Classical Tamil Love Poetry
Ainkurunuru or Five Hundred Short Poems
by
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The way an Akam poem succeeds in its task of communication is through the deployment of mutal, karu and uri. Mutal which means ‘first’ or ‘the basic’ makes the statement of place and time. Karu identifies the flora and fauna of the region or the people who inhabit it. These two give a local habitation and a name lending what Henry James would call “the solidity of specification.” But the ancient Tamil poets do much more than that. They use the mutal and karu in order to bring out the uri which is actually the meat of the poem: the human feeling. All these three orchestrate the meaning, not didactically but through a subtle interplay of images, metaphors and similes.
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About the Book
Ainkurunuru is a collection of five hundred poems written by five different poets who lived two thousand years before. It tells you the story of the lovers, their sadness, joy, jealousies, and quarrels in verses of breathtaking sophistication and indirection. It is about the art and life of a people almost irretrievably lost, found in palm script, and restored by scholars in love with the Tamil language.
About the Author
M Nazir Ali has been teaching literature in the colleges of Pondicherry for more than two decades. His poems and articles have appeared in Indian Literature and Transfire, both devoted to translations. He lives in Pondicherry, a town with a great deal of French heritage, with his wife, son and daughter. He likes backpacking through rugged mountain paths while vacationing.