Aganaanooru 316 – Fate of a fighting woman

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‘துறை மீன் வழங்கும் பெரு நீர்ப் பொய்கை,
அரி மலர் ஆம்பல் மேய்ந்த நெறி மருப்பு
ஈர்ந் தண் எருமைச் சுவல் படு முது போத்து,
தூங்கு சேற்று அள்ளல் துஞ்சி, பொழுது பட,
பைந் நிண வராஅல் குறையப் பெயர்தந்து,
குரூஉக் கொடிப் பகன்றை சூடி, மூதூர்ப்
போர் செறி மள்ளரின் புகுதரும் ஊரன்
தேர் தர வந்த, தெரிஇழை, நெகிழ் தோள்,
ஊர் கொள்கல்லா மகளிர் தரத் தர
பரத்தைமை தாங்கலோ இலென்’ என வறிது நீ
புலத்தல் ஒல்லுமோ? மனை கெழு மடந்தை!
அது புலந்து உறைதல் வல்லியோரே,
செய்யோள் நீங்க, சில் பதம் கொழித்து,
தாம் அட்டு உண்டு, தமியர் ஆகி,
தே மொழிப் புதல்வர் திரங்கு முலை சுவைப்ப,
வைகுநர் ஆகுதல் அறிந்தும்,
அறியார் அம்ம, அஃது உடலுமோரே!

In our visit to this quarrelsome landscape, we get to see the usual flora and fauna, and learn something about what was expected from the woman at home, as we listen to the confidante say these words to the lady, at a time when the man had previously left the lady to court courtesans but had now returned home, seeking entry into the lady’s house, and having managed to convince the lady’s confidante about his cause:

“In a pond with deep waters on that river shore brimming with fish, an aged male buffalo with a moist cool back and curving horns grazes upon the pretty flowers of the white lily, then sleeps amidst the thick, slushy mud, and waking at dawn, trampling on the fatty flesh of murrel fish, steps out, wearing radiant flowers of rattle-pod vines, appearing like a warrior, who has returned to his ancient town after a battle victory. Such is the town of the lord! Saying, ‘The lord seems unable to resist the attraction of those courtesans, who do not yield to the customs of a town, for he roves around with those maiden, clad in well-etched jewels, in his chariot ceaselessly’, you lament uselessly, O maiden who brightens the home! Is this right on your part? Those who think they can live forever sulking with their husbands, will soon find that the goddess of wealth forsakes them, and they will end up cooking and feeding on but a few grains of rice, living all alone, as their honey-voiced infants suck helplessly at their shrivelled breasts. Those who live in such a state of quarrelling, without accepting their men, even after knowing that this would happen, are utterly foolish indeed!”

Time to take a dip into the slushy ponds of this wealthy domain! The confidante starts by describing the man’s town, and to do that, she brings forth the scene of an aged male buffalo feeding on white lilies in the lush ponds and sleeping in the muddy waters at night, and then at the crack of dawn, the buffalo would step out of the pond, trampling the poor murrel fish there, and walk on, wearing a vine of rattlepod flowers around its head, looking like a victorious warrior returning to his home town after a battle. After all these verses, you would know that the scene of the buffalo is a metaphor for the man enjoying the company of courtesans and then returning home to his wife.

Turning from that dynamic image of the buffalo, the confidante moves on to describe the lady’s stance saying the lady had been complaining how the man was not resisting the charm of those courtesans, who were trying to tempt him, for he kept yielding to them and taking them around in his chariot and courting with them endlessly. Then, instead of supporting her friend, this confidante asks whether this is right on the lady’s part to keep quarrelling with the man so, and ends with a generic statement about the fate of those women, who do not accept their men in such circumstances, saying that poverty would take residence with them and that their children would not even find milk in their dried-up breasts. 

I know! Such a difficult verse to process! I took a long time to understand what the confidante was saying and to accept these as her words. The confidante is a person whom I always held in high regard for her selfless love towards the lady but here she seems to dash it all to the ground, when she asks the lady to accept the man, no matter what his wrongdoings were!

Having given vent to my feelings as a modern woman of the twenty-first century, let me try to see where this friend is coming from. She seems to be talking in a tone of exasperation with the lady’s attitude and that tells one good thing that the lady is refusing to accept the man stubbornly. This verse reveals that the fact a man will meander was a taken-for-granted thing in that rich society and it was an implicit rule that his woman should accept such misgivings of his. So, here the confidante is trying to threaten the lady into submitting to the man’s reconciliation, by talking about a horrible fate that awaits if she does not. Is the confidante simply frightening the lady or speaking what she sees as true?

And, the most disturbing thing about this verse is that it has been written by a female poet. But why blame that poet? All of us, at all times, are in some sense, a victim of our times. We operate within the boundaries of what we know as right, and that truth seems to be a changing phantom across the ages.

Let’s focus on the positives of the past, noting how the woman had the right to dissent and refuse such a lord with wealth and power, regardless of their views about what a wife should do. Also, let’s rejoice in the strides women have made here and in many parts of the world in overcoming the shackles of such patriarchal views. At the same time, we must not forget the plight of our sisters and mothers in some parts of the world, who suffer a fate, worse than even this wife from the Sangam era, two thousand years ago. They are fighting in the dark against an all-consuming power that denies them education and even freedom! Here’s wishing for them and every last woman the sweet fate of throwing away those chains that bind them and soar as an equal in the sky of humankind!