Red Lilies and Frightened Birds: Muttollayiram

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A collection of beautifully crafted poems in praise of the three ancient Tamil royal dynasties with a contemporary tone‘When the red lilies bloom on the waterlogged fields, the birds panic that the water is on fire. They fly helter-skelter trying to guard their nestlings under their wings.’Red Lilies and Frightened Birds is a collection of poems in praise of the three ancient Tamil royal dynasties—Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. Translated from the early medieval Tamil classic Muttollayiram, these beautifully crafted verses retain a surprisingly contemporary tone—a testament to their enduring appeal over the centuries. While some of them are odes to the splendour of the king’s country and city, his prowess in war, and the ruining of the enemy country, others reveal how young women, deeply infatuated with the king, pine and long for him. M.L. Thangappa’s translation brilliantly brings to life the playful inventiveness and heady imagery of the original verses. This edition also includes an illuminating introduction by A.R. Venkatachalapathy which places this classic in its historical and cultural context.

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Educated at St John’s College, Palayamkottai, M.L. Thangappa taught Tamil for over twenty-five years. An accomplished poet, his translations from Tamil literature into English range from Sangam poetry and didactic poetry to the songs of St Ramalingam, Subramania Bharati, and Bharatidasan. He has won the Bharatidasan Award, and the Sirpi Literary Award for lifetime achievement in poetry. Active in the Tamil language rights movement, he is also a founding member of the Puducherry Ecological Society. His translations from the Tamil classics have appeared in Penguin as Love Stands Alone: Selections from Tamil Sangam Poetry. Thangappa lives with his family in Puducherry. A.R. Venkatachalapathy studied in Chennai and took his PhD in history from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Now professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, Chalapathy has taught at universities in Tirunelveli, Chennai and Chicago, and has held research assignments at Paris, Cambridge and Harvard. He has published widely on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of colonial Tamilnadu, both in Tamil and in English. He has also edited M.L. Thangappa’s Love Stands Alone: Selections from Tamil Sangam Poetry.