Avala : An Analysis of an Ode

Passions in a Sieve

The modern Indic today creates a preference for the English language … as a second language for a good reason. As a native speaker of Tamil … he probably has come to several variations in the use of the words … its tone … expression … and the nuances. Hence he uses English … as an aid … to steer his experience of meaning … and maintains a regularity in his passions … as regards his daily transactions.

The passions in him … particularly the subtle passions … present themselves … for the subtle differences in meaning … and as a result … he is never able to get close enough to scratch. Hence he transfers the loyalty of the passions to English … and in a way demonstrative of a car with a bad wheel … wobbles his way … while waiting for something better.

Its a practice that is growing in popularity … and helps to bring a greater clarity to passions … in deepest India and elsewhere … without the usual muddle … rampant in people … who steer their own personal issues ... simply with their native tongue. The Bible warned of Babel … and there is little doubt … that any language … steeped in usage … drags a great baggage of nuances … that can finally befuddle the mind … and turn it into straw.

A Tamil song from the 70s … illustrates the muddle in content by the reliance on the native language only.

Is it her who said those words?

Impossible … I don't think so,

Something like that is not possible,

Unbelievable … I won't bring myself to believe,

Impossible! Unbelievable! No! No! No!

Its possible that salt can turn to sugar,

The moon may show itself for 30 days,

The milk the divine fed me may be poison,

The mother who birthed me may kill me,

Its possible I can live without you in the world,

But how can what you said be true?

No doubt the Tamil gentleman is beside himself with grief over the loss of his lover … however the peculiar difficulty he experiences is in the use of the language. Language expressed poetically … differs from language that is expressed in a simple straight forward manner. The latter of course … makes its meaning plain. Secondly … he may be referring to an inordinate experience of love … ostentatiously to a woman … that includes elements of self love.

From Alfred Noyes : ' The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas ' presents a feel to the expression along with the vision of sight that it portrays. A man fallen from love questioned by his psychoanalyst whether he saw … a moon in the sea … or in the sky … is likely to think that the psychoanalyst is not going to understand his problem. In such a situation we come to understand better … the mindset of the romantic … and the man of reason … with respect to the use of language. Perhaps the poem should be experienced in the French language.

However in a basket of passions … in which we store both types … we are cognizant of how … a stimulus we feel from romance … may be influenced by reason and vice-versa. This creates a familiarity within us … of the way they are mixed … and we devise a personal or individual way of engaging them. Accordingly we come to the view … that the meaning ascribed to an expression … is best viewed by the responsibility of the speaker.

When a man says for instance that ' that girl is gorgeous ' … we are reminded that our romance in the passions holds sway over the reason. However in a friendship between members of the same sex … when we say ' he has great buns ' we combine a portion of reason with the romantic passions. Obviously the knowledge of buns is drawn from the speaker's own … expressed in a subtle self possessiveness of the praise.

The impulse to minimize gender identity may be something we grew with by a habituation of its usage. But to preserve the habit is not necessarily the way to preserve love between two people. The issue of gender engages the great circle of creation in the experiences of duality and monotheism. Its resolution lies in another place … when we bring ourselves to understand the difference … but work to unite it … through the conscious practice of a common bond of humanity.

The word Avala … means ' is it her? ' in the Tamil language … and the Tamil gentleman in the first song above … in a fit of disbelief about the loss of his lover … expresses his disbelief based on reason … brought as a specific measure of gravity regarding what is true. However as an ode to the issues … the song has a greater significance … than its mere sense of a decrepit and obstinate personality. Its the charms of the feminine double jeopardy … experienced individually or in relation to another. In the song … the expression may be of a man in love with a woman … in a same sex relation or the confusion of issues evident of self love.

Its the way … babel … language … passions … and mind … manages the joys and phobias of love. Its the all comprising magnanimity of the experience of ' her ' … that the Indic worships as Goddess … and the Westerner says ' If you can't beat 'em … join 'em. ' Its the pre-occupation of man in the field of Kurushetra* … we call life. Its obviously … also … an ode to her.

* Kurushetra … the name of the battle field … north of Delhi … where the war of the Mahabarata was fought.

Reviews

[R J Askew]

Greetings, from a very wet England. I have read your analysis and I wish I cld sit with you for a morning in some dry place and discuss it with you. We cld have a game of word chess to see if we cld mate the meaning of it all. My first move in this game of English word chess would be to move this pawn fwd: 'keep it simple'. I wld then develop with a knight: avoid compound latin words. My stance wld be that of an uneducated but intelligent English yeoman from the 16th century. We wld solve that ode, sir.

[Dayran]

Your reference to the yeoman ... possibly in the service of QE I ... is a man I believe ... well versed in board games. Which reminds me of your last play. The time you sacrificed the young French pawn ... to devote yourself to the service of the queen. Perhaps sir ... your duty awaits you ... for the restoration of your affection for the French ... even though that boy brings much in the way of former cronies ... both good and bad ... to your side. I'm certain HER would agree with my suggestion. Happy Valentine.