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In this episode, we witness a thoughtful technique in refusing something, as depicted in Sangam Literary work, Natrinai 156, penned by Kannan Kottranaar. Set in the mountain country of ‘Kurinji’, the verse speaks in the voice of the confidante to the man, when he arrives to tryst with the lady that night.
நீயே, அடி அறிந்து ஒதுங்கா ஆர் இருள் வந்து, எம்
கடியுடை வியல் நகர்க் காவல் நீவியும்,
பேர் அன்பினையே-பெருங் கல் நாட!-
யாமே, நின்னும் நின் மலையும் பாடி, பல் நாள்
சிறு தினை காக்குவம் சேறும்; அதனால்,
பகல் வந்தீமோ, பல் படர் அகல!
எருவை நீடிய பெரு வரைச் சிறுகுடி
அரியல் ஆர்ந்தவர் ஆயினும், பெரியர்;
பாடு இமிழ் விடர் முகை முழங்க,
ஆடு மழை இறுத்தது, எம் கோடு உயர் குன்றே.
Opening with ‘நீயே’ meaning ‘you’ and a few lines thereafter, continuing with ‘யாமே’ meaning ‘we’, the poem promises two different perspectives. ‘ஆர் இருள்’ talks about ‘a deep darkness’ that we can only imagine in these days of omnipresent, artificial lighting. ‘வியல் நகர்’ talks about a ‘huge mansion’, revealing the affluence of the lady’s home. The phrase ‘பேர் அன்பினையே’ extols a person epitomising them with the ‘great love they possess’. Equipped with our knowledge of Sangam pursuits, we immediately understand that ‘சிறு தினை காக்குவம்’ refers to ‘women guarding millet fields on mountain slopes’. The verse ends with the imagery of ‘ஆடு மழை இறுத்தது’ meaning ‘roving clouds thicken’. The plot too thickens and beckons us to understand more!
The man and lady have been in a love relationship and meeting with each other through their nightly trysts. The lady worries that the man seems not too keen on formalising their union and confides in her friend. The confidante decides that she should find a way to make the man realise the seriousness of the situation. One night, when the man comes by to their home, the confidante says to him, “O lord of the great mountains! You arrive when there is an intense darkness all around, where it’s impossible to see where you are walking. Then, you evade the guards in our well-protected, wide mansion. All this is possible because of your great love. As we have been assigned to guard the millet fields, we are to be there for quite a few days and we will sing praises of you and your mountains. So, to remove sufferings many, come by there, during the day. In this little hamlet in the mountain slope, filled with reeds, although fond of the toddy drink, our kith and kin are renowned for their fury. That echoing thunder seems to resound in all the crevices and those roaming clouds seem to crowd around the high peaks near our village!” With these words, the confidante not only refuses the nightly tryst but also hints in a subtle manner that the man must seek the lady’s hand in marriage, without further delay.
The meaning of the verse tells us nothing about how the confidante is going about her task of persuading the man to seek a formal union. For that, we will have to dive deep into the intricacies of this verse. First, let’s pay attention to how the confidante opens this difficult conversation of refusing the man. A moment to reflect on the social dynamics of these two characters. The confidante is considered to be on a lower social rank than the lady and the man. So, to outright tell the man ‘no’ would be an unthinkable act to the confidante, in those times. Insightful is the way she goes about this! She first says positive words about the man, declaring that he must indeed be someone filled with immense love, for he overcomes the many obstacles in his path in order to be there. One, there’s that frightening darkness in the man’s path. Then, it’s their mansion that’s fiercely protected with guards many. But, the man surpasses all these impediments and flies to the lady on the wings of his love. The confidante salutes this fact first. Then, instead of saying ‘No, don’t come now’, she offers an alternative and asks the man to come by, during the day, not to the mansion but to the millet fields, which the lady has been assigned to guard. To lessen the blow, the confidante adds how important the man is to the lady and says, as the lady goes about her tasks in the millet fields, it’s the man she will be singing about. This goes to impress upon the man that the lady loves him immensely and this temporary ‘no’ is not a rejection of him!
After the confidante has praised the positive attributes of the man and offered an alternative, she then turns her attention to the task of prodding the man to pursue marriage rather than trysts by day or night. It’s to aid her in this task she mentions about the nature of those mountain folk. She accepts that indeed they love their toddy and are given to intoxication. While this behaviour could make the man think that they can be easily fooled, the confidante stresses when it comes to expressing their rage, they hold back nothing. From the nature of their kith and kin, she turns to nature outside and brings to the man’s attention, how thunder is resounding in all the mountain clefts and how dark clouds are surrounding the little hamlet! While this may seem like idle talk about the weather just then, the confidante is in fact alluding to the consequences of the trysts by the day, where there’s a clear possibility of being seen by others. Like thunder up above, the village women are bound to make gossip resound in all the nooks and corners in their village. In the subtlest of ways, the confidante thus highlights to the man, that though she may seem to be suggesting a tryst by the day with the lady, even that will make dark clouds appear on the sky of their romance. A sensitive song that works closely with the psychology of an individual to handle the hard task of refusing someone a desired thing and pointing them in the path of positive alternatives!
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