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In this episode, we perceive the poignant emotions of a mother missing her daughter, as depicted in Sangam Literary work, Natrinai 184, written by an anonymous poet. Set in the drylands of the ‘Paalai’ landscape, the verse speaks in the voice of the mother, expressing her inconsolable sadness after her daughter’s departure.
ஒரு மகள் உடையேன் மன்னே; அவளும்
செரு மிகு மொய்ம்பின் கூர்வேற் காளையொடு
பெரு மலை அருஞ் சுரம் நெருநல் சென்றனள்;
”இனியே, தாங்கு நின் அவலம்” என்றிர்; அது மற்று
யாங்ஙனம் ஒல்லுமோ? அறிவுடையீரே!
உள்ளின் உள்ளம் வேமே-உண்கண்
மணி வாழ் பாவை நடை கற்றன்ன என்
அணி இயற் குறுமகள் ஆடிய
மணி ஏர் நொச்சியும் தெற்றியும் கண்டே.
Opening with a striking statement ‘ஒரு மகள் உடையேன்’ meaning ‘I have but one daughter’, the pithy poem pulls our attention. Learnt an ancient word for ‘strength’ in ‘மொய்ம்பு’. The words ‘நெருநல் சென்றனள்’ meaning ‘she left yesterday’ establishes the essence of the verse. A tiny but significant thing in a human body is brought into focus with the phrase ‘உண்கண் மணி வாழ் பாவை’, which means ‘the pupil that lives within a kohl-streaked eye’. What attention to detail! Images of the ‘நொச்சி’ or the ‘chaste tree’ and ‘தெற்றி’, which is ‘a raised platform on the verandah of a house’ sets the verse in context. A little poem that is packed with intense elements!
The man and lady have been in a love relationship for a while. Circumstances dictate that they have no other option but to elope to the man’s village and get married there. The lady’s mother learning that her child has left her home, breaks down. The people in her neighbourhood try to console her. To them, she says, “I have but one daughter. She too, has left yesterday to the difficult forest path through the mountains with that battle-hardened, strong young man with a sharp spear. You say, ‘Bear with your suffering!’ How is that possible, O knowledgeable people? When I think about it, my heart burns! Burn it does, whenever I glance at the porch or the sapphire-like ‘gnochi’ shrub near which my pretty young girl played, looking as if the pupil within a kohl-streaked eye has learnt to walk!” With these words, the mother gives expression to her pain at being separated from her dear daughter.
Now, for the subtle emotions and messages hiding within! The mother establishes how severe her pain is by stating right at the beginning that she has only one daughter. There is not another to take consolation in. Her only daughter has left with a strong, young man wielding a sharp spear. I appreciate the civil words that the mother uses to describe the one who has taken away her daughter. She doesn’t berate him but glorifies him for his strength. With that, she offers a subtle acceptance for her daughter’s choice. Then, she speaks about the words of others who try to console her saying, it is a natural thing and that her daughter has chosen to elope only because no other path seemed possible. But these are words from a logical mind! Mother seems to says this, through the epithet she uses for those who are consoling her. She calls them ‘the knowledgeable’! They speak of the world’s right and wrong from an objective perspective but what do they know of the pain in the heart?
The mother then opens her heart to show the wound within. Every time she looks at the chaste tree that the girl raised or the porch where she ran around playing, there’s a lash on that wound. She ends her outpouring with an exquisite simile saying that her pretty daughter was akin to the pupil in an eye that has learnt to walk and play. With this, the mother declares how she had protected her daughter within her eyes, raising her in the comfort of her home, guarding her from the world and now she feels as if the pupils in her eyes have left her. A portrayal of a mother blinded by the pain she feels! Searching more on this curious reference to the little dot within the eye, I learnt that the English expression ‘apple of the eye’ originally referred to the aperture in the eye, which has now come to mean, someone special or cherished. Languages change, but this expression of affection seems to extend like that pupil of the eye that’s looking at a beloved!
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