Aareyum Bhaava Gaayakanaakkum - Nakhakshathangal

“You are so beautiful, that you make me sing”. Or maybe a few other different interpretations. Whatever it is, I doubt if English can ever do justice to this song. Director Hariharan and writer M.T. Vasudevan Nair have frequently handled light movies with a melancholy theme, and produced some of malayalam cinema’s all time classics. This story is about teenage love among two poor kids. The girl is working as a servant in a rich household. The boy comes there to be a servant too, but gains a little more respectable work with the family when they learn that he is educated. Set in the 1980s, there is a certain purity to the entire movie, the kind of feeling that makes you want to reach out to it, but really can’t.

The third point in the triangle is the rich family’s only daughter who is born deaf and dumb. In India, women, especially in times earlier, become less ‘valuable’ if they have ‘defects’. Knowing that the girl won’t find a suitable husband of their own level and class, and seeing this new mild mannered, well educated boy who has done well for himself, the elders decide to get them married. This song is as the deaf and dumb girl imagines - she assumes that the boy is in love with her.

p.s. this song is so simple and yet has stuck in my head for ever. I tried to translate it but I didn’t like what I had come up with. I didn’t want to ruin the song, so I was thinking of trashing the effort. Then I saw the video which had subtitles and I liked that better than mine. So I’ve pretty much put that now.

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Aareyum bhaava gaayakanaakkum, Aathma soundaryamaanu nee

You have that inner beauty that makes a poet of anybody

Aathma/aathmaavu means soul in a literal translation - so a soulful beauty could word as well. ‘Gaayakan’ is actually a singer, but poet works well too in the context of the movie.

Namra sheersharaay nilppoo nin munnil, Thamra nakshatra kanyakal }2

the stars stand before you, their heads bowed in humility

Aareyum bhaava gaayakanaakkum, Aathma soundaryamaanu nee

Aa..aa..aa..aa.

Kinnara mani thamburu meetti, ninne vaazhthunnu vaanavum}2

the skies sing your praise to the sound of heavenly bells

Thamburu/Tanpura is Indian stringed instrument, but the translation has skipped the name for smoothness. However, isn’t the tanpura more of an accompanying instrument and not necessarily a lead instrument like maybe the veena or the sitar? It ought to be fairly rare to find a song being played for a lover on an accompanying instrument.

Mannile kilippaithalum, mulam thandil moolunna thennalum

even the fledgling on earth, and the breeze that hums in the bamboos

Innithaa nin prakeerthanam ..
Aa..aa..aa..aa.
Ee prapancha hridaya veenayil

Today we hear your praise
In the heartstrings of the universe

’Hridaya veena’ is a veena of the heart - these are the kind of things that make no sense when you translate, but it sounds so right in its original language. Definitely better to completely skip it in the translation and put a phrase that would be somewhere in that same zipcode.

Aa..aa..aa..aa.
aaaaaa..aaaa..aaaaa…aaaaaa..aaaa
(Aareyum bhaava...nee)
(Music)

Aa..aa..aa..aa.}3

Ninte shaleena mounamaakumee ponmanicheppinullilaaay}2

Hidden in the bejeweled box of your serene silence

Moodi vacha nigooda bhaavangal, pookkalaay shalabhangalaay

Those unfathomable fields have today become flowers and butterflies

Innithaaa.. nrithalolaraay …

Today they are dancing

Aa..aa..aa..aa.

Ee prapancha nadana vedhiyil

In the dance hall of the universe

Aa..aa..aa..aa.
aaaaa…aaaaa…aaaaaa.aaaaaa.aaaaa
(Aaareyum bhaava....kanyakal)
(Aareyum bhaava...nee)