The poet who was known to be a drug addict in his time almost begs Goddess Sakthi for help. It features an introspective and almost frustrated Bharathiyaar. The sheer depth in the words in this song blows me away to this day. Nalladhor Veenai Seithe (featured in Varumayin Niram Sivappu):
On a side note, this movie is truly worth a watch if you have not seen it.Ģ. In the movie, it features an actor playing Bharathiar and singing the song. But when it was written, this song was remarkably prescient. Today, it is easy for us to take all this for granted. Bharathiyaar foresaw a future where communication lines were blurred and global trade was the norm. Velli Panimalai (featured in Kappalottiya Tamizhan): Here is a very very small sampling of some of his work in musical form that has inspired me all these years.ġ. His command of the language was peerless. It would take a dozen posts to truly cover the breadth of work that Bharathiyaar produced in his short life- from his call for freedom to a remarkable vision of the future to his championing of women’s rights and his devotional songs. I wanted to take this brief moment to write a few words about his sheer body of work. Today, December 11th is Bharathiar’s birthday. It made me realize what I had learned by rote but never forced myself to appreciate was a joy to behold. The brilliant rendition of the episode of the game of dice from Mahabharata where Draupadi (Panchali) is disrobed in the Royal Court and her brothers and her swear revenge by the immortal poet and freedom fighter, Subramanya Bharathi opened the flood gates for me. And no greater was it felt beyond her handling of the epic “ Panchali Sabadham”. And over time, she started winning us over on the sheer joy of appreciating the wonders of Tamizh. And she took great interest in her students- as rowdy as they were like me. She loved the language in a way that was infectious. I was blessed to have a fantastic Tamizh teacher, Ms.Kausalya for whom I have the utmost respect even today. And the classes thrust a ton of material on you. The grammar was elaborate and took forever to figure out. Growing up as a student of Tamizh, I was often flummoxed by the complexity of the language.