"துன்பம் நேர்கையில்" (Thunbam Nergayil – When Sorrow Strikes) is a poem by Tamil poet Bharatidasan. Born in Pondicherry in 1891, named K. Subburathinam, he "was deeply influenced by the Tamil poet and freedom fighter, Subramania Bharathi, who mentored him and hence named himself "Bharathidasan, meaning the follower of Bharathi". Bharatidasan remained a prolific writer and poet till he died on 21 April 1964, aged 72. He was conferred the Sahitya Academy Award posthumously for his Tamil play "Pisiraandhaiyaar". [Wikipedia]
'Thunbam Nergayil' is a poem written by him in 1939, wherein a parent speaks to a child, and was set to music by Dhandapani Desikar in the Hindustani raga 'Desh'. The song became popular when it was rendered in the same raga by R. Sudharsanam for the Tamil film ஓர் இரவு (Oer Iravu – One Night, 1951). Desikar said in an interview that it took him two years to compose the song, and he believed that music should be in accordance with the meaning of the song.
The song has also been rendered by many classical and light music singers and that by IndoSoul has been chosen for 'Timeless Music and Talks'. One of the main reasons is that the band hasn't done it as a romantic song between a couple – as erroneously done in the film version and that of QFR, a popular music group – it is well made, and Karthick Iyer's vocalisation scales great heights.
The song has been translated from Tamil into English as sung, except one word, and is displayed as subtitles on the video. About the one word difference:
Most renditions (including IndoSoul's) have the first lines of the second stanza as follows:
"வன்பும் எளிமையும் சூழும் நாட்டிலே
வாழ்வில் உணர்வு சேர்க்க".
However, the poem on the website of the Tamil Virtual University has a small but significant difference:
"வன்பும் எளிமையும் சூழும் நாட்டிலே
வாழ்வின் உணர்வு சேர்க்க".
The common version means "For adding consciousness to life", whereas the university version means "For adding life's consciousness". As life itself is a consciousness, and so adding "life's consciousness" makes sense than adding "consciousness to life", the university's version of the word has been translated for this video.
Click this link to watch (3 min : 42 sec) : https://youtu.be/Uu46mPWh8Zw
