Book Review: Kurunthogai Portrait (குறுந்தொகை ஓவியம்)

In this busy life we seldom pause and appreciate the beauty of small things around us like a flower's bloom at our backyard or a bird's song in the morning. Then how can we explore the marvels of literature written hundreds, if not thousands of years ago? Unless wrapped with religion or made compulsory in curriculum, we ignore these gems for cheap arts like cinema and TV serials. If you love reading, especially good old literary works, please continue reading...

Kurunthogai (குறுந்தொகை) is one of the books in Ettuthogai (எட்டுத்தொகை), which means "Collection of Eight books".  ”Kuru” means short and ”Thogai” means consolidation or compilation. The songs in Kurunthogai were written by numerous authors. The themes involve love and romance and hence classified as ”agam” (அகம்) literature, a literary genre that discusses love while maintaining anonymity of the parties involved. Tamils gave importance to privacy even centuries before.

Scholars estimate that the compilation happened in 7 century AD. It is one of the so called ”Sangam literature” (சங்க இலக்கியம்).  Whatever! I don't mind how old the literature is, but how good matters a lot for me.

Now, coming to this book, ”Kurunthogai Portrait”. It is an English paraphrase (I feel translation is not the right word) of the Tamil literature. It contains the Tamil songs in Tamil script immediately followed by English paraphrase. As you have Tamil songs in their original form, you can enjoy its beauty fully. The English paraphrase provides easy access to the meaning of the songs.

The English used by the writer is lucid. The sentences are deliberately made small in order to avoid confusion. The book has a list of Tamil words used within the paraphrase and their meaning for easy reference of readers. So if you are a person without in depth Tamil knowledge to understand the meaning of Tamil songs, then you can also benefit from this book.

This book is also suitable for readers who don't know Tamil at all. They can just leave the Tamil songs and read the paraphrase alone. So it is a win-win for everyone from hardcore Tamil literature freaks to those who don't even know what Tamil is. So this book is a must have even if you have slightest interest in Tamil literature!