After Jealousy, Let's Relax - And Enjoy Literature

Re:

sn m c or nc i w won rad b o s y y th et ws cl.
u cn kr in in u n a g tm b. i cn rm of a bk in eng for kr
sum
gkd
vkaur
var

 

Dear Manjula, Kamla, Vandhana and Vidya,

I feel like hosting a small family function at home and suddenly you have Aiswarya Rai, Sneha, Asin, Sachin, Shabna Azmi, Sania Mirza et al attending it. To say I am overwhelmed is the mildest expression I have within the bounds of my poor vocabulary.

Dear Manjula,

I am simply bowled over by your wordsmithy. Never have I seen such a clinical anlaysis of Kamban and his poetry. Like the celebrated Greys Anatomy book the medicos use, you have published a Manju's Anatomy of poetry of male poets.

I am too small to comment on what you say; some of the words and many of the ideas are beyond my small area of comprehension. But there is only one idea I want to put forth to you.

If you read Kambar with whatever ideas you have in mind about his works then I am not sure whether you can enjoy his poetry. If you go on thinking that Kambar hired Rama and his clan for exhibiting his wordsmity, well, you cannot enjoy a word of his poetry, unless you can successfully come out this analytical personality and wear the green poetry cap. With such a thinking as you have God might just be an idea or a necessary or an unnecessary hypothesis.

You are feverishly searching for beauty. And after seeing a rose flower in full bloom, you know that it has beauty, but want to clinicaly localise that evasive quality of beauty. You tear open its petals, sepals, split the stem and bring everything to the laboratary where you have a powerful microscope. But alas, you will not find beauty. But only an enlarged version of the ugliness of petals and sepals separated from the whole system of beauty.

Well, if you analyse Kambars epic to its logical conclusion, it is just a jumble of 247 alphabets in Tamil, and each alphabet comprising of a number of dots. Manjula, there are times, where we have to look at the whole woods; there are times we shoul look at the trees. Times are there when we have to drive to the last level of detail; and sure there are times when we have to soar high in the skies and have the birds eye view of the entire panorama of life.
You can, if it is necessary, sacrifice the trees for the woods; but we do the other way round..... well, let Rama save us.
Varalotti

 

:bangcomp:wave
tx rv

 

Welcome To Kambar Again!

Most Gracious ILites,

I first thought of not posting any thing this saturday as we have not yet fully discussed the Wednesdays post on Kambar.

But seeing the ILites interest in Kambar ( in either praising him, or in analysing him or even in throwing him out) I thought I would post two verses this week with translation in the Saturdays thread.

Now it is up to Kamban and you,

Varalotti

 

If I had hurt you, I apologise, Manjula!

Dear Manjula,

I never meant that Kurangu Kaiyil Poomaalai which is nothing but destruction. I meant the poomaalai in the hands of an objective scientist who sees them with his microspic vision.
I will have to admit, Manjula, that your post was tops in terms of style and content. Like the way I read Lynne Truss I read it again and again to savour the sweetness of the style.
I have a very few ideals/icons/role-models outside the clan of established poets and the Azhwars. So a clinical analysis of Kambar sort of disturbed me and my response was an emotional outburst. Please forgive me if I had hurt you.
You might be aware of what is called the Ocums Razor. This is a concept in logic which says that when there is a clear, obvious meaning to a statement we will have to accept, however weird it may be. That is we should not take it to mean something else so as to make it sensible. But Ocums Razor is a logician's tool, part of a lawyer's kit and not a poet's companion or an aid to litrerary appreciation.
At the same time I am not for reading in meanings which the poet himself had not intended.
Since you also love Kannadasans lines, I will quote from him
ஒரு கோப்பையிலே என் குடியிருப்பு
ஒரு கோலமயில் என் துணையிருப்பு
Even a schoolboy knows that the poet is referring to drinks and woman. While we all appreciated Kannadasans candour and courage, it cannot be denied that these lines were intrepreted as statements of his character. It was an official proclamation of his weakness for wine and women.

When Kannadasan was felicitated in a function another small-time poet came to the daiz to give a different meaning to these lines. This song was written in 60s. At that time the fountain pen had not come. We had the ink-bottle and we had to dip the pen every now and then into it to continue writing.
This small-time poet said that the word koppaiyile refers to the ink-bottle and the word Kolamayil refers not to a woman, but figuratively to the pen. Thus these lines ultimately mean that Kannadasan loves to write all the time. There was a thunderous applause.
The next to talk was Kannadasan. Now Kannadasan was a good man with bad habits. He rose up and roared, "I did not mean that. I meant only the wine and the woman. Dont squeeze the poets' words so hard to get the meaning you want. Please leave them alone."

This time the applause was even greater. For any day truth is more lovable than false beauty.

But carried over by the love of your words, I have started arguing from your side. The above is an extreme example of reading into the poem what the poet himself has not intended to mean. I take this example as a limit. But the way I have intrepreted, I do not squeeze the words that much. And the meanings I have ascribed have the support of the consensus of the Tamil litrerary world.

But honestly, Manjula, I cannot distance myself from Kamban or Bharati or the Azhwars. They are not beautiful objects showcased in a museum, where you stand at a respectable distance to view them. They are the sea into which one has to plunge deeper and deeper to come out with the pearls. And it is then you realise that the sea and the pearls and the person who plunges in are one and the same.

At the risk of repetition let me tell you that
a) I loved your post very much. and
b) If I had hurt you, please forgive me.
regards,
varalotti
Kambaradipodi (I would love to have this name assigned by you. but there is already a Tamil poet by this name.)