On Vanthooral from Peranbu

To the intrepid mind, every corner holds a mystery waiting to be solved. The fun is not in the solution but in the chase that leads to it. The thing is, the mind doesn’t realise that there might be some baggage that comes with the mystery. One day, on one of these chases, the mind takes a hit. It is sent into a dizzy spell, falters, takes a step forward, but staggers and falls down. As it looks beyond the corner, it sees a smile that disappears into a daunting, unfamiliar, and uncomforting maze. What do you think happens next?

“Vidhaiyai puratti pottaalum vinnai paarthu dhaan mulaikkum”

I had heard this song when the album was released, because that is part of my job. But this was the first time I actually listened. I paused at the end of that particular line.

(To my non-English friends, that line translates to “Whichever way the seed falls, it still grows looking up at the sky.”)

So simple, yet so unnerving. And so, the song continues.

“Peranbinaal vaazhkaiyin konalgal nerpadum”
(Compassion straightens the bends in life)

I didn’t listen to the rest of the song. I put the headphones down, closed my eyes, and let the past few years run by in my mind’s eye. All those times you were in trouble, all those miseries you spoke about — and the ones you didn’t. Yet they are now in the past because, somewhere, they were washed away by the flood of love and compassion.

Then there is a flute interlude that wafts out of the headphones that should contain that sound. As soon as that particular sound rang out, I put the headset back on. Something about that instrument and its placement in this particular song’s structure… just like that seed that started growing up all the way to the sky, you (your consciousness) have been slowly transported on a steady upstream. And then comes this line:

“Enge sendru veezhvadhendru sindhum mazhai arindhadhillai”
(The falling raindrop never knows its intended destination)

You drop. You drop from the sky like the first raindrop, seeking something somewhere. Remember that smile that draws on your face when a raindrop touches, kisses, caresses, and smothers you? Maybe that is all you were ever seeking. Imagine all the raindrops in your life you’ve accumulated around you. People you had no reason to meet — yet you met them. People you never expected to be who they turned out to be. All of them left a smile on your face — some for a fleeting amount of time, while some, far longer.

“Periruttil en kangal meedhu minnum minminiye”
(In the pitch darkness, you are the firefly that lights up my path)

The mind now knows that the maze in front is not going to be easy to cross. It will get scarred, tarred, broken, beaten, pushed, shoved, hit, and shot at. But there is this unreal feeling — this unequivocally hitherto unknown emotion — that is now surging, asking the mind to take that next step. And the next. And then the next. And go forward irrespective of what lies ahead.

Hope.

There is a certain strength to this particular four-letter word that beggars belief. Onwards and upwards. 🙂