Love And Landscapes In Sangam Poetry

The Kurunthokai is an akam work; the poetry deals with the affairs of the heart. These poems are often multilayered, with many metaphors that work together to paint a picture. When approaching a Kurunthokai poem, it may be useful to think of it as a play that is staged before our eyes.

When the curtain opens, even before the dramatis personae can enter, we are confronted with a scene that delineates time and place. We may see flowers and animals, birds and trees, gods and goddesses, and seasonal markers like rainfall or bright sunshine. We may hear the ocean in the distance, or the roar of a waterfall. We may see a few actors on the stage - they could be portraying tribeswomen in the hills collecting honey, or farmers going to their fields, or herdsmen with their cows. This ‘landscape’ on the stage sets the tone for the poem. It primes the reader for a certain emotional context.

This landscape is called a thinai. The more familiar we get with these poems, the more clear the connection between the landscape in nature and the landscape of the heart becomes.

For example, the poem for this week is set in the Kurinji thinai, also written by Alloor Nanmullaiyar, a female poet whose name may be familiar from last week’s poem. Kurinji refers to a particular universe that signifies love and happy union. The stage is set in a mountainous landscape, its cool climes conducive for love. Splendid peacocks, majestic elephants, playful monkeys, forests filled with sweet-smelling flowers where young couples can frolic, giant kino (vengai) trees,  jackfruit trees weighed down by their pendulous fruits, rushing waterfalls, honeycombs dripping honey... an ideal setting for love indeed.

But it would be incorrect to take these natural features as mere stage decorations or backdrop. In the Sangam poem, the trees, mountains, animals flowers and water bodies are  all actors in their own right. The travails and fortunes of the young lovers are played out by these actors in nature.

The world of the akam poem is a world of much subtlety and allusion. There are very few contexts where the thalaivan and thalaivi, hero and heroine, are pictured even talking directly to each other. The full flow of their feelings - whether it is in declaring their love, their anxiety about future unions or hurt feelings are mediated through her friend, the thozhi. Nature becomes the screen on which their emotions are painted. These poems are in no way prudish. They speak of lovemaking with an elegant sensibility, as seen in this poem.

This poem moves from nature’s stage to the characters’ emotional state; from the outer world to the inner world, as is typical of the akam poem. It opens with two images connected only by the colour pink: the pink feet of quails, பூழ்க்கால் (poozhkkaal), and the pink sprouts and stalks of the ulundhu (black mung) bean plant.

The word பூழ் (poozh) refers to a quail. We have references of birdfighting that was a popular sport in the Sangam age, where quails (குறும்பூழ்- kurumpoozh) would spar with each other, their claws flying in the air, their legs flashing pink, tangled in each other. While the poem only refers to the pink feet of quails, I see the the ferocity and urgency of their feet in battle as the key image. It sets up the image of the lovers’ early meetings - the urgency and intensity of their lovemaking, their raw youth. The delicate pinkness of the ulunthu bean sprout could also be interpreted to symbolize their youth.

When the thalaivi speaks this poem, she is agonized. She had met the thalaivan secretly many times, they had made love, but it has been many days since she met him last. He had promised to return before the ulundhu plant flowered; the flowers have turned into black pods and the pods are overripe, but he still hasn’t returned. The early winter (mun-pani-kaalam) is here, a season typical in a Kurinji poem. The cool season sharpens her longing for him.

So in that state of longing, she says: beans, when they sprout, are pink, but if you leave the ripening pods on the stalk for too long a time, then they would be stolen away by herds of deer! This is purely descriptive, but alludes clearly to her state. She used to be young and happy, but now she is pining for him. Her desire for him has ripened, and she can’t stand the separation any longer. Just as the deer would steal the overripe bean pods, her affliction of longing would steal her health away, and the passing time would steal her youth away. This season is cold, she says. I can’t bear it! There’s only one cure: his broad chest, his embraces.

Thus there are two narrative arcs in the poem that run in parallel. The first is the life cycle of the ulundhu bean, going from a pink sprout to a flowering plant to its fruiting stage to its overripe pods being snatched away. The second is the story of the thalaivi’s love - from intense initial meetings to the thalaivan’s absence to her present painful state. They take place in the same landscape, Kurinji, one heightening the experience of the other.

The poem has room for interpretation that refers subtly to both their past lovemaking, and her anticipation of future happiness with him. It ends on a high note, where she clearly says that the only thing that would do good for her is him, his loving embrace. Despite its painful voice, the poem celebrates their union and their love; it is suffused with the essence of Kurinji.

68.

பூழ்க்கால் அன்ன செங்கால் உழுந்தின்

ஊழ்ப்படு முது காய் உழை இனம் கவரும்

அரும்பனி அற்சிரம் தீர்க்கும்

மருந்து பிறிதில்லை அவர் மணந்த மார்பே.

-அல்லூர் நன்முல்லையார் , திணை: குறிஞ்சி

Ulundhu bean-sprouts

are freshly pink,

        like the tangled feet

        of sparring game-quails,

but left on the stalk

      beyond their time,

their overripe pods

are snatched away

by rampaging herds of deer!

It’s early winter already;

this season’s agony,

unbearable;

and there’s but one cure for it:

      to be enveloped

      once more

      in the strong arms

      and the broad breast

    of my man.

-Alloor Nanmullaiyar, Thinai: Kurinji