Yesterday I was at a concert by one of my favourite Carnatic vocalists, called TM Krishna. My mother was with me for this concert and was whispering at the end of nearly every song that he had not sung any Tamil song so far. It’s a thing with the Tamil audience. Although we appreciate the fact that most of the songs sung in these concerts are bound to be in Telugu or Sanskrit, we expect/hope that the artist will sing at least one Tamil song. The concert was nearing the end, and TMK had already announced that he would be singing 2 more songs. Someone in the audience asked for a song by Subramanya Bharathi (or Bharathiar as he is popularly known), since it was his birthday yesterday. TMK obliged with one of my favourite songs by the poet, called ‘Chinnanchiru Kiliye’. He sang the song in a set of ragams different from the usual way it is sung. All the way back, my mother and I were talking about this song.
Bharathiar was known for his patriotic poems mostly. A very forward thinking person, he wrote poems about an independent India even before it became a reality. Bharathi was also a believer in the equality of women and men and spoke openly against casteism. We are talking about the early 1900s so it is easy to understand how revolutionary these thoughts were at that time. There are numerous sources about the man and his life. So I am not going to go into a lot of details here.
People interested in Tamil poetry have an emotional attachment towards Bharathi and his poetry. Although I never studied Tamil as a subject in school save for one year when I learnt the alphabets, my mother ensured that my siblings and I were taught the language at home. I was fascinated by some of the poems (or at least what I could make of them) by Bharathiar at a very young age. Some of these poems were used in Tamil films too.
Bharathiar wrote extensively on both nationalism and on religion. His favourite deities were Shakti and Krishna. And on Lord Krishna (or Kannan), he wrote various poems. Unlike any other poet, Bharathi imagined Krishna in multiple forms – a friend, a child, a daughter, a servant, God, a lover (male and female) and so on. This song I mentioned above is written treating Krishna as a daughter. I am not very good at translating poems since the beauty of any poem is not just in the meaning but also in the words used and the feeling it generates cannot be fully replicated while translating from one language to another. You can check this thread for an approximate translation.
This song represents a lot more than just a song for many of us. I remember my sister’s wedding. My senses were still dulled and the fact that my sister was getting married had not struck me at all. And then she walked out all dressed up for one of the ceremonies and my aunts were singing this song and all of a sudden it hit me – my kid sister who had been a child till then, was going to leave the childhood behind for good!! And tears welled up in my eyes. My mother who heard the song started crying too. For many years, every time she heard the song, she would immediately start thinking of my sister or me. Today the song reminds her of my little niece and gets emotional every time! I cannot sing the song without feeling a little emotional myself.
I have held my niece often from the time she was 10 days old and I cannot believe how beautifully Bharathi has captured the feeling of holding/hugging one’s daughter (‘Unnai thazhuvidilo Kannamma Unmatham aagudadi’ – When I hug you, I feel beyond myself). And I understand the feeling of bursting with pride when anybody praises my niece and Bharathi has experienced it too (‘Mechi unnai ooraar pugazhndal meni silirkudadi’ – When people praise you, I get goosebumps).
The song is so close to my heart that I am extremely possessive about it. I find it difficult to brush it aside as a ‘nice song’ or ‘nice lyrics’. The only version of this song that I can admit as being close to what I feel about it is the violin version by the genius Lalgudi G Jayaraman. So when TMK sang a technically perfect version of the song, my intellect was telling me to nod in my appreciation and my heart was telling me that this one shares the words with ‘my’ song, but it was not the same. The words were there, the tune was good (though not the same), but the emotional prowess that the song has, was missing.
Bharathiar was known for his patriotic poems mostly. A very forward thinking person, he wrote poems about an independent India even before it became a reality. Bharathi was also a believer in the equality of women and men and spoke openly against casteism. We are talking about the early 1900s so it is easy to understand how revolutionary these thoughts were at that time. There are numerous sources about the man and his life. So I am not going to go into a lot of details here.
People interested in Tamil poetry have an emotional attachment towards Bharathi and his poetry. Although I never studied Tamil as a subject in school save for one year when I learnt the alphabets, my mother ensured that my siblings and I were taught the language at home. I was fascinated by some of the poems (or at least what I could make of them) by Bharathiar at a very young age. Some of these poems were used in Tamil films too.
Bharathiar wrote extensively on both nationalism and on religion. His favourite deities were Shakti and Krishna. And on Lord Krishna (or Kannan), he wrote various poems. Unlike any other poet, Bharathi imagined Krishna in multiple forms – a friend, a child, a daughter, a servant, God, a lover (male and female) and so on. This song I mentioned above is written treating Krishna as a daughter. I am not very good at translating poems since the beauty of any poem is not just in the meaning but also in the words used and the feeling it generates cannot be fully replicated while translating from one language to another. You can check this thread for an approximate translation.
This song represents a lot more than just a song for many of us. I remember my sister’s wedding. My senses were still dulled and the fact that my sister was getting married had not struck me at all. And then she walked out all dressed up for one of the ceremonies and my aunts were singing this song and all of a sudden it hit me – my kid sister who had been a child till then, was going to leave the childhood behind for good!! And tears welled up in my eyes. My mother who heard the song started crying too. For many years, every time she heard the song, she would immediately start thinking of my sister or me. Today the song reminds her of my little niece and gets emotional every time! I cannot sing the song without feeling a little emotional myself.
I have held my niece often from the time she was 10 days old and I cannot believe how beautifully Bharathi has captured the feeling of holding/hugging one’s daughter (‘Unnai thazhuvidilo Kannamma Unmatham aagudadi’ – When I hug you, I feel beyond myself). And I understand the feeling of bursting with pride when anybody praises my niece and Bharathi has experienced it too (‘Mechi unnai ooraar pugazhndal meni silirkudadi’ – When people praise you, I get goosebumps).
The song is so close to my heart that I am extremely possessive about it. I find it difficult to brush it aside as a ‘nice song’ or ‘nice lyrics’. The only version of this song that I can admit as being close to what I feel about it is the violin version by the genius Lalgudi G Jayaraman. So when TMK sang a technically perfect version of the song, my intellect was telling me to nod in my appreciation and my heart was telling me that this one shares the words with ‘my’ song, but it was not the same. The words were there, the tune was good (though not the same), but the emotional prowess that the song has, was missing.
