Morning Sickness

Early in December 2021, my employment came to a premature end.  I turned in the grades for the fall term, and went to India after a couple of years, wearing a mask all through the long trip and cursing the pandemic.

I have not worked for a paycheck since then.

No thanks to my former employer, I am often compelled to wonder what exactly it is that I will contribute to this world as an unemployed middle aged man who will soon be promoted to the rank of a senior citizen.  Living without a job is beyond most of our imaginations.  Job loss exposes the emperor with no clothes! 

In the years past, I have asked students to think about the possibility of automation becoming so efficient that millions of us could just do nothing and get some kind of a universal basic income that could take care of our basic needs.  If one didn't want anything more than those basic needs, then there will be no pressure to work.  Would they welcome such a future in which they would not have to work, and can play and fish all day long?

The response from students was always overwhelming--they didn't want lives without jobs.  They were concerned about what they would do with all the time.  Some even worried that free time might tempt people, including them, to engage in destructive acts.  They were intuitively channeling Voltaire, who said that “work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.”

As boredom looms large on plenty of mornings, I face the same question over and over again as if I am playing a role in Groundhog Day.  It is the question that Kannadasan poetically phrased it in this phenomenal song in Apoorva Ragangal: காலை எழுந்தவுடன் நாளைய கேள்வி, which roughly translates to "After waking up, one ponders about the day."

Kannadasan always spoke to me, though I couldn't figure out why.  It was well into my life in the US, decades ago, a chance conversation with a colleague who taught English helped me understand the connect.

Poetry is about emotions, she said.

Aha!

She talked about how poetry does what prose often does not, and how in a few verses, sometimes even in a few lines, a poem can convey the emotions that we feel, or want to feel.

When it comes to Kannadasan's songs, I pay attention to the lyrics, which otherwise I rarely ever do when I listen to music.  Whether it is Freddy Mercury or Thyagaraja, I mostly do not care about the lyrics.  The word play in the urban poetry of hip hop does nothing for me.  Why Kannadasan and not the rest?  I suspect it is because I grew up in a Tamil environment.  Had I been born and raised in a Hindi world, for instance, perhaps I would blog similarly about Gulzar's film songs?  An accident of birth and life as a young black man might have made me seek comfort in hip hop music?

Kannadasan did that well for me and millions of other Tamils.  It is a shame that a culture with a rich literature past has practically abandoned prose and poetry in everyday life that has been transformed into a never-ending pursuit of cheap entertainment.

My schooling didn't prepare me to appreciate poems.  Thankfully, that has not prevented me from exploring at least a little bit of poetry.  Kannadasan played a huge role in my poetry appreciation.

Like in the following two lines in that Apoorva Ragangal song:

ஏன் என்ற கேள்வி ஒன்று என்றைக்கும் தங்கும்
மனிதன் இன்ப துன்பம் எதிலும் கேள்விதான் மிஞ்சும்
("Why?" will forever be a question in the mind
Through all sufferings and joys, questions will always remain!)

A few years ago, back in 2013, I blogged about Kannadasan, which, for whatever reason, continues to draw readers.  I quoted from Kannadasan's lyrics in this old song:

வாழ்க்கை என்றால் ஆயிரம் இருக்கும்
வாசல்தோறும் வேதனை இருக்கும்
 ...

உனக்கும் கிழே உள்ளவர் கோடி
நினைத்து பார்த்து நிம்மதி தேடு

If only I had the abilities to translate that into English!

I suppose Kannadasan's poetry appealed to many of us because we didn't read them, but listened to the verses.  The verses that had been set to wonderful music by master composers.  

Poetry is to be listened to.  If English is your language, then you might want to head here, which is my favorite site to listen to poetry in English, some of which are translations.   (This post from a couple of days ago, for instance, was triggered by the poem that I listened to.)

To listen to Kannadasan's poems, well, there is Youtube.

And may your mornings never begin with uncomfortable questions!