past me

(As if a messenger of the gods had come, bringing good fortune in a small smile)
Don’t go away again, come here, stay close to me
Whisper love to me, down the long road ahead, all through this life
Give me rose coloured kisses, your lips folded into mine

Telling me love is a beautiful thing…
Down the long road ahead, all through this life
Give me rose coloured kisses, your lips folded into mine

A young man opens by telling us he has had no shortage of attention. Girls look his way, they tell him love is a wonderful thing, and dream after dream floats past him in bright colours. None of it settles. That first verse exists to make the girl he is actually singing to matter more.

Notice what he does with the stars. In Sinhala song, night stars stand for things that shine and are gone by morning, and here they cover every bit of attention he has had so far. Then he turns and asks, half to himself and half to us, she isn’t like that, is she? He has already decided the answer.

The best part is how he praises her. She is no beauty queen, and she did not arrive with gaja leelawa, the slow, swaying walk of an elephant that old Sinhala poetry treats as the mark of a graceful woman. Saying she has none of that is the compliment. She came instead like a messenger sent by the gods, carrying good luck in one small smile, and that plain sweetness wins over any grand entrance.

Then comes the secret, and he tells it sideways. He points to the maala girawa, the ring-necked parrots that travel in flocks and split off two by two, and the word maala (necklace) carries him straight into the next line: he has a thodu maala, a set of earrings and a necklace, waiting for her. Jewellery like that is what a Sri Lankan man buys when he is thinking about marriage. The birds have paired off, and he would like to as well.

By the last verse he drops the cleverness. Don’t leave again, stay close, whisper love to me the whole long road of life, kiss me. It is a light, warm, unhurried song, the sound of a man who has stopped looking around and found the one person he wants beside him.