I googled for the video of this lovely song, and I must say, whenever I get to old Tamizh film hits, they are always short of something…no lyrics, or I have to shuffle through dozens of other songs, or get shunted into other people’s conversations about them…

I got this YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfwZz4kOQU0&feature=related

But notice, the embedding, which would have been so convenient,has been “disabled by request”. What a user-unfriendly thing to do….

The “sad” version is here, at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY16LRsdUMQ&feature=related

The words…will have to physically listen and write down the words to the happy and sad versions…but meanwhile, , this is the song that says, the same moon that appeared then is appearing now...!

Update: here are the words and a rough translation, for both the happy and sad versions:

Happy version:

anru vanthathum ithEy nilA inru vanthathum ithEy nilA enrum uLLathu orEy nilA iruvar kaNNukkum orEy nilA

ambikApathi kaNda nilA amarAvathiyai thinra nilA kamban pAdiya veLLai nilA kaviyil Adiya piLLai nilA (2)..(anru)

kAthal Romeo kaNda nilA kanni Juliet venra nilA pAvai Laila pArtha nilA pAlai vanatthin vaNNa nilA (2)…. (anru)

nAdu thoRum vantha nilA nAgareekam pArtha nilA pArthu pArthu shalittha nilA pAthi theinthathu veLLai nilA (2) (anru)

nilA = moon

Ambikapathi and Amaravathi were legendary lovers (from the Andhra Pradesh region); Laila and Majnu, from north India; I don’t have to introduce Romeo and Juliet…

Kamban was an ancient Tamizh author who wrote his version of the epic, the rAmAyaNA. He is generally cited as the epitome of literary creation.

this same moon came then this same moon comes now forever, there is only one moon the same moon, for both of us to see

the moon that Ambikapathi saw the moon that ate at Amaravathi’s heart the moon that Kamban sang about the child-moon (that is, the waxing moon) that danced in poetry

the moon that the lover Romeo saw the moon that the maiden Juliet won over the moon that the young woman Laila saw the colourful moon of the desert

the moon that is all over the land the moon that has seen civilization the moon that has got tired of seeing it the white moon that has got erased to half

The sad version…

anru vanthathum ithEy nilA inru vanthathum ithEy nilA inbam thanthathum orEy nilA Enga vaitthathum orEy nilA… aaa….(2)

kAthal thanthathu vaNNa nilA kaLangam illA kanni nilA mEgham moodiya veLLi nila veLLai uLLam koNda nilA…aaa (2)

pEsha sonnathu anbu nilA piriya sonnathu thunba nilA thoonga sonnathu kAthal nilA thudikka vittathu kAla nilA…aaa (2)

this same moon came then this same moon comes now the same moon gave pleasure the same moon made (us) yearn

the colourful moon gave us love the maiden moon without blemish the silver moon covered with clouds the moon with a white soul

the moon of love asked us to speak the moon of sorrow asked us to part the moon of love told us to sleep the moon of time left us to twitch in agony….

And if you want a lovely song with an “off-beat” beat, listen to this…I think Saroja Devi, a Kannadiga actress who ruled the Tamizh screen, is one of the most beautiful women I have seen (and no 18” anorexia waistline either!)

this is a haunting, sweet-happy-pensive song…one of my great favourites. ....if you are reading this..this is for you, too. However awful MGR looks, this song is fantastic.

Er, the subtitles are less than fantastic…in fact, they are downright hilarious…fruits orchard and flowers gang indeed! The very first line is badly translated; it says, “ if we touch, flowers will bloom”…actually, that should be, “when touched, flowers bloom”, to which the woman replies, “I bloomed without being touched”…. But you get the general drift. And yes, it IS a song of love and sex. Saroja Devi illustrates how one can look sexy with traditional clothes on. And she also illustrates how our ideal of feminine beauty seems to have changed over the past decades….

Must have been so difficult,in those days (1963 I think) to synchronise the “off” beats in the soundtrack, with the clapping in the movie…but it’s been done so well.