Hamadamath Yaluwe

Always, my friend, I am here in my loneliness
No one comes to my lonely hut, my friend

Like bees drawn to the golden pollen of a flower in bloom
like the honey butterflies that came into my garden every day and danced there
you came and played the veena, you sang your songs in front of me

Always, my friend…

Every good thing and comfort has left me and drifted elsewhere today
my merit is thin, and only loneliness stays inside my hut to keep me company
you are like figures painted on a wall now, where are you, my friends?

Always, my friend…

This is the voice of a man left completely on his own, sitting in a small hut and talking out loud to friends who are not there. There is no anger in it. He just keeps saying that one word, yaluwe, my friend, over and over, the way you say a name to an empty room and half hope somebody answers.

The second verse shows you what he lost. There was a time when people gathered around him the way bees go after the golden pollen of a flower in full bloom, the way butterflies came into his garden day after day and danced there. Someone would arrive with a veena, play it, and sing in front of him. The images are sweet on purpose, but bees and butterflies come for one thing, and when the flower has nothing left to give they move on to the next garden. He never uses a hard word like selfish. He lets the insects say it for him.

The last verse names what changed. Savusiri, all the good fortune and ease he once had, has drifted somewhere else, and he puts it down to his own thin store of pin (merit earned through good deeds) rather than pointing a finger at anybody. The only company that still stays inside his hut is the loneliness itself, which he almost speaks of as a guest. Then comes the line that hurts most: his friends are like figures painted on a wall. Their faces are still vivid in his memory, fixed in the poses he remembers, and not one of them can move, or speak, or walk through his door.

Anyone who has watched a crowd thin out once the money, the health or the position went away will know this song from the inside. What stays with you at the end is a man still calling yaluwe into an empty house, hoping the word lands on somebody.