Walakulen Basa Saman Kulath Wanda Lyrics by Sunil Santha

Down from the bank of clouds, onto the peak of Saman Kuta,
it drifts past, gazing softly. Oh, take this task from me, take it,
softly, softly it goes on its way.

Slowly, slowly, is the ground a hill of silver?
Look, look, all around.
Send me, send me here and there, cooling my weariness on the earth.
Down from the bank of clouds, onto the peak of Saman Kuta,
it drifts past, gazing softly. Oh, take this task from me, take it,
softly, softly it goes on its way.

Slowly, slowly, is the ground a hill of silver?
Look, look, all around.
Send me, send me here and there, cooling my weariness on the earth.
In that land, from this very moment, let me linger from place to place.

Carrying a task from me, doing a task for me too,
it had a name in the world.

Down from the bank of clouds, onto the peak of Saman Kuta,
it drifts past, gazing softly. Oh, take this task from me, take it,
softly, softly it goes on its way.

In that land, from this very moment, let me linger from place to place.
Carrying a task from me, doing a task for me too,
it had a name in the world.

Taking no task, the murmur of water trickles down,
gliding past the lips.

The happy songs, swelling into melody,
drift away on the salt water.

Down from the bank of clouds, onto the peak of Saman Kuta,
it drifts past, gazing softly. Oh, take this task from me, take it,
softly, softly it goes on its way.

This is one of Sunil Santha’s nature songs, and the thing he sings to is the wind. It comes down out of a bank of clouds and settles over the peak of Saman Kuta, the high summit on Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak) named for the god Saman who guards it, and then it drifts on across the land. The whole song is the singer coaxing that breeze, treating it like a gentle traveller passing through, and asking it to carry something of his on its way.

That little phrase he keeps repeating, “take this task from me,” is the heart of it. He is asking the wind for a favour, the way you might ask a friend heading your direction to carry a message. The breeze moves so lightly, gazing down as it goes, drifting “softly, softly,” that he wants to send it here and there across the earth on his behalf. When he says it cools his weariness as it passes over the ground, he is describing exactly what a cool wind does on a hot day in the hills, easing the tiredness out of the land and the people on it.

The imagery stays close to the landscape the whole way through. He looks at the ground gleaming below and wonders if it has turned into a hill of silver, the kind of shimmer mist and morning light throw across the highlands. Then the picture shifts to water, the soft murmur of a stream trickling down past his lips, taking on no errand of its own, just flowing for the joy of it. By the end the happy songs themselves rise into melody and float away over the salt water toward the sea, so that wind, stream and song all become one drifting, unhurried thing.

What the song leaves you with is that feeling of lightness and freedom. The wind owes nobody anything, yet it carries messages, cools the tired earth and made a name for itself in the world simply by moving freely over it. Sunil Santha is half talking to the breeze and half wishing he could travel as easily as it does, place to place, with a song trailing behind him.