Mathaka Aluthin Liyanna

I never once thought I would see you again…
I hadn’t the heart to look away from your eyes…
on that old familiar road we once walked, I too had reason not to go…
why did we meet halfway, only to write the memories anew…

You know full well the distance I travelled carrying you in my heart…
for all the love we shared, I keep wondering why we drifted apart…
the memories you left behind are still everywhere in Kandy…
and when I remember it is all lost, my heart aches even today…

I know that old intimacies can never be found again…
stopped at the place where I stopped, I still think of you today…
how my heart has borne it, only the Kandy sky knows…
even in hearts that have let go, there are places where love remains…

A tender heartbreak song about an accidental reunion that reopens an old wound, set, as its imagery makes clear, in Kandy. I never thought I would see you again, the singer says, and confesses he hadn’t the strength to look away from her eyes; on the old road they used to walk he had his own reasons to stay away, so why, he asks, did they meet halfway, only to have to write the memories anew?

The middle measures the loss. She knows, he says, how far he travelled carrying her in his heart, and he keeps wondering why, for all the love they shared, they drifted apart. The memories she left are still everywhere in Kandy, woven into the town itself, and each time he remembers that she is lost to him, his heart aches again, today as much as ever.

The close is quiet acceptance shadowed by longing. He knows old intimacies cannot be recovered, so he stays stopped where he stopped, still thinking of her; only the Kandy sky, he says, knows how his heart has borne it. And he ends on the line that holds the whole song: even in hearts that have let go, there are places where love remains. Sung by Udesh Indula to words by Harshani Dinusha Adhikari, it is about the way a chance meeting can prove that some love never fully leaves, even after you have moved on.