Hamuwu Thanwala Lyrics by Tharindu Jayasinghe

In the places we met, flowers have bloomed,
the stream that quenched our thirst flows on, unbroken,
the sun and the moon still bring that same light,
though you have married and gone, in the places we met,
flowers have bloomed

Daughter, do you sleep now in his embrace?
does the salt-sea wind blow in and dampen your heart?
do you murmur words of love beside your husband?
do you struggle to keep the memory fresh?

I remember your birthday in the month of Navam,
long ago I went walking to look for jewellery,
I know well enough that it is not my right,
so I write it into a poem, and set the weight in my chest down on the ground

A wistful, gentle song about a love that married someone else, and the man who still quietly carries it. It opens on the places they used to meet and insists they are unchanged: flowers still bloom there, the stream that once quenched their thirst still flows, the sun and moon still cast the same light. Though she has married and gone, those places, and his feeling, stay exactly as they were.

The middle is a string of tender, aching questions he can only ask the air. Daughter, he calls her softly, do you sleep now in his embrace? does the sea-wind dampen your heart? do you whisper words of love to your husband, and do you ever struggle to keep our memory fresh? He is imagining her whole new life, and gently wondering whether he still lives anywhere inside it.

The close is quiet acceptance. He remembers her birthday in the month of Navam, remembers once walking out to shop for jewellery for her, and then admits, plainly, I know it is not my right. So he does the only thing left to him: writes it into a poem and sets the weight in his chest down on the ground. Sung by Tharindu Jayasinghe, composed by Tharindu Damsara to words by Saman Kumara Aberathna, it is a soft, dignified song about loving someone from a distance after they belong to another, and laying that love to rest in words.