Vadh Movie Download

[Socorro Henson]

Fromthe icy realm of the Himalayas to the banks of great rivers or pilgrimages through the subcontinent to journeys across the seven seas, nature has inspired our sages, scribes and poets from time immemorial. Often exulting in the beauty of their surroundings or moved by their own personal situations of endurance and despair, they have found solace in words and other forms of creative expression. And in the process, geniuses were born and the literary firmament has sparkled with their brilliant works.

Today, as we traverse India in search of stories, our own adventures have unearthed unusual tales. So what is it about a mountain, a river, a bird, a fallen leaf or a passing cloud that can conceive an idea? Are there Muses dancing in the air that trigger off spontaneous prose? Perhaps. We circle some places on the map of literary inspiration that have let poets, writers and travelers inhabit it with their stories and characters; imagined and real.

One day while going for his morning bath in the Tamasa river, a tributary of the Ganga, Sage Valmiki witnessed a pair of krauncha (Sarus cranes) courting each other. To his horror, the male bird falls to the arrow of a hunter leaving the distraught female flapping her wings and squawking in agony. Moved by her grief, the kind sage utters a spontaneous curse to the hunter in eight-syllabic metre. On regaining composure, the sage meditates on Lord Brahma who explains that the purpose of the incident was to inspire him to write the epic Ramayana for the welfare of mankind in the same anushtup metre. Thus, from shoka (sorrow) was born shloka (verse). Drawing a parallel from the kraunch vadh episode with the separation of Ram and Sita, Valmiki began writing the Ramayana, an epic tale of love and separation. More than anything else, it portrays a deep understanding of birds in ancient India, for today we know that most crane species pair for life.

The eastern coast is no less inspiring. For Sarojini Naidu, it was the Coromandel Coast that inspired her poem Coromandel Fishers. But there were many other literary gems written here earlier. At its legendary cape, Kanyakumari, we rediscovered stories of patience and longing in the songs of fishermen and the tragic tale of Kumari, the virgin goddess who waited in vain for Lord Shiva to marry her. It was on the same coast at the ancient Chola port of Poompuhar or Kaveripoompattinam where the Cauvery meets the Bay of Bengal, that Jain poet monk Ilango Adigal penned the Tamil epic Silapathikaram or Story of the Anklet.

It traces the journey to the Pandya court of Madurai where the unjust beheading of Kovalan for a theft he did not commit causes his chaste wife Kannagi to wreak havoc upon the kingdom. Madurai was the venue of the great Tamil Sangams or literary conclaves and the Meenakshi Sundareshwarar Temple occupied a central position. To test the literary weight of their work, authors offered their manuscripts on the Sangapalakai (wooden plank) in the Pottramarai kulam or Golden Lotus tank. Those scholastic works that stayed afloat were considered to be of superior quality, while those that sank were not!

From the theatre spaces in Chhattisgarh, we headed south to Kerala, where the sandy banks of the Bharatapuzha or Nila river spawned arts like Kalaripayattu and Bharatnatyam, a dance form codified by Lord Shiva and brought to mankind by Sage Bharata. The 16th century bard Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, regarded as the father of the Malayalam language, lived and taught his disciples in Tirur. Today, his house has been renovated into a serene oasis of learning and open-air school called Thunchan Memorial.

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