The City of Romance

With your arm laid around my waist,
on the road in front of the Arts Council,
we went, searching for a world of our own,
I remember how we drifted along
now you’re not here, and I’m not here,
and this Colombo is desolate

In the dusk of the Colombo sky,
the warmth of a sigh, into my chest,
you smeared it there, I remember
now I’m not here, and you’re not here,
and this Colombo is desolate

The city of love that we once knew
has grown very old now,
do you remember the gnarled nuga trees?
that row of them is young again now,
the lotus pond too has crumbled to ruin,
and only the pigeons are left,
even the green lawns of Colombo now
have the look of desolation
now you’re not here, and I’m not here,
and this Colombo is desolate

A wistful, nostalgic love song about Colombo and a love that has ended, sung by Thiyunuwan Prabuddika. It opens in memory: the two of them walking with his arm around her waist, on the road in front of the Kalabhavana, the Arts Council, searching for a world of their own. Then the refrain that runs through the whole song: you’re not here, I’m not here, and this Colombo is desolate. The city and the love are mourned together.

The middle holds one small, intimate memory, in the Colombo dusk she pressed the warmth of a sigh into his chest, before returning to the refrain of emptiness. The loss is not dramatic; it is the quiet ache of a familiar place emptied of the one person who made it matter.

The last verse walks their old haunts and finds them aged and abandoned. The city of love that we knew has grown very old; the gnarled nuga trees he asks her to remember have a young row growing in their place; the lotus pond has crumbled to ruin with only pigeons left; even Colombo’s green lawns look desolate. The city ages and renews itself while their love simply ends. Composed by Tharindu Damsara to words by Nimesh Sukumala, it is a tender elegy in which a whole city becomes the memory of one lost love.