Love Of The Sangam Era Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

Tamils believed that the love is inborn,
That it is the most powerful emotion,
That it feeds all the five senses together
And that it is love that sustains the world.

Man and woman come together by fate.
They fall in love with each other in time
And gain intimacy by mind and flesh
In secret (kalavu) helped by their confidantes.

Woman will uphold her fidelity
And would go with the one she had mated.
When her fidelity is confronted
By her parents she would elope with him.

Not to have a man other than the one
She's in relationship with is the cause
For her eloping, overcoming shame.
No woman would ever desert her spouse.

Man reaching courtesans is not uncommon.
Courtesans are substitutes, not replacement.
Woman's love for her husband is so intense
That she tolerates courtesans' connection.

The confidante of the heroine
Is her alter ego, who chaperones her,
And broaches her secret love to parents
And exhorts the hero to marry the heroine.
Love is held pure and entertains no space
For unrequited love, betrayal of love,
Cuckoldry and cross love; premarital
Love is kalavu and the post, karpu.

The episode of love is depersonalized;
The man and the woman in love is known
As the hero and the heroine bluntly
Without calling by any proper noun.

Marriage after exposer is common;
Marriage before exposure is in vogue.
Unrequited love and improper love
Are told in Kaikilai and Peruntinai.
27.07.2022