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| - Poet Kannathasan - |
"In an unfinished night, I wither…
You speak of an unending story…
A soul unites in secret, unseen by kin…
A taste of something new arises…
Though you stand far away—
if only your eyes come alone…
Those eyes that arrive, they bring a gift…
A gift that gives a bliss untold…" — Poet Kannadasan
In such simple expressions, Kannadasan excelled at revealing the profound emotions of human love, steeped in experience.
The phrase “Unfinished Night” is a striking poetic image. In Tamil, the word “mūṟṟāt(a)” (unfinished/unripe) carries two senses:
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Something that has not reached its end.
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Something unripe, like an unripe fruit.
The night stretches on endlessly, lying incomplete, like a fruit that has yet to ripen. In this night, his feelings of love have neither resolution nor end. How beautifully Kannadasan, through the phrase “unfinished night”, reveals his tormented heart—his love that remains both unripe and incomplete. His unripe, unresolved feelings of love gnaw at him, just like the endless night.
One of the images that has deeply moved me is this “unfinished night.” Such images, filled with poetic resonance and human emotion, have secured Kannadasan’s eternal place in Tamil literature. Just as we cherish the Sangam poets today, future generations too will cherish the lines of Kannadasan.
These lines occur in the song “Thūngātha Kaṇṇonru Uṇḍu” (There exists an eye that never sleeps) from the film Kumgumam. On screen, the roles were performed by the legendary Sivaji Ganesan and Saratha. Music was composed by K. V. Mahadevan and sung by T. M. Soundararajan & P. Susheela.
🎵 Listen and relish the song here
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