To the West of the ancient sangam town of Madurai lie the hills of Kodai

1. To the West of the ancient sangam town of Madurai lie the hills of Kodai we drove there, she and I – To find some peace after each a fight with our families “let’s make it special with a rehearsal of the night of the nuptial..”, at a local shack, with cups of coffees, we planned To explore our love in the privacy it needs we explored hand in hand and pressed through the curvier portions of the lay of the land but before we were anywhere near the peak The day darkening, we took a detour.. from our fantasy tour

2. lured by a wooden sign written in chaste tamil we drove up a small hill.. on the other side of which ran a stream, up which we walked and came to a pool that'd been created by a small waterfall. On the West (another ‘west’; lovers taking too much to the west) of the chute was a hut Like that of a hermit Weary as we were, we went in The walls were done with wild flowers – we could have spent hours In calm caresses on the warm grass mattresses. Our excursion obviously didn't go as planned, for, in our separate sheets off we dozed Dunno how long to the world we were thus lost.

3. But I remember waking to the thumping of tamil drums and incense hums of charming sangam poems. I walked out under the intense blue sky As the brilliant moon shone like the sun Beyond the water fall, besides whose sound The woods were mute (Only to be broken by the tune of a deep husky flute) There came a dame who broke the cataract Taking it as her lair, added the color it lacked (It now split as rivers (zaris?) of gold that bordered the jet black sarees Of the cascades of her hair)

4. She a poet’s muse, face like the sunflower with the turmeric hues The pottu (dot) in her forehead a bleeding red.. Fish for eyes that can enmesh the most restrained of ascetics chiseled features -- Pomegranate full lips, jasmine teeth, Slender neck underneath. (A) sheer white cotton slides down The center of her chest (even if you peer, it doesn’t betray her heart), to her slender waist that widens Into her hips and from there rides up her rear, Thighs full of flesh enough to carry the shape to her healthy legs at the bottom Of which were anklets that sang like laughter that splits as metal coins that fell from her petal loins

5. In an instance of me drinking this scene in Came a song from beyond whence I found a lad, lionel in frame, arjuna in name coulda been Clad in tiger skin, bow and a tied quiver strung across his wide shoulder He sang - flower faced one, as you bloom under this flume (you) take me to the heaven(s) far flung By blowing me with your honeyed tamil tongue You, who every full moon night, I have noticed (and every other night I have missed), breaks away from her girlfriends And adds to this herb rich stream, her spices and scents. Who every full moon night, I have noticed, breaks the water fall in eddies that ruddies the stream with the red of your forehead. do you know all this time I have kept abreast with the moves of the moon, and on nights when it shines like the high noon, I am the one who comes here and lies in the shadows of your eyes. And when I sip this water, that am sure has mixed in it a little of your spittle that sweetens the stream’s selection of herbs My mind comes (up) with verbs that are too vulgar to talk about at this introductory hour. -- Not to mention you look like meena's statue without a beauty in this whole pandya land to match you.

6. She sang back – Warrior, I know the feeling, for when your feet touch the water, the ripples send my heart reeling. For a while I knew someone was prying and one night last fortnight, after my bath, I followed you along the single file path (had to remove my anklets, one of which, I later learnt, was washed away by the rivulets) and saw you lap up the stream like a lion in thirst for the blood of cattle. In many a battle, you could've learnt the language of the lances, but you couldn't take cover from the offences of my glances, I am known to cow down wild lions with my piercing eyes. me the child of the chieftain of the province which on the other side of these hills lies. Curious emotion, fear always comes mixed with love, as if u’ve sinned, But whatever he felt as caution he threw to the wind, Even after he learnt they were from clans with a history of rivalry, They continued on in (this high) flowing sangam poetry -

7. He said - eyes as dear as a doe, yet, they pierce a hole as arrows that find their goal in my soul. My arrows kill wild beasts, but yours feeds animals in me with feasts. Water washed down from you in the flume is fuel to the flame in me which turns a forest fire. Is this how your clan wins its clashes with lasses like you to tire our warriors in stoked desire? She said – I had my girlfriend spy on you top to bottom. You are as brave as they come. Fighting battles is nothing new to you; in this one, even tho am from a warring clan, am with you as my man. In true tamil tradition, we shall wait for the chosen date, go back to our people(s) and make them seal their peace (fate) when we consummate. He smiled and said 'so the only penetration that shall happen in our relation is that of your eyes as they size the beasts in my insides' and so saying drew a line on the banks with an arrow's edge.. (which has since disappeared in wind and rain) but they never forgot their pledge..

8. So saying they bided their time, in the meanwhile, She would dance bharathams to his poems And the hearts grew fonder as not all nights he could spend time with her (only on full moon nights would she normally be allowed to go play with her girlfriends in the woods) During those times, even the morn shall not gladden with the waking of the sun, but shall mourn the waning of the moon; The good times would (come to an) end very soon. A fox of her clan would catch 'em in their dancing poem and go back to her father The chieftain and complain that an enemy warrior Has plucked their flower; she pleaded for mercy and Pleaded innocence, but her father the chieftain (blinded to reason, made her an example of treason) that very full moon night, had her slain. She floated dead as since ophelia did. That which flowed that night when the lover-lad came there was jus not the red of the vermilion on her forehead.

9. He wept (as no warrior should, he thot) till tears went dry, too inept in his pelf to either kill the killer or himself. A voice, his, says, since then in the past 1000 years (millenium) the stream has changed its course, but retained its spirit. It has retained its spirit - Me. Yes, I have remained as the ghost of this forest, and now to you two as guest, as I have done to other most other lovers on the run, I play host. My story is nothing new, not something an anglo-poet hasn't written about romeo and juliet. But yet I say this to make a point -- as tamils we have our traditions, our way of proving our love is by quelling our passions. Love, my friends, is sacrifice. Not running for nuptial nights. So go to your respective homes and start the good fight. Even if in the fights you fail and get slain; your love shall remain. Buddies, as long as your heart has no dirt, and is as steady as the rocks around which the stream winds, The eddies of lust shall not muddy your minds. To see me and what I have to say clearly, jus turn around and head town-bound.

10. When I woke up with a start and a pounding heart I found us asleep still in the jeep. The stream's murmur now had more meaning and leaning toward her I woke her. She woke up startled; the look on her face confirmed she too had seen what I had. (mebbe the she saw this scene with a 3 sec lag that happens between the cables at tulsa and athens ) We drove back in a jeep which was the only thing now pregnant, with silence. An old man (thaathaa) speaking the most chaste of madurai tamil served us coffee at the local shack. We got out but had to go back to pick up her left-behind bag. We found no one there, but our bag on a chair. On it was a silver anklet. The old man had since left. At the end of this fable, The old man came back and we payed our bill. We had dreamt a dream within a dream; Read our story within a story When all along we had never left the table. -FINIS