Moosina Muthyalu !!!

It’s been a while since I put my pen to paper. For years now, its been the keyboard and an empty word document ,with which I begin to write. Sometimes its about things that people ask me to and most times its what I find easy to develop on (Laziness!!!). However, it was different this time. I plugged on my ear phones and pressed the play button, as the song sunk into me. The words – the meaning and beneath it, the soul of the song! I found myself looking for a pen and paper almost immediately.

 “Moosina Muthyalake” the song which inspired me to pen this post, describes the beauty of the Goddess from the eyes of the great poet Tallapakka Annamacharya fondly known as Annamayya. This poem has an interesting flow, describing the aptness of each adornment of the Goddess Alamelumanga/Lakshmi. What is beautiful is that it applies to any woman, seen through the eyes of an admirer. Unlike many of his compositions, Annamayya does not give away the gist of the poem in the first stanza. It starts off with the theme of a pearl that’s enclosed and how it retains its glitter and compares it to the mind. One starts coming to a conclusion that it is a philosophical piece and is taken for a surprise! 

While, the composition describes the goddess as how Annamayya sees it, I’d like to believe that it aptly describes the way Perumal would have felt and described her beauty when he saw her for the first time and every single time thereafter! This post is an attempted translation of the song and a figment of my imagination on a romantic encounter between Perumal and Thayar – one of the most romantic couples in my view! Please forgive my flaws in translation. The imagination used in the post is fictional and does not intend to hurt any religious sentiments !🙂

Born out of penance by a childless king, on a lotus bud, ‘Padmavathi’ was an embodiment of beauty and charm. She was named Alamelumangai ( Alar mel mangai – Maiden on a lotus flower) and Narada had once mentioned to her that she will be the consort of the Lord himself. Srinivasa, a handsome lad who went to the forest chasing a wild elephant, saves a beautiful maiden from the elephant. Her divine exuberance and her beauty made him admire her, respect her and eventually fall in love with her.

The love-struck Srinivasa confesses his feelings for the maiden, to his friend Narada. 

To him he says “Narada, she is the most beautiful, fierce and respectable lady I have ever come across. She in my view is an embodiment of grace. I would like to marry her”. 

Narada playfully chides him “Marry? But you have just met her. Do you even remember her face? It was hardly a minute that you saw her.” 

The lord then says “Her image is etched in my heart and shall be so forever”

And what might that image be ??? He closes his eyes to drown in her beauty, recollecting every detail he could possibly describe. Her long tresses, the redness of her cheeks, her eyes, the sound of her anklets, the fragrance of sandalwood, the orange henna that adorns her hands and feet,  those marigold petals that fall off from her hair as she walks....

Kandhuleni momulakele Kasthuri

Chindani Koppulakele Chemanthulu

For the flawless and spotless face why does she even need turmeric?

The lovely tresses that are not let loose but bound together by a bun, what else can adorn it better than marigold flowers.

Mandayana munakele mettela mota

Gandhamele pai pai kammani nee meniki

Only a woman who walks so gently/elegantly can bear the burden of a toe ring and yet glide through...

Her naturally fragrant body is superficially adorned with sandal wood paste

Srinivasa wonders what use are these adornments to a naturally beautiful Padmavathi. Sans the turmeric, sans the marigold, sans the toe ring, sans the sandalwood paste, she looks, smells and feels beautiful. Her long fingers playing with her tresses, her innocent smile as she grids the turmeric and sandalwood into a paste, her natural beauty could make bards compose verses on her, over and over again.  He silently blushes as he realizes he remembers every vivid detail of her beauty. 

Little does he realize that the maiden is not far away and is privy to his description of her. She smiles and wonders if she really looks that beautiful. She continues to listen to him from behind the tree.

Muddula maatale ke le nee mudamulu

Yaddapu chekkulakele araviri

Those lips of hers can utter only sweet words that makes me feel delightful

Those cheeks of hers are reddish in colour and look to me like half blossomed flowers


Padmavati blushes and runs towards the river to look at her reflection– to see if the way he describes her is the way she looks. Srinivasa follows her, holds her by her arm, looks at her in the eye and

“Voddika maatalekele oorpulu neeku

Addamele thiru Venkatadhrishugoodi”

Why do my comforting and romantic words make you sigh oh maiden?

Why are you looking for a mirror when you can see yourself in me?

As he utters these words, she looks at her reflection in his eyes and feels his love for her.

As she closes her face with her henna adorned palms, he gently holds her hands and looks at her once again absorbing her beauty and grace.

Years later, as she is seated at his lotus feet, he tells her “you are still the woman I fell madly in love with in the woods while hunting a wild elephant” as Narada looks on smiling.