sulagak wela Lyrics by Shihan Mihiranga

I want to become a breeze and come searching for you
I want to stay close by you like your own shadow

The day we met, my heart was tied to you in love
For my whole life, it is you I love
Girl who has taken my heart, I want to stay close to you
I want to come searching for you like a breeze

You told me, leaning against me there on the riverbank
Hidden in the grove, as you kissed me, I felt at peace
On the bank of this cooling river, my swan girl who nestled into me
Said let us stay tied together like this always, my princess
Don’t you still know that secret?
It is only you I look for, you I always long for

I came just like before, I searched, but you were not at the river
Like flowing water that will not stay near, where did you go?
Why did you make me cry, as cruel as a whirlpool?
I weep here on the bank of this river, why did you leave me and go?
It is only you I look for, still searching for that face
Becoming a breeze, I search for you every day

The day we met…

A young man is so caught up in loving a girl that he wishes he could turn into a breeze, something light enough to drift anywhere and find her, and a shadow, something that never leaves her side. That is where the song opens, and right away it tells you how completely she fills his world. He looks back on the day they met, when his heart got tied to hers, and decides that for the rest of his life it is only her he will love.

The middle of the song is the memory, and it is the warmest part. He remembers her leaning against him on the bank of a river, the two of them hidden in a grove of trees, kissing, and the calm that came over him in that moment. In Sinhala love songs the riverbank is the private meeting place for lovers, away from the eyes of the village, and the cool of the water standing in for the relief and tenderness of being together. He calls her his *hansiya*, his swan, a soft and graceful word a man uses for the girl he adores, and his *kumariya*, his princess. She is the one who promised they would stay bound together like this forever. He holds onto that promise. Don’t you still remember that secret we shared, he asks her, because she is still the only one he wants.

Then the song turns, and the ache arrives. He comes back to the same place, just as he always did, and she is not there. He compares her to flowing river water that will not stay still in one spot, water you cannot hold, and you feel the helplessness in it. The river that once stood for closeness and comfort now stands for loss. He calls the pain she caused as cruel as a whirlpool, the swirling pull that drags you under, and now he is the one weeping on the bank where they used to lie together. Why did you leave me, he keeps asking, with no answer coming back.

What the listener is left holding is the gap between the two riverbanks, the same place, once full of her warmth and now empty. He still becomes that breeze every day and goes searching, but the promise of forever has slipped through his hands like the water itself. It is a song about loving someone who could not stay, and about going back again and again to the place where they were happy, hoping this time to find them there.