lofty trees of the landscape, the veenkai is prominent because of its bright flowers which seem like flames of fire. The flowers resemble so much the colour of the tiger that the elephant sometimes attacks the veenkai trees in bloom mistaking them for its hereditary enemy.6 Another tree very much mentioned in connection with the hills is the bamboo. Its tender shoots are relished by the elephants and its "rice" by the hill-folk. The male elephant bends the tall bamboo for its mate to feed on the shoots and then the bamboo swings back to its original position like "the rod of the fisherman" who feels a tug at his line.7 Kapilar, who with Paranar, is the poet par excellence of the kuṛiciregion has depịcted many a scene about the hills with singular accuracy of observation joined to remarkable skill in delicate phrasing and sensuous beauty of words which a European critic might associate with Vergil or with Tennyson.8 Having in mind the dance that a juggler's wife performs on a bamboo to the accompaniment of the drum and the clarinet played by her husband and children, Kapilar describes the dance of a peacock in the hills: With the flute of the westerly wind that blows across the perforated stops swaying bamboos; | With the sweet sound of the waters cool of the rivers as congregate drums resounding;
| With the call of deep sounding flock of gazelles as clarinet and the bees of the mountain flowers as lute, and
| Chattering monkeys as an astonished auditorium, the peacocks dancing on the bamboo hillside resemble the maids dancing in the dancing hall.
| (Akam; 82) |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6 This picture of montane nature is drawn from various poems of the kurinci class. 7Kur; 54, 4. 8 K. N. SIVARAJAPILLAI, Chronology o.c; p. 59:. "Probably only a quantitative judgment of poetical merit has allowed Kapilar to successfully contest with Paranar for the premier place amongst the company of the Cangam poets. . . . Though Kapilar himself was a poet of high gifts the conviction cannot be resisted that Paranar outdistances him in the supreme quality of poetic inspiration and many-sided grasp of life." |