Ramanujan owes his place in modern Indian poetry in English not only to works like Relations, Striders and Second Sight (1986) but also to his translations from classical poetry in Tamil and Kannada. As in his Interior Landscape which is a translation of the famous Tamil classic of the Sangam Period, Kuruntokai, we find in Poems of Love and War (1985) excellent pieces from a variety of poetical works like Kuruntokai, Purananuru and Ainkurunuru of the Sangam Age translated into English.
“What His Girl Friend Said to Her” is a selection from Kuruntokai which belongs to the aham category of poems which, in contrast to those of puram category, are largely subjective and turn inward rather than to the external world.
Though poems like this are apparently simple they carry with them a great deal of complexity of thought and emotion and call for a study with reference to numerous conventions associated with the aham poetry especially those relating to the ‘five landscapes’ which have their own distinctive physiographical features and also correspond to five different types of love and mental and emotional states.
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The theme of this poem is the herione waiting for her lover’s return. As in all the poems of aham literatures, the heroine as well as the hero are nameless and are by convention referred to as thalaivan and thalaivi. The heroine usually unburdens her mind by pouring out her feelings to her girl friend who is called thozhi in Tamil. Since the theme is patient waiting on the part of the heroine, the landscape has to be by convention, mullai, the forest.
1.1 Cassia trees: These are trees which usually flower at the break of the monsoons and are therefore associated with the arrival of the monsoons.
2 gullible: The trees are gullible in the sense that they respond quickly to the untimely sprinkle of the rain, mistaking it for the real monsoon. They respond to it by putting forth flowers far ahead of the season. Should the heroine too be equally gullible and mindless? So asks her girl friend. To quote Ramanujan himself. “Trees have only one sense (touch) and mistake an untimely sprinkle for the real monsoon.” The woman should use her other senses, not make the same mistake.
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1. 4 the desert: The desert or palai in aham poetry is usually associated with long separation. There is perhaps a suggestion of uncertainty about the lover’s return but the girl friend counsels patience telling her that it is too early for his return.
1.11 long arrangements of flowers: This is not an instance of pathetic fallacy as may be supposed. The poet only draws parallels between the behaviour of the plant world and the world of the humans so that the impatience and impulsiveness of the trees become the metaphor for those of the heroine.