Yakkai Thiri

Yesterday, I was listening to the "fana" song by ARRahman. Fana, a beautiful urdu word, which means mukti or complete destruction of physical being that results in confluence with spiritual being aka Nirvana. The song reminded me of something funny that happened 2 years back.

The tamil version of the "fana" song has the following lyrics.

"yaakkai thiri kaadhal sudar anbae
jeevan nadhi kaadhal kadal nenjae"

which can be translated to English as

"The body is a wick and love is the flame! my love!
life is a river and love is ocean! my sweetheart!"

Nice verse. Has profound meaning both in platonic and non platonic sense :)

The music of the song is an amazing score by ARRahman. When the music is so good, it is common for people to pay less attention to the lyrics. PAM boy made the exact mistake with this song. The word yakkai in Tamil means "body". He substituted yakkai with another word (well, to be precise 2 words) Yaar kai. He sings

"yaar kai thiri kaadhal sudar anbae
jeevan nadhi kaadhal kadal nenjae"

upon translation this is what it means

"Whose hand is the wick that flames love! my love!
life is a river and love is ocean! my sweetheart!"

man!!! what a murder! When the mistake was pointed out, he tried to justify saying that "It means that in sex, which lover's hands acts as a wick heating up sex that is fueled by love". Bakwaas matth kar, yaar! (Did you notice the increased proliferation of urdu words in my posts, like the ghee fried raisins and cashews in kheer (aah! another urdu/hindi word :). Hmm! But what's the use! ))

After a lot of hard work from our side, PAM boy sings the correct lyrics, nowadays.