Kaha Kude

Hiding under the house from father’s fiery rage,
in the end a hut by the cemetery became our shelter
these are the sins of a former life we carried through saṃsāra,
even the coconut tree turned to funeral fronds for father

This is the fate that fell to mother and to me,
many good souls saw us, and yet turned away,
no wreaths of tear-flowers, no one to share the sorrow…
only the lonely one, in truth, ever drew near

The clay-daubed hut in the temple’s coconut grove,
from that day on became our dwelling place..
in these tales whose meaning no one knows,
explain to me, mother, where the beginning lies

Still I go on searching for the shape of compassion,
do even the teachers, too, get lost in the crowd?
why does the lotus so love to linger in the mud?
mother, whose is this yellow umbrella at the house?

This is a quietly devastating song about poverty, loss and the search for kindness, written by the monk Ven. Attidiye Punnaratana. It is told by a child looking back: hiding under the house from a father’s fiery rage, then, after the father’s death, a hut by the cemetery becoming their only shelter. The child reaches for the one explanation on offer, that these are sins carried over from a past life through saṃsāra, and marks the father’s passing with a stark rural image, even the coconut tree turned into funeral fronds.

The heart of the song is social abandonment. This was the fate that fell to mother and child, and though many good souls saw their suffering, they turned away; there were no wreaths, no one to share the grief. Only the lonely one ever truly came near, kindness found not among the comfortable but among the equally forsaken. From then on, a clay-daubed hut in the temple’s coconut grove became their home, and the child begs the mother to explain where the meaning, the beginning, of such a senseless story could possibly lie.

The last verse turns the grief into gentle, unanswerable questions. Still, the child says, I keep searching for the shape of compassion, and asks whether even the teachers, the ones meant to guide, get lost in the crowd. Why, he wonders, does the lotus so love to linger in the mud, the old image of purity rooted in squalor, perhaps his own faith growing out of hardship. He ends on the haunting image that gives the song its name: mother, whose is this yellow umbrella at the house? The yellow umbrella, the colour of the monk’s robe, hints at the shelter of the temple and a life turning toward it, the one refuge left to a child the world passed by. Sung by Sanjeew Lonlies to words by Ven. Attidiye Punnaratana.