It is hard to think of lines of verse, where the landscape, flora and fauna are a perfect match for the moods of love. And yet, that is the marvel that Sangam poetry is. It is almost as if romance marches to the tunes of Nature. The Kurinji region, for example, with its mountains, waterfalls and trees is Nature at its untamed best. And it is the ideal setting for secret rendezvous between lovers.
Mullai, with its dark forests, is the place where a girl awaits her lover patiently, a wait that is akin to the anxiety for rains that drench the scorched earth. Amour brings many things in its wake — separation, suspicion, reconciliation, whispered confidences and salacious gossip about lovers — and Sangam poems present all these. With the interplay of Nature and romance, the poems present a beautiful orchestration of life. And it is this orchestration that was sought to be captured through painting and music, in Sangam Unplugged, a presentation by Amethyst in association with Aalaap.
![CHENNAI: 04/08/2017: Amethyst in association with Aalaap presents Sangam [Unplugged] at The Folly, Amethyst, in Chennai on Friday. Photo: R. Ravindran.](/theme/images/th-online/1x1_spacer.png "CHENNAI: 04/08/2017: Amethyst in association with Aalaap presents Sangam [Unplugged] at The Folly, Amethyst, in Chennai on Friday. Photo: R. Ravindran.")
CHENNAI: 04/08/2017: Amethyst in association with Aalaap presents Sangam [Unplugged] at The Folly, Amethyst, in Chennai on Friday. Photo: R. Ravindran.
Bakula Nayak explained how Sangam poems inspired her art. It was the element of love in Sangam poems that appealed to both Bakula and musician Sushma Somasekaran. Interacting with this correspondent, Sushma observed that love in these poems goes beyond romance. In Sangam poetry, there is love for nature and love for the land. Sushma’s first brush with Sangam poetry was when she was in school in Singapore.
Personal journey
At Sangam Unplugged, a part of Bakula’s series of Unplugged programmes, she explained to a rapt audience that her paintings were presented in an intimate context, and that she viewed the Sangam verses as reflecting her personal journey as lover, wife, mother and artist. She uses vintage paper for her paintings. There is a poem, which talks of mothers closing the windows to keep their daughters from seeing Prince Kothai. But the daughters open the windows to gaze at him. This repeated opening and shutting has loosened the hinges of the windows.
The poem made Bakula recall her first crush and how her mother would close the window every time the handsome neighbourhood boy passed by on his way to the bakery. A bill for bread from 1937 became her choice for doing the painting on. It reminded Bakula of her days in Paris, and thus was born the painting of a cat, riding a bicycle, with bread in his basket, whistling a happy tune, while cats and birds gaze at him longingly. A music sheet from the 1940s for the foxtrot song — ‘Please let me dream in your arms’ — became the background for a Sangam poem where women with lovers don’t want the night to end, while those without a lover want it to end soon.
CHENNAI: 04/08/2017: Amethyst in association with Aalaap presents Sangam [Unplugged] at The Folly, Amethyst, in Chennai on Friday. Photo: R. Ravindran.
The painting depicts two cats locked in contented slumber. To show the reunion of lovers, two birds sipping from a bottle of Coke were painted on a bill issued by bottlers of Coca Cola!
It is incredible that Bakula found in her collection of vintage papers, the best matches for painting Sangam themes. It is a novel idea, which gives the old poems a contemporary context, and proves the universality of art, and of the emotions that inspire art and are in turn depicted by art.
Sushma Somasekaran’s singing brought out vividly the images portrayed in the verses — a waterfall, the pangs of separation felt by lovers and the joy of reunion. It was an evening when poetry, art and music came together, weaving a dexterous pattern of the past and the present.
