Koho Koho Lyrics by Sanath NandasiriSujatha Aththnayake

Koho, koho,
from where are you calling out koho?
The beat of the raban drum in our village,
can you hear it too? …//

Tender cashew, sweet honey mango,
the rain falling under the trees,
Koho, look over there,
the honeycomb is full of honey …/

Koho, koho, from where
are you calling out koho?
Will you tell me the wedding nekath of the month of Bak too?

Koho, koho …/

Where the bees dance to the beat of the raban,
in the middle of the lovely village,
Koho, you sing a song too,
for the Sinhala New Year …//

Koho, koho,
from where are you calling out koho?
The beat of the raban drum in our village,
can you hear it too?

Koho, koho,
from where are you calling out koho?
Will you come to visit us for the New Year?

This is a Sinhala New Year song, and it is sung to a bird. The whole thing is addressed to the koha, the Asian koel, whose call is “koho, koho.” In Sri Lanka that call is the sound of April, the sign that Avurudu, the Sinhala and Tamil New Year, is almost here. So when the singer keeps asking the koel “from where are you calling out koho?”, it is a happy, teasing way of saying the season has turned and the whole village can feel it coming.

What makes the song lovely is how it fills the air with everything that means New Year in a Sri Lankan village. The raban, the wide hand drum that the women beat in a circle at Avurudu, is already playing, and the singer asks the bird if it can hear that rhythm too. Then come the tastes of the season: tender young cashew, sweet honey mango, the first rains under the trees, a honeycomb dripping with honey. These are not random images. They are the small, specific pleasures that arrive together in April, and naming them is the singer’s way of saying everything good is ripening at once.

The koel is also asked, half in fun, to share the nekath, the auspicious times of the month of Bak (April) when weddings and other ceremonies are set by the almanac. The bird becomes a kind of cheerful messenger of the calendar. In the bright middle of the village, bees dance to the drumbeat, and the singer urges the koel to add its own song to the celebration.

By the end it turns warm and almost intimate, asking the bird to come and visit “for the New Year,” the way relatives travel home to one another at Avurudu. That single line tells you what the whole song is really about. The koel is welcomed like family, and its call is treasured because it carries the promise of the most joyful season of the year.