Ridee Seenu

Ringing the silver bells….
singing festive songs….

Raising bright white flags into the sky
chanting blessings and pirith

Wishing Mother Lanka a festival of victory
we adorn her, placing the tilaka

Placing a sandalwood tilaka
placing a joyous tilaka
ringing the silver bells
singing festive songs

Fashioning bracelets of lightning…
binding the whole world into one…

Taking everyone’s unity into its hands
forging the spirit of togetherness

May the Radio Maiden flourish
breaking down every barrier

Enemies, divisions and obstacles
scattered away on the wind
wearing bracelets of lightning….
she spreads out in radiant power….

This is a song of celebration and unity, and once you catch its central image it becomes quietly remarkable. Written by the priest-poet Fr. Marcelline Jayakody, it opens like a festival, silver bells ringing, festive songs, bright white flags raised into the sky, and blessings and pirith chanted for “Mother Lanka,” whom the singers adorn with a tilaka, the auspicious forehead mark, wishing her a “festival of victory.” All the imagery of a joyful national celebration is here.

The heart of the song, though, is a marvel of its age: the radio. The “bracelets of lightning,” vidili valalu, are radio waves, and the song imagines them “binding the whole world into one,” taking “everyone’s unity into its hands” and forging a spirit of togetherness across distances that once kept people apart. It personifies broadcasting itself as the Guwan Viduli Lalana, the graceful “Radio Maiden,” and blesses her, “may she flourish, breaking down every barrier.”

So this is really a hymn to connection. The new technology of radio is celebrated as a force that scatters “enemies, divisions and obstacles” on the wind and draws a nation and a world closer together. Adorned in her “bracelets of lightning,” the Radio Maiden “spreads out in radiant power.” What the listener is left with is a bright, hopeful vision from an earlier era, the belief that this humming new voice in the air could unite people, dissolve hostility, and carry blessing and togetherness everywhere at once.