Rallen Rallata

Ho… ho… ho… ho…
Ho… ho… ho…

(In the outrigger canoe that drifts from wave to wave
I will go out to the deep, in the night watch…)
May the gods protect my wife and children
until I come home in the morning…

Ho… ho… ho… ho…
Ho… ho… ho…

In the dusk, in the dark of the great ocean
the “ho ho” call goes round and round
I will go far out on this salt water
fate rides with me on this night journey
On the far shore, at this hour
let my children sleep
on the worn out reed mat
I am alone… out on the sea…

From wave to wave….

Ho… ho… ho… ho…
Ho… ho… ho…

The lantern light was put out by the wind
and this heart of mine shakes
A grey drizzle is coming in from far off
churning up the water of the sea
Helpless people, just like me
O gods, where can a poor man turn?
Keep me safe, helpless as I am
I am alone… out on the sea…

From wave to wave….

Ho… ho… ho… ho…
Ho… ho… ho…

It is evening on the coast and a fisherman is pushing his canoe out past the breakers, heading for the deep water where he will spend the whole night. Before he goes, the only thing he asks for is that the gods look after his wife and children until he gets back in the morning. That prayer is the heart of the song, and everything after it is the long dark hours between leaving and coming home.

The oruwa is the small wooden outrigger canoe that Sri Lankan fishermen have taken out from these beaches for generations, and “from wave to wave” is exactly what riding one feels like, lifted and dropped, with nothing under you but water. The “ho… ho…” running through the song is not decoration. It is the real call men shout across the water at night so the other boats know where they are, and it is the only human sound out there. When he says the call goes round and round in the darkness, he is telling you how small a boat sounds against the size of the sea.

The poverty in this song is spoken quietly, through objects. His children are asleep on a pan pedura, a mat woven from reeds, and it is frayed and coming apart. That single detail says more about the family’s life than any complaint would. Then the wind blows out his lantern, the one small light he has, and his courage goes with it. The mandaram drizzle moving in from the horizon is the grey, low weather that means a rough night, and he watches it come toward him with no way to avoid it.

What lifts the last verse is that he does not only think of himself. He remembers all the others who are out there just as helpless, in their own boats, on the same water. His prayer widens to include them before it narrows back to a single man asking to be kept alive. That word he keeps returning to, alone, is not loneliness in the ordinary sense. It is the plain fact of one person out on the open sea while everyone he loves is asleep on shore.

Sri Lankans have heard versions of this all their lives, in coastal villages where the boats go out at night and the family listens for the engines coming back at dawn. The song leaves you holding the same anxiety they hold, the sound of a man calling into the dark, hoping the morning brings him back to a small house and a worn out mat and the people sleeping on it.