Sithuwa Lyrics by Udesh Indula

I search for love, I search for it
The one who ended my loneliness
The one who pulled out the roots of my sorrow
A smiling face drawn close to me
Glowing with charm, like the young crescent moon

On my golden shoulder
Your loving moon
saying it will be my shade
This sun, wishing it would be so
I thought
that you truly loved me

I search for love, I search for it
Through the village paths
along the village ways
softly, softly
step after step
Through the village paths
along the village ways
on and on
footstep after footstep
through the village, ever closer
my friend

On the journey of life
in the city of love
On the journey of life
in the city of love
Under one roof
two of us, side by side
The things we wished for together
and the ones we never imagined
The auspicious hour that came to pass
in a shining secret
Tears welling up
tears welling up
From the gentle ease of joy
the sky begins to rain
But as it overflows
you are not mine

On my golden shoulder
Your loving moon
saying it will be my shade

This sun, wishing it would be so
I thought
that you truly loved me
I search for love, I search for it

A young man is looking back on a love he thought would last, and you can hear both the warmth and the ache in his voice. It opens with him still searching, still calling out for love, because the girl he found had done something rare for him. She ended the loneliness he had carried, and she pulled the very roots of his sorrow out of the ground. That is how he describes her, not as a passing crush but as someone who changed how it felt to be alive.

When he reaches for an image to capture her, he turns to the sky. Her smile, drawn close to his face, glows like the la sanda, the young crescent moon, the soft new sliver of light that Sinhala song uses for a beauty that is gentle and tender rather than dazzling. Then he flips the picture: she is the loving moon resting on his golden shoulder, and he is the sun who only wants to be her shade, to shelter her. A sun offering to become someone’s shadow is the whole feeling of the song in one line, a man ready to give everything and ask for nothing, sure in that moment that she loved him just as truly.

The middle of the song wanders down village paths, step after step, footstep after footstep, the walking turned almost into a rhythm. It carries the two of them onto the journey of life and into what he calls the city of love, under one roof, side by side, sharing both the things they had planned together and the ones they never saw coming. For a while it sounds like a settled, married kind of happiness, the auspicious hour come and gone, a quiet shining secret between them.

Then the song turns. Tears rise up, and he says they come from the gentle ease of joy, the sky itself starting to rain. In Sinhala the rain is often the heart overflowing, and here the happiness brims so full it spills into weeping. But in the same breath comes the line that breaks it open: as it overflows, you are not mine. The love was real, the closeness was real, and yet she was never his to keep. That is what makes the final return to “I search for love” land so heavily. He is still searching, still calling out, holding onto the warmth of someone who eased all his loneliness and then turned out not to be his after all.