Manjanathi puranam : A timeless elegy

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Elegies are often " Why did you leave me? What do I do now that you've left? What do I do with the void you've left behind, with this immobile grief? The void you've left takes so much space in me that I'm slipping into it." 

And seldom  "I'm grateful for what we had when you were here. I'll think of you from time to time and tell our tale every time I do so. Thank you for the fondest memories. I will let you go, but hold on to these strings that would sometimes sing for you, that would occasionally sing of you." 

Manjanathi puranam from Karnan emphasises the latter rather than the former and hence stands out. 


"En Kakkathula Vecha Thunda Tholu Mela Pottuvutta! 

Erumaiyaattam Thirinja Payala Yaanai Mela Yethuna" 

What is love if not building each other up? 

For it isn't just falling together, but holding and lifting each other. 

For worse and for better, no? 

And what adds to the beauty is that there are no unrealistic metaphors or exaggerations, but just mundane life. There's just the raw and strong flavour of love. 

Art is tricky, it turns melancholy and tragedy into beauty. 

Yeman singing about his beloved Manjanathi decades after her demise kind of reminds me of a line from a Shakespeare sonnet on how there's not enough time to destroy love, not even death could do it. 

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

but bears it out even to the edge of doom."


And at the end, Yeman breaks down like any normal human, saying, " I am indeed grateful for the time we had, but I grieve the days that we could have lived." 


It's just so realistic and beautiful that I think it's an elegy that would live forever. 

Comments

  1. Ichigo_18March 12, 2023 at 10:56 AM

    Akka moss🔥

    ReplyDelete
  2. ThaarahhhMarch 12, 2023 at 1:33 PM

    And that's why Manjanathi puranam must be praised❤

    ReplyDelete
  3. Arun kumarMarch 12, 2023 at 7:56 PM

    One more beauty of this song is that, Yeman sings about his love life with Manjanathi, which on the other hand stirs the romantic conflict between Karnan and Draupathai.

    ReplyDelete
  4. SurekaMarch 10, 2024 at 2:00 PM

    the most favouriteeeee one so farr ♥️

    ReplyDelete

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