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In this episode, we perceive an anguished question put forth, as portrayed in Sangam Literary work, Aganaanooru 327, penned by Marunkoorpaakai Saathan Poothanaar. Set in the ‘Paalai’ or ‘Drylands Landscape’, the verse presents a vivid portrait of this domain.
‘இன்பமும் இடும்பையும், புணர்வும் பிரிவும்,
நன்பகல் அமையமும் இரவும் போல,
வேறு வேறு இயல ஆகி, மாறு எதிர்ந்து,
உள” என உணர்ந்தனைஆயின், ஒரூஉம்
இன்னா வெஞ் சுரம், நல் நசை துரப்ப,
துன்னலும் தகுமோ? துணிவு இல் நெஞ்சே!
நீ செல வலித்தனைஆயின், யாவதும்
நினைதலும் செய்தியோ எம்மே கனை கதிர்
ஆவி அவ் வரி நீர் என நசைஇ,
மா தவப் பரிக்கும் மரல் திரங்கு நனந்தலை,
களர் கால் யாத்த கண் அகல் பரப்பின்
செவ் வரை கொழி நீர் கடுப்ப, அரவின்
அவ் வரி உரிவை அணவரும் மருங்கின்,
புற்று அரை யாத்த புலர் சினை மரத்த,
மைந் நிற உருவின், மணிக் கண் காக்கை
பைந் நிணம் கவரும் படு பிணக் கவலைச்
சென்றோர் செல்புறத்து இரங்கார் கொன்றோர்,
கோல் கழிபு இரங்கும் அதர,
வேய் பயில் அழுவம் இறந்த பின்னே?
In this trip to this familiar domain, we get to see many different sights, as we listen to the man say these words to his heart, when it insists that he part away with the lady and go in search of wealth:
“Knowing fully well that joy and sorrow, togetherness and separation, akin to day and night, are of varying natures and stand opposing each other’, is it right on your part to nudge me to leave to those disagreeable and formidable hot drylands, so as to seek wealth, O heart bereft of clarity?!
If you were to insist on my leaving, did you even think a little about her state, after I part away to those drylands, where seeing the mirage owing to the deceiving rays of the sun, thinking it’s water, animals run around languishing, amidst those wide spaces, filled with saline soil, where even the sturdy hemp withers, and here, akin to thick cascades that descend deftly from tall, red mountains, the beautiful, striped skin, shed by snakes, lie upon towering termite mounds, near which stands a tree with dried branches, upon one of which sits a sapphire-eyed, kohl-hued crow, feeding on fresh flesh, stolen from the corpses of wayfarers, killed by others, who have no care about those who died but worry only about the arrows that they lost, in those bamboo-filled harsh spaces!”
Let’s brave the dangers of this domain and learn more! The man starts by accusing his heart of knowing that joy and sorrow, being together and being apart are as distinct as day and night, and yet asking him to give up the former and go do the latter. He pointedly asks his heart whether it thought about what the state of the lady would be if he were to part away. In the final segment, the man takes us to the drylands, filled with mirages that make thirsty animals stumble, so covered in infertile, salty soil that even the sturdiest of flora, the hemp droops down. Then the man concludes by presenting a succession of well-stitched images, first the skin of snakes, lying on termite mounds ,and looking like the cascades descending from high mountains, and near those termite mounds, stands a tree with dried-up branches, and on one branch, sits a crow, feeding on flesh, but that which came from a corpse, felled by highway robbers, who worry not about the death of those wayfarers but only about the arrows they lost in the process!
It’s the man’s way of refusing the nudge of his heart to part away from his beloved on the trail of ambition. A unique aspect of this verse is the way the drylands are etched by presenting one element after the other in succession, as in that snake skin lying on the termite mound, a dried-up tree nearby, a crow sitting on the branch of that tree, and feeding on the flesh of wayfarers. This reminds me of the ancient ‘Byobu’ art of the Japanese, wherein they would paint a wide scene on successive panels of a folding screen seamlessly, and which leaves you in the flowing presence of a moment, filled with detail and precision. Different cultures, different art forms but the same beating heart at the core!
