Kallellam Manikka Kal Aaguma - Aalayamani

Here I am, sitting all alone on a Saturday afternoon after watching my favorite college basket ball team (UConn Huskies) blow past Texas A&M... Scanning some of the old songs, I came across this.

The master, Kannadasan, has done a fabulous job thinking outside the box, as always. Sivaji - TMS combination is perfect. Saroja Devi - too fat, too artificial, I am sorry I have no idea why she was such a big hit those days!!!

Getting back to the song - "Would any stone be as precious as Ruby (mAnikkam)? Would all Art be what your eyes are conveying?" Would any word be a pure Tamil word? Would any sweet be as sweet as your lips?"

"It is Thiruvacagam that exposed the beauty of young Tamil. Your (tamil) words turn stones into fruits. It is your eyes that say "Yes", but your hips say "No", those hips that look like lightning". Though the subtelity of the message here is lost in translation, I still remember my Thyagaraja master in high school who defined the "perfect" Tamil woman - with Minnal Idai (lightening hips) and thunder thodai (thunder thighs). He would draw, with a single line representing the hip and a large butt and associated large thighs... The large thighs, he would say, have a serious purpose!!! Oh, good old days in Colombo!!!

"Your mother was Kamban's Seetha; Your daughter is Kalidasa's Shakunthala; You are the Amaravathi that Ambikapathi hugged passionately". Let me not transate the last line.

So, all these seemingly disconnected sentences... I think the power of this song has to do with the rhymes and what some would consider the typical Kannadasan double speak. Sick minds would interpret "Your thundar thighs say "No"" one way and the others some other way. Same way - why is the hip compared to the lightening - it has something to do with how thin it is, but also may have a deeper meaning in that just like the lightening has a path and effect where it strikes, hip may be compared to that... I know that I am not making sense here, that is because I need to be careful about what I want to say. Enjoy the song though: