Niyare Piyanagala Lyrics by Saman De Silva

Stepping up onto the paddy bund,
my dear, you come from afar.
Seeing you, my weariness fades.
My heart fills, today I feel the love.
My heart fills, today I feel the love.

In the spot where the golden ears of paddy bend and sway, your face appears,
your form takes shape in my hands like a figure of gold.
The love sinks in, my heart and my deep sighs grow still.
Good fortune has come drifting to me.

With your fair hands you cooked, bringing the curry over to me,
come this way always, gently, with a flower of a smile.
The love sinks in, my heart and my deep sighs grow still.
Good fortune has come drifting to me.

This is a village love song, sung by a young man who works the paddy fields. The whole scene sits out in the open countryside, the green rows of rice, the narrow raised paths called niyara that run between the flooded plots, and the woman he loves walking toward him along one of those bunds. In old village life it was the wife or sweetheart who carried the midday meal out to the man working the fields, and that simple, everyday act is the heart of the song.

He has been bent over his work, tired, and the moment he sees her step up onto the bund and come his way, the tiredness drains out of him. He calls her manike, a tender word for a girl, almost like calling her a jewel. What lifts the song above plain affection is the way he sees her against the rice itself. The ripe ears of paddy, heavy and golden, bow and sway in the wind, and right there in that gold he sees her face. Then he says her form takes shape in his hands like something made of gold, the colour of ripe grain standing in for everything precious. For a farmer, golden paddy is the year’s reward, the proof that the hard season paid off, so comparing her to it is the highest praise he has.

She has cooked for him with her own fair hands and carried the food out across the fields, and he asks her to keep coming to him like this, softly, with that flower of a smile. The smile compared to a flower is a common, gentle image, it says her face opening into a smile is as fresh and welcome as a flower opening. By the end he calls all of this his good fortune, wasanawa, something that has come drifting to him on its own, and his deep sighs, the restless ache in his chest, finally settle. What the listener is left holding is something very ordinary and very warm, a working man at peace because the woman he loves walked out across the paddy with his lunch and a smile.