Thursday, March 26, 2015

A lyrical Masterpiece - Saagavaram

I have been resisting the temptation to post about the greatness of  Uthama Villian Songs particularly after several people accused me of being biased. However, I have ceased controlling the temptation simply because of  'Saagavaram' song. I am not sure whether any of you had the chance to listen to it. After listening (several times) to the song 'Saagavaram', something struck me and I found out today that this song is a masterpiece. I am not talking the music ( I know very little about music) , but the lyrics...  

To just give everybody a background, this song (i think) is being rendered by a theatre artist (who unfortunately has avoided death 5 times) to his king (who is adamant on being immortal) about life, death, rebirth and why immortality is a much worser situation than death. The lyrics are deep.. Very deep..I have tried to translate/give my views whereever possible. 

Saagaavaram pol sogam undo Kelai manna (kelai manna)...
Theeraa kadhaiyai ketpaar un do Kelai manna (kelai manna)....

[Is there a bigger sadness than having a boon to not be able to die ?
 Is there anyone who wishes to listen to an everlasting story ?]

Kaniyar kanitha kanakku padi naam kaanam ulagidhu vatta pandham (Oooo..)vatta pandham(Oooo..)
vatta pandhai vattamadikkum mattra pandhum pogum maande...

[ As per mathematicians's and scientist's , this earth is a round ball.. 
  The round balls (read other planets/satelites) that rotate this ball(earth) will perish one day]

Maala oliyaam nyayirum kooda matror yugathil pogum karindhe
Karindhe erindhum veditha pinnum udikkum kulambil uyirgal mulaikkum
[Even the Sun (which is thought to have constant source of light} will perish one day in a different yuga..
 However, life will emerge out of the debris of the burnt and destroyed sun (a la Big Bang theory)]

Mulaithu murikum thulirkum vaazhai thaan maranathuku ulle vetihadhu vidhayai 
[Even the plaintain plant provides for a seed of life when it dies]

Vidhaithidum unnai pol oru uyirai uyirthu vilangum en kavidhai vilangum kavidhai vilangum(Oooo..)
Vilangi pulangidum vamsam vaazha vaazhum naalil kadamai seiyya
seiyul pol oru kaadhal vendum Kaadhal vendum (seiyul pol oru )Kaadhal vendum (seiyul pol oru )

Vendiyathellam vaitha oruvan..saavayum vendi setha kadhaigal aayiram undu
[Self explanatory]

Its not over yet.. To give meaning and context to the song, even the lyrics are written in such a manner that the last word of the every sentence is the first word of the next sentence (i have highlighted by making the relevant words in 'bold') thus possibly bringing the meaning that every 'end'(death) has a 'beginning'(birth).. and every beginning has an end.. 

What lyrics !!! - 

SALUTE

P.S. - I am no Tamil Scholar..  I am just a fan of pure awesomeness. 

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome post! I became a big fan of this song...its just awesome.

Anonymous said...

Awesome post! I became a big fan of this song...its just awesome.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant song... Thanks for the translation...

బీపీ said...

thanks for the post Sundar raaman! :)
It's always a pleasure discovering yet another 'Adavar rasigan'!

just wanted to share this link here:

http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%A3%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D

Anonymous said...

One of the best....thanks for your translation....was searching for it high and low

Abinaya said...

Awesome lyrics! Thanks a lot for translation!

Anonymous said...

thank you for the translation... awesome song and only KH can write such a song..

Unknown said...

Boss, Neengal kandipaga edarthavadi.

This is song is something about life and death.
And also the author might be kamal and he knows
the galaxy.

I to thought the same meaning. But people live
meaningless.

selvaraj. T
pondy

Anonymous said...

Brilliant! ! Thanks for the post :)

Hemanthkumar said...

Wow What a masterpiece. Goosebumps
Thank you so much for giving the translation, please do post meanings of lyrics like this.

Unknown said...

Hi
Yeah... i too noticed that. it is called Andhadhi in tamil. Andham means end and Aadhi means beginning. the lines end with a word and the next begins with the same word. He is really great!!! Thanks for this post!
Bala

Srinath Mohandas said...

This is so beautiful and deeply philosophical. Though I am not a Tamizh and my understanding of this great language is limited I am deeply touched by its lyrics and rendering.

I am also glad to have come across this blog post, which I did accudebtky when I was searching for an formal translation of the song. I was also thinking to write about this song.

Glad to to be in touch with you sir, a fellow admirer of this genre of music.

Shravan said...

But only those lines that u have stated as self explanatory(the final lines) need an explanation :/.. Anyways good work

Thana Lekshmi said...

I love how you have break down the whole song!
Loved it!!! Thank you!!