Pollen shade in my eyes

My eyes are dull and lifeless because of him, and how do you expect me to let him come in?

Image:thanks Google

Feast her eyes

Oh, Mother! Will the diviner heal her sickness? Instead, make her stand on the boulder and look at his beautiful blooming hills. That will make her feel better making her jewels stay without loosening.

Image: thanks Google

Wax ablaze

Ainkurunooru 32 sung by poet Orampokiyaar in marutham thinai. (click to read about it).
The poem depicts the words of the heroine to her friend while the messengers also were listening. They had come requesting permission for the hero to come to the heroine's house.

Sentinel of rainy hills

Ainkurunooru 206

Sung by poet Kapilar, depicted as the words spoken by the thozhi (heroine's friend) to the 
thalaivi (heroine). It is a Kurinji thinai (click to know more about this) song. 

Rain clouds hover

Ainkurunooru 207, Sung by poet Kapilar
Kurinji thinai poem as spoken by the friend to the thalaivi (heroine).
"annAi vAzhi vEndu annai nandrum
unangala kollO ninthinaiyE uvakkAn
ninam podhi vazhukkin thOndrum
mazhaithalai vaiththa avarmani nedungkundrE"

To read the original poem and my explanation in Tamil, please click here.

Poem meaning: Long live my mother! Please Listen! Your millet fields will not dry up. Look at the rain clouds over his(thalaivan's) beautiful high hills, like fat covering fatty meat!

Description: The heroine usually meets the hero in secrecy while she goes to guard her millet crops.  This is the typical subject of the kurinji thinai poems. Now she is worried that the crops won't grow and the fields would go dry due to lack of rain. In that case she won't be able to meet her beloved. The heroine's friend(thozhi) points to the rain clouds hovering over the hero's mountains and consoles the heroine that it would rain and her millet field won't go dry. The friend just shows the rain clouds and says the millet field won't go dry. She implies that the heroine would be able to meet the hero. Her words give hope to the heroine. It was usual to call a friend as 'mother' out of affection.

Word meanings: annAi - mother, vAzhi - long live, vEndu - request, annai - mother, nandrum - it's good, unangala kollO - will not go barren/dry, nin thinayE - your millet field, uvakkAn - look there, ninam - fat, podhi - studded, vazhukkin - meat, thOndrum - appears, mazhai - mazhaithalai vaiththu - covered with rain clouds, avar maninedungkundrE - his beautiful high hills

My English Version:
"Long live mother! Please listen!
Your millet fields won't go barren;
Look there! Like fat covering fatty meat
Rain clouds hover his beautiful summit!"

Jewels of women loosen - Ainkurunooru 25

'Ettuththokai' meaning the Eight anthologies is a collection of poems from ancient Tami literature or the Sangam Literature. The lifestyle of the people was dependent on the nature of the landforms. Hence the poems are also categorized into five landforms typically called as five 'thinai's. Those are kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai. Kurinji refers to the mountains and adjoining lands. Mullai refers to the forests and adjoining lands. Marutham refers to the plains and adjoining lands. Neithal refers to the sea and adjoining lands. Palai doesn't have a separate landform, thereby the Kurinji and Mullai lands dried by drought were referred to as Paalai. This is just a small intruduction to get you all started. I will discuss more about these thinais in different posts from now on. Of the five, Marutham poems speak of the hero's infidelity and the heroine's sorrow.

Among the eight anthologies, Ainkurunooru is a collection of 500 short poems. Each thinai has 100 poems based on it. So a 100 poems numbered 1 to 100 are based on Marutham thinai which speak of the hero's infidelity. These poems were sung by a poet named Orampogiyaar.

Let us see one such poem, which is the 25th poem in the Ainkurunooru collection.