Lyrics and meaning of kuttrala kuravanji

[anuradha10]

Can you please help with the lyrics and meaning of kuttrala kuravanji.Thank you for your help. Anuradha

[Lakshman]

If you can read tamil it is here:


http://www.scribd.com/doc/7093292/Kutra ... i-and-More:

[Enna_Solven]

There are over 100 individual stanzas. Which one do you want? Give me the starting words. I will post the lyrics and experts will translate it for you.

http://projectmadurai.org/pm_etexts/utf8/pmuni0106.html (in unicode - should be readable in most browsers)

[anuradha10]

Thank you for directing me to the relevant websites.Our dance teacher is interested in doing a segment of it as a dance drama for my children's arangetram.As I don't know the meaning of the piece,I'm not sure which section is suitable.I don't know if any of you can recommend a section of it that can be choreographed and danced as a drama.

[Enna_Solven]

The whole song is about heroine pining for the divine Hero. There is explicit description of female beauty in many stanzas which is not suitable for our current mores; certainly not to be done for/by children. The one starting with "vAnarangaL kani kodutthu" that describes the beauty of the hills may be the only section suitable. rshankar, arasi and others might know better.

[Pratyaksham Bala]

Check YouTube for 'Kutrala Kuravanji'.

[rshankar]

Anuradha - typically, in arangETRams, the gypsy sections of the kuravanji is chosen for the one of the post-varNam pieces. However, if you have 2 children performing their arangETRam together, you could select one of the dialogues between the characters.

In a typical kuravanji (azhagar-, kuTRala-, and even ones in hindi and gujrati that I have heard of), there are 4 main players:
1) a princess (usually called some valli, like mOhanavalli, vasantavalli etc.) - who falls in love with either a local king, or the presiding deity of the local temple, and starts to pine away
2) her friend (skahi) - who tries to figure out why her friend is pining away
3) the gypsy woman (kuravanji/singi) - who arrives at the palace and demands to see the princess, gets into an argument with the sakhi who is very protective of the princess, and wins the princess over with some of her astute observations, and 'reads' the princess' palm, and forsees a grand wedding for the princess and the person who's stolen her heart. The princess, overjoyed, showers the kuravanji with precious gems and othet gifts and she goes on her merry way
4) the gypsy woman's husband (kuravan/singa) - who waits anxiously for singi - she has gone away from their home without informing him, and seeing her return laden with gifts make him very suspicious, and her explanations are not very successful, until sheer greed overwhlems him and he is pacified

So, if there are 2 girls dancing, you can choose the princess/sakhi interactions, or the singa/singi interactions (in an anciant movie, Smt. Vyjanthimala, in a double role, made for the most enchanting singa/singi combinations I have ever seen)....