Kandulu Pan Kendiyak Lyrics by Victor Rathnayake

A pot of tear-water,
flowers of smiles,
a basketful of smile-flowers,
even if the distance you can carry in two hands
should be a hundred leagues,
though you have become a lover,
it does not matter, my flower…

Strings of sighs,
a garland-loop of sighs,
flowers of wishes,
a crystal of wish-flowers,
even if the distance you can carry in two hands
should be a hundred leagues,
though you have become a lover,
it does not matter, my flower

Warm tears,
a rice-ball of warm tears,
a flower-mat,
a bundle of flower-mat reeds,
even if the distance you can carry in two hands
should be a hundred leagues,
though you have become a lover,
it does not matter, little sister

A gentle, profound classic that weighs the whole burden of love and calls it bearable. Love’s freight is listed in tender, almost surreal images: a pot of tear-water, a basketful of smile-flowers. However heavy that load, the refrain reassures, even if what you must carry in two hands stretches a hundred leagues, it does not matter, my flower, though you have become a lover. To love is to carry all of this, gladly.

The middle keeps stacking the load, now with sighs and wishes: a garland-loop of sighs, a crystal of wish-flowers. Again the same verdict, the distance and the weight simply do not matter. Loving means accepting an armful of longing and hope and bearing it any distance.

The last verse is the tenderest and the heaviest, warm tears, a rice-ball of warm tears, a bundle of flower-mat reeds, and this time the address shifts gently to little sister (nage). Across all its verses the song says the same quiet thing: the burdens of love, tears, sighs, wishes, are worth carrying however far, once you have become someone’s lover. Sung by Dr. Victor Rathnayake to words by the monk Rambukkana Siddartha, it is a serene, beloved classic about accepting the whole weight of love as a burden worth bearing to the ends of the earth.