Oba Nathiwa Bari Tharam Lyrics by Shirly Waijayantha

So much that I cannot be without you
my life is worth as much as you
Why the quarrel, when love is constant, ever constant, this much
Do you not know me?

In the dark of a still night
a figure forms in my dreams
that is you, in an instant

Love went away

So much that I cannot be without you

A flower blooms and gives its scent
and my heart is stirred again and again
that is you, my beloved
come, give a kiss before you go

So much that I cannot be without you

This is a man measuring his whole life against one person and finding they are the same size. “I cannot be without you,” he says, “my life is worth as much as you,” and then, almost hurt, he asks why there needs to be any quarrel between them when his love is this steady and unchanging. The tenderness has an ache under it, the sense of someone pleading to be understood by the one person who should already know him.

The imagery is quiet and domestic rather than grand. On a still, dark night a figure takes shape in his dreams, and in a flash he knows it is her. A flower opens and releases its scent, and his heart stirs the same way, and again it is her he sees. She is woven into every gentle thing he notices, the dream, the fragrance, the small movements of the heart.

But the line “love went away” sits in the middle of all this like a bruise. The devotion is real, yet she may be leaving, and so the last plea is small and human: come, at least give a kiss before you go. What the listener is left with is that mix of total attachment and helplessness, a love so complete it has become the measure of a life, spoken to someone who might not stay.