35. A Green Bird

Rahel Kala, Venus Lane. Recorded at NSA studio, August 19, 2001. CD track 13; II-36.

Ŏru pacca pakki kŏttittinnuṃ neraṃ
Ŏru manuṣyandě talayoḷaṃ poruṃ

A green bird, while it’s pecking and eating,
Will grow to the size of the head of a man.    
All of the time, it is pecking and eating.
Still it will find the food very tasty.
Just like good musk, it smells very fragrant.
It tastes very good; it tastes so delicious.
It quenches thirst; it satisfies hunger. 
Along with the heat comes a refreshing chill.^[1] 

This short song appears in six Kochi-Paradesi notebooks. In just one notebook it is linked (as a first stanza) with “North Side/South Side: A Visit from the Raja” (song 12), probably indicating its shared melody. Its content, which is not specifically Jewish, has no apparent connection to that of the other song. Perhaps this was a Malayalam folk song with wider circulation, from which the tune was used for the “North Side/ South Side” song, as performed in the 2001 recording by two Paradesi women. Gamliel (2005, 225) suggests that it may be a riddle song.

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^[1] Or: “When the heat comes, the chill is no more.” Or, in the oldest notebook, S-9: “Safety is found under its wings.”