11. Rain, the Nectar

(In this story, the renowned Tamil poet Subramanya Bharathi, extolled as Mahakavi, meaning the great poet, appears as an imaginary character)

Some people were standing inside an open hall, taking shelter from the rain. Mahakavi Bharathi was among those standing there.

Bharathi was singing with great excitement, a Tamil poem composed by him.

"vIra suthanthiram vENdi ninRAr
pinbu vERonRu koLvarO?

enRum AramuthuNNa Asai koNdOr

kaLLil aRivaich cheluththuvarO"

(Will those who yearn for freedom accept a compromise?

Will those who yearn to drink the nectar will be attracted to liquor?

A young man standing beside Bharathi asked him, "Sir, I can decipher the meaning of the first line of your poem, but I am unable to understand what the second line means!"

"What is it that you don't understand?"

"Your poem means that those who yearn to drink the nectar won't touch liquor, doesn't it?"

"Yes. Even the thought of tasting the liquor won't occur to them."

Bharathi looked at the young man and sniffed.

"I sense a foul smell coming from your breath. Did you drink liquor?"

"Yes, sir" said the young man.

"Give up drinking, young man. The drinking habit will ruin your family" said Bharathi.

"I will try. I want to ask you something. Just now you said that the very desire to drink the nectar will drive away the desire to drink liquor. Is it true?" asked the young man.

"Of course, it is true" said Bharathi, in an emphatic tone.

"I don't even know how the nectar will taste. How can I develop a desire to drink the nectar?"

"Do you love someone?

"Yes, I do" said the young man, feeling a bit shy. "Why do you ask?"

"Did you ever have a wish to kiss your lover?" asked Bharathi, with a smirky expression on his face.

Embarrassed by this question which, the young man apprehended, might have been heard by others standing beside them too, he twisted his body in a strange way and said, "Yes. Sometimes, I have had that wish!"

"Have you kissed any other woman earlier?" 

"Definitely not. How could I have?" replied the young man, in a tone that indicated how revolting such an idea could be.

"Without knowing how the experience of kissing a woman will be, how do you crave for such an experience with your lover?"

Unfazed by Bharathi's question, the young man whispered in Bharathi's ears, "Sir, I don't want others to hear this. But I came to know how the experience of kissing will be, only from one of your poems. It will be the same as the experience of getting drunk!"

Taken aback by this reply, Bharathi exclaimed, "What? From which of my poems did you get this idea?"

Now the young man began to sing in a loud voice." kannaththil muthamittAl, uLLamthAn kaLveRi koLLuthadi." 

Then he said, in a triumphant tone, "This is from your popular Kannamma song. Since you have written, 'when I kiss on your cheeks, I feel inebriated,' you should have had the experience of consuming liquor!"

"How stupid can you get!" retorted Bharathi, in a voice filled with irritation, "That poem was about kissing a child, not about kissing a young woman. When I write conveying a particular idea, some people misunderstand and misinterpret it!"

Then he said, "Okay. You want to know how the nectar will taste, don't you? I will show you!"

He pulled the young man and descended into the street which was still being battered by the heavy rain.

Standing in the middle of the street, Bharathi tilted the face of the young man upward so that he would be facing the sky and forced his mouth to open.

After some rain water entered the mouth of the young man, Bharathi freed him.

"What you drank just now is the nectar. Wonder how it can be? The nectar is in the heaven. The rain also comes down from the heaven. The celestials, the people who live in the heaven, need the nectar for their survival. Human beings and other lives on the earth need the rain water to survive. Therefore, the rain water is the nectar for the lives on the earth. This is not my statement. This is what my forefather Thiruvalluvar had said.

Saying this, Bharathi became emotional and began to sing, extolling Thiruvalluvar.

"yAmaRintha pulavarilE kambanaip pOl

vaLLuvar pOl, iLangOvaip pOl

bUmithanil yAngaNumE piRanthathillai

uNmai veRum pugazhchchi illai"

(Of all the poets I have known, there is no one who would match the calibre of Kamban*, Valluvar or Ilango*. This is absolute truth, not flattery)

Singing with excitement, Bharathi danced in the rain.

* Kamban and Ilango are renowned Tamil poets.

ThirukkuRaL
Section I - The Path of Virtue

Chapter 2

The Glory of Rain

Verse 11 (in Tamil)
vAn ninRu ulagam vazhangi varuvathAl

thAn amizhtham enRuNarRpAttu

Meaning:
Since the rain facilitates life in this world, rain has to be considered the nectar.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'mazhaiyE amudham' by the same author)

Verse 12

Verse 10