Malsara Hee Sarin Lyrics by Sashika Nisansala

Under flower-arrows, beneath the corners of my eyes,
they slip in unseen by anyone, in secret,
like a painter’s stroke.
What I’m asking, will you give it to me?
Will you give me your love?

Did the flower-god’s arrow strike me by mistake?
In this lonely city, will you give me a place to stay?
Down a road that runs from one horizon
out into the endless distance, I’ll wait in the middle,
drawn close to you…

Walking right up to the doorway of my heart, my mind keeps asking,
in my city I won’t give a place to anyone else.
After years of making my wish, again and again,
the mansion I finally won,
it became mine alone…

A young woman has been hit by love and she has made up her mind about it. The song opens with the old Sinhala image of Malsara, the flower-god of love (the same figure as Kama or Ananga), whose arrows are tipped with flowers instead of iron. She feels those arrows slip in through the corners of her eyes, quietly, where no one can see, as soft and sure as a brushstroke from a painter. That is how love arrives here, not with thunder but with something gentle that lands before you notice it. And the first thing she does is ask plainly: will you give me your love?

From there the feeling sharpens into longing. She wonders if the arrow even struck her by accident, then asks for a place in her own lonely city, a way of asking the one she loves to come and fill an empty life. The picture of a road running from one horizon out into endless distance is her saying she will wait however long it takes, standing right in the middle of that long road, hoping to be pulled close to him. There is patience in it, and a quiet ache, the sense of someone who has waited a long time already.

The last verse is where the song turns from asking to claiming. Love has walked all the way up to the doorway of her heart, and now her mind has settled what it wants. She says she won’t give a single place in her city to anyone else, her heart has room for one person only. Then comes the line that holds the whole song: after years of praying and wishing for this, the mansion she finally won is hers alone. The mansion is the love itself, the home she dreamed of and waited for, and now that it is built she will share it with no one. What starts as a shy question ends as a vow, soft on the surface but completely certain underneath.