An interpretation of Poi using the film as a montage of poems. The opening scene of Poi ends with the caption: He is trying to empty the sea. Using two simple couplets from Valluvar’s Thirukural, the objects in this scene can be used as a prop.
Treat the sea as a source of knowledge. The opening song hints about a tune being composed using the sea.
Kural 396:
Water comes gushing forth from the sand, the deeper and deeper it is dug; likewise, intelligence will grow, the more and more a person studies.Kural 397:
Persons of learning can call all countries and places as their own. Why then, do not some persons care to learn?
The second important prop is a snakes and ladder board. A game is being played between two metaphysical characters : Theepori (spark) - a person dressed in traditional clothes and Vidhi (Fate) – a person dressed in modern clothes. The board as a prop:
Kural 401:
The one who comes forth to speak before a learned assembly, without having studied good books, is like a person trying to throw a dice in a board game without a spot for it.
The game involves an attempt to spark interest in Literature using Subramaniam Bharathi’s formula and the obstacles one has to overcome. As a poet, Bharathi often used fire as a metaphor. Agni Kunchonru Kanden happens to be one of his most popular poems:
I found a young spark of fire.
I left it in a hole in the woods.
The woods burned down till all was still.
For the valour of fire,
how can one speak of young or old?
Bharathi’s formula for creating interest in old literature was to reinvent them. KB uses lyrical fictions, metaphoric discourses, sceneries and dialogues to act as informants to create a narrative poem. The story involves an interrelated series of events containing characters, actions, informants, and indices, each of which may affect individual scenes, as well as the end of the film as a whole.
