Puthune Me Ahaganna Lyrics by Sujatha Aththnayake

Listen to this, my child, my little one
Listen to this, my child
When I was small, this is the story the moon told me
Listen to this, my child
Listen to this, my child, my little one
Listen to this, my child

In the forest, in a tiny nest,
a pair of hill mynas lived
Singing lovely songs,
the two of them raised their little chicks
Then all of a sudden, one day,
a heavy, lashing rain came down
The Aladola river filled and overflowed,
and the rainwater rushed down in streams
A great storm wind came roaring through,
and that day the trees were torn up by the roots and fell
Listen to this, my child, my little one
Listen to this, my child

This is a mother singing to her child, passing on a story the way it was once passed on to her. She frames it gently, telling the little one that this is the tale she heard “from the moon” back when she herself was small. In Sinhala the moon is often spoken to like a kindly elder, “handa maama,” the moon uncle, the soft companion children are shown at night, so opening with the moon as the storyteller sets a warm, bedtime mood right away.

The story she tells is a small one about a pair of selalihini, the hill myna, a bird loved in Sinhala poetry for its sweet voice. The two birds make a tiny nest in the forest, sing their lovely songs, and raise their two little chicks together. For a few lines everything is calm and happy, a small family safe in their home.

Then the weather turns without warning. A fierce rain pours down, the Aladola river swells and floods, and a great storm wind comes roaring through until the trees are ripped out by their roots and crash to the ground. The song does not spell out what happens to the little nest, and it does not need to. A child listening understands that the safe little home in the trees is suddenly in danger.

What gives the song its quiet ache is the frame around it. A mother is telling her child about a small family caught in a sudden storm, and underneath the simple bird-tale sits the older truth every parent knows, that the world can turn rough in a moment and home is the thing we try to keep safe. It is a lullaby with a soft warning folded inside it, the kind of story that stays with a child long after the song ends.