Avvaiyār: When the Town Sleeps

Poetry & the inner life · Tamil · Kuruntokai 28

Everyone else is asleep. For the woman speaking in this poem, that is almost unbearable.

In Kuruntokai 28, attributed to the Sangam poet Avvaiyār, she wonders whether to strike out or cry aloud. The moving wind troubles her. The town sleeps without knowing her pain. The poem’s traditional framing places these words in a conversation with her friend.

Five lines make room for an entire restless night.

முட்டுவேன் கொல்? தாக்குவேன் கொல்?
ஓரேன் யானும் ஓர் பெற்றி மேலிட்டு,
ஆஅ ஒல்லெனக் கூவுவேன் கொல்,
அலமரல் அசை வளி அலைப்ப, என்
உயவு நோய் அறியாது துஞ்சும் ஊர்க்கே?

Tamil text of Kuruntokai 28. See the edition and translation note below.

The opening questions keep reaching for an action. Nothing settles into a decision. Even before the sleeping town appears, we hear someone struggling to contain what she feels.

The wind matters because it moves through a world that otherwise offers no response. What might be a pleasant breeze to another person becomes an agitation here. Landscape takes its meaning from the person who must live through it.

Then the poem widens. Her pain belongs to one person; sleep belongs to a whole town. That unequal distribution of wakefulness makes loneliness almost visible.

There is a listener, though: the friend to whom the poem is addressed. The town may be unaware, but the speaker has already begun to be heard. Reading gives her another listener.

This is a powerful way into Indian poetry: attend to the particular voice before asking it to represent a civilisation. Here, a woman’s desire is impatient, questioning and difficult to soothe. The poem gives that feeling its full force.

A sleeping town becomes the measure of one person’s loneliness.

Text and translation

This reading follows the Tamil text and consults Vaidehi Herbert’s translation and notes for Kuruntokai 28. Her notes record differences between commentators, including readings of the opening verb. The English above is Bharatiyata’s commentary, not a translation of the complete poem. The poetic speaker should not be treated as evidence of the poet’s own life.

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