- Lyricist
- Kannadasan
- Singer
- P. Susheela
- Music director
- T. G. Lingappa
- Movie name
- Thanga Malar
- Movie release year
- 1969
- Lyrics added on
- 26 Jun 2021
Lyrics & meaning
Beyond the translation
Overall song meaning
Ninaikka Vaithaai from the 1969 film Thanga Malar is an agonizing devotional lament addressed to the Almighty. The song captures the protagonist's profound despair and feeling of betrayal by destiny after being separated from her beloved and pushed toward marrying someone else. Through Kannadasan's evocative verses and P. Susheela's heartfelt singing, the protagonist questions God's inexplicable motives in giving happiness only to snatch it away. The emotional core relies on vivid paradoxes—God presenting a beautiful vision while removing the eyes to see it, providing an instrument while robbing the fingers to play it, and building a stage while taking away the feet to dance. Exhausted by divine testing, she pleads with the Lord to either grant her a peaceful life or call her to the afterlife to end her suffering.
Writing craft
Poetic devices
Antithesis / Muran
“Kaatchi vaithaai kaanukindra kannai eduthaai”
Juxtaposes the creation of a spectacle with the removal of the eyes to view it, highlighting the cruelty of fate.
Anaphora
“Kaatchi vaithaai / Veenai vaithaai / Medai veithaai”
Repetition of the sentence structure at the beginning of consecutive lines to emphasize divine contradictions.
Ethugai (Second Letter Rhyme)
“Kaatchi vaithaai / Veenai vaithaai”
Harmonious rhyming sound pattern in the second letters/syllables across lines.
Did you know?
Trivia
The song features iconic philosophical lyricism by Kannadasan set to music by T. G. Lingappa, rendered masterfully by P. Susheela. Its classic metaphors comparing life's hardships to incomplete gifts remain widely celebrated in Tamil cinema history.
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