Focus on New Words

This being a post on lyrics, my hearty congrats to Vairamuthu for winning his nth National award for Thenmerku ParuvakAtru!

Though it has been 4 years since I wrote this post comparing Tamil & Hindi lyricists, whenever I hear a recent hit Hindi song, I try to understand its meaning and find that, more often than not, it has some good lyrics, but new/hard words are quite uncommon. For someone like me who is still on the learning curve of Hindi, I can still make out the meaning of most of the words. For example, the beautiful song "Pee Loon" of last year has some lines

"Sham Ko Milu Jo Main Tujhe,
To Bura Subha Na Jane
Kiyun Kuch Maan Jalati hai Yeh,
Har Lamha Har Ghari Har Pahir,
Bhi Teri Yadon Se Tadpa Ke.
Mujhko Jalati Hai Yeh"

Some lovely lines they are, but quite understandable even for a layman. Nothing wrong in it. Just a comment, not a judgment.

Sometime ago, I was listening to 'Ennamo edho' from "Ko". I must say, it was an 'active listening' without any parallel processing going on. So, I heard these lines carefully for the first time:
"EdhO kuviyamillA kuviyamillA oru kAtchi pezhai"
"ஏதோ குவியமில்லா குவியமில்லா ஒரு காட்சிப்பேழை"

Kuviyam!! Wow. How many decades since I heard that word!! In optics, studying about lenses. For non-tamilians, Kuviyam=focus, pezhai=display/portrait and the above line roughly translates into
"Some focusless view of display".

Lyrics by Jr. Vairamuthu, who writes as if the late Sujatha has ventured into penning the songs.
Considering the profession of the protagonist (photographer), the lines nicely fit to him. Rather than being quite generic for any longing hero in the lyrics, such personal touches would make the songs special.

Update: I am too late blogging about these lines! In addition to a few blog entries, you can also hear it from the horse's mouth. Watch/read Karky's interview here, in which he says "A photographer’s confusion can best be described in his own work jargon as ‘kuviyamila’ or ‘out of focus’. Kaatchi Pezhai describes a display unit such as a TV monitor or a PC monitor. The photographer sees his entire world in the display unit in which nothing seems to be in focus and he questions the reason for this in the song."