Alaye Kamatahan

Blossomed flowers, smiling one by one,
embrace, in the name of love;
the flowers that did not bloom in season
sob, fallen into a puddle of mud

The moment they see the happy ones,
they look at one another in anger,
betraying, with tears, the joy of lives they never had,
wetting their worn clothes,
a colour-smeared dream,
the sky its nirvana, the earth its refuge,
for everyone, a new meditation

Not even knowing the measure of love,
life gone before its time,
those who never saw love’s nirvana
lie on sickbeds, seeking release,
a colour-smeared dream,
the sky its nirvana, the earth its refuge,
for everyone, a new meditation

A reflective, faintly sorrowful song that divides the world into two kinds of people through the image of flowers. The blossomed flowers smile and embrace in the name of love, those lucky enough to bloom and be loved; while the flowers that did not bloom in season sob, fallen into a puddle of mud, those who missed their chance at love, discarded and unseen.

The middle looks at the deprived ones with painful honesty. Seeing the happy, they look at each other in anger, weep over the joy of lives they never had, and wet their worn clothes with tears. And yet the refrain reframes it all as something almost spiritual, a colour-smeared dream, with the sky as its nirvana and the earth as its refuge, for everyone, a new meditation, as if this very longing were a path to be walked.

The last verse is the saddest: those who never even knew the measure of love, whose lives ended too soon, who never saw love’s nirvana, now lie on sickbeds, seeking release. The song holds them all, the loveless and the too-late, inside the same gentle, meditative refrain. Sung by Tharindu Damsara to words by Pradeep Nawarathna, it is a contemplative song about those left out of love, treating even that ache as a kind of meditation under an indifferent sky.