For a not-so-very-long poem, the poet has packed it with a lot of meaning using vivid imagery and subtle reflections. The poem narrates the story of a snake that dwells inside a “puttu” – a snake mound. It craves to break out of the darkness it’s been trapped in for its entire life. But for the mother occasionally dropping in some food, the snake is totally detached from the rest of the universe. And it longs to crawl up the walls of its dungeon and peep into the big, wide world.
Alas, one day, it does just that. It climbs up the mound and catches but a glimpse of the sky only to be mesmerised by the glory of the sun. To be enthralled by the splendorous views of the vast horizon. And it chooses never to slither back into its hole. Not for all the milk and honey that its mother may feed it.
Every reader of poetry is a poet in himself or herself. And a reader of this poem cannot but grasp the full import of the poem. The snake here is your own self. The snake mound is your own body born of the basic elements. The sky is the universe at large, or the infinite oneness. The mother that feeds you is Mother Nature. The milk and honey you feed on are the sensuous pleasures of the material world. Once you break away from this mundane existence and leave the material pleasures, you get to drink the elixir for the soul, to experience the light of the monistic oneness. And then there’s no return to elemental existence.
The snake also refers to kundalini, one's latent energy that's believed to lie coiled at the base of one's spine. When this energy rises, through yoga, all the way up to the brain where resides the sahasrara padma - the thousand-petalled lotus that symbolises supreme consciousness – it's called kundalini awakening, or self-realization.
Here's for you a poignant rendition of the poem by Smitha Keeran Warrier.
