NANDI KALAMBAGAM

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Hema R

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Nov 25, 2009, 1:01:48 AM11/25/09

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You will all be familiar with this story but this is just a refresher.

'Kalambagam' is a Tamil poetry of eight liners counting upto 100 verses. It is sung on a king or a hero at the time of war or tumult.

Nandi Kalambagam is one the greatest and most versatile of the Kalambagams but unfortunately it serves as an elegy also on Nandi Varman, the king and hero of the poetry. It is sung on Nandi Varman, a mighty Pallava king, handsome and brave and he is the 'pAttudai thalaivan'. The story behind is both interesting and sad.

Nandi Varman who ruled the Northern part of Tamil Nadu was a great and mighty king. He was a patron of poetry and other art forms and he himself was also a poet. His enemies who could not conquer him on the battle field, plotted with his avaricious younger brother who was after the throne. They went to a great poet and composed a very complex and versatile poetry and set it to a most mellifluous tune. They chose a beautiful courtesan who was also a good singer and trained her in the rendition. Everytime the king went on his customary night rounds, he heard the most enchanting verses sung in a most pleasant tone from some place near a park. He ordered his attendants to find the singer but they failed to bring her before him. Charmed by the poetic flavour of these verses, Nandi himself went over to the place of the courtesan and entreated her to sing the whole of the poetry before him. The courtesan at first refused firmly but consented on a big condition:

"100 flowery 'pandals' or platforms should be erected from the palace upto the 'sudukadu' or crematorium. The hero of the verses should sit on each platform and hear the songs until the hundred are finished."

Nandi Varman agreed instantly without caring to look if there were any intrigues behind scarcely heeding the bequests of his ministers. Accordingly 100 pandals were erected and on the appointed day, as he sat on the first pandal, the courtesan sang a verse and Nandi heard it overwhelmed by the versification and tune. As he raised to go to the next pandal, that on which he had sat burnt in a flash as if by magic or sorcery. He sensed danger but was too passionately involved with the luring verses and also tied down by the promise of abiding by the condition, to go back. In this way it happened and as he sat on the last and 100th pandal, this final verse that is the most beautiful of the whole was sung:

Thy face resembles the sky-laden moon
Thy fame hath spread even beyond the seas
Thy valour is as mighty as the jungle's tiger
Thy generosity is akin to the Karpaga tree
Lakshmi upon the honeyed lotus shalt go unto Hari, Her consort
So thy body be consumed by reddish flames
Wherever wilt I and my poet go
Nandi, oh, the good and the merciful?

At this the whole pandal with the lured and enchanted Nandi Varman burnt aflame and that was the sad end of Nandi Varman.

R. Hema