I look for jokes in Viola songs not as a literary critic but as a mere lyrical connoisseur.
‘Medicine is good medicine
half medicine
Powder medicine
Vatu medicine
Neeta medicine.’
I started listening to that song in the 70s and still can’t hear it without a smile.
In the anupallavi of that song, when a young woman complains to the doctor of Vayumbam (vaikumbam), a lump in her stomach, look at how evocative and comical the description of the treatment the doctor prescribes.
“The young man next door
The flower in the basket.
The root of the dream that sprouted from within.
Add Samamsamam and mix it with Premam powder
If you eat three times as much as Kaduka
Pampa will pass your tumult and struggle
The girl will be pumped’
Vayalar has used the usual practices of Ayurvedic doctors like cherthacharutti, membodi, and kadukku in size!
(She will return to Pandaram in search of the root of her dream!)
It is with the authority of physicians to tell the remedy to the lover who complains that Vaikumpam is a lot of trouble in his mind.
‘Olaka Chuttarunike is a river.
Boil iron and remove the rust by taking half an inch and grinding it
Tincture of the cane
If you eat three meals until tired
Your brother-in-law will talk about all your cheating.’
Perhaps if Vayalar were alive today, he would have written a song to advise a doctor practicing modern medicine!
Kunukita Kozhi Kulakozhi is a famous song that plays in all our hearts
Vayattatti in Kunnum Charu.
This song is also famous as the song that actor Srinivasan sings to his wife in ‘Chintavishtaya Shyamala’.
The meaning and humor of the lyrics can only be grasped by following the folk usage of this song closely. If you listen to the song like a flow, you will not get anything!
At first listen, it seems that it is about a girl falling in love. But if you listen to the lyrics, you will understand that Petata is a sage flower.
‘Kunukita Kozhi Kulakozhi
Kunnum Charu’s stomach!
did you hear or did you hear
Playing cards
Take a nap
Kanni Chembarati…’
Humor is very poetically infused in the description of the scene where the sage gives milk to her baby.
‘The upper body is wrinkled
The mother gave milk to the baby Poomani
Lover beetles of Kaliyankat
He kept staring.’
The song Bhagavan Kokur Naai, Shree Parvati Kurathi Yai, may first appear to us as a devotional song.
If you hear that Shiva and Parvati went on a pilgrimage on Thiruvathira day in the month of Sagittarius, it is a real devotional song!
Pay attention to the lines as we continue to talk about what happened in Kashmir and Kanyakumari!
‘Saw the monasteries,
saw the temples,
In the pooja rooms built by the rich
Palpayasamundu,
They gave many boons.’
Shiva Parvati who gave many boons to rich people
But the next stanza explains how he responded to these singing poor people.
‘Keep your fingers crossed
We waited with tears in our eyes.
Nothing we poor people prayed for
God and Goddess didn’t listen!
In the movie Vaarvemayam, childless Bahadur and KPAC Lalitha share their grief of not getting results despite their constant prayers.
Vayalar’s lyrics mixed with doom and gloom, but Master Devarajan composed them into a devotional song.
So that song which is broadcast as a devotional song on some radio stations is actually a revolutionary song like Paribhava or protest!
A closer look at many of immortal Vayalar’s extraordinary songs about the Panchaloha image of creation, philosophies, and most human emotions reveals a cleverly hidden humor.
(9447055050)