இன்புறவே யள்ளியநீர் துன்புறவே வெள்ளிடையாம்
அன்புறவே கொப்பளத்தை வன்புறவே யுண்ணுதற்காய்
iṉpuṟavē yaḷḷiyanīr tuṉpuṟavē veḷḷiṭaiyām
aṉpuṟavē koppaḷattai vaṉpuṟavē yuṇṇutaṟkāy
“For the sake of pleasure, the water is scooped and poured; for the sake of suffering, it becomes the ‘white-lime’ (white substance). Out of fondness, the bubbling/foam is raised; with insistence/harshness, it is for the purpose of eating.”
“People add water to the white caustic lime so it froths and heats—an action that ‘hurts’—yet they still prepare it and consume it for enjoyment (as a relish to eat). The verse points to how pleasure-seeking makes one accept pain and corrosiveness as ‘food’.”
On a concrete, craft-level reading, the verse closely matches the slaking of lime: water is poured onto quicklime (a white substance), it reacts violently with heat and bubbling/foam, and the product is then used for consumption—classically with betel/areca preparations. The Siddhar’s tone is dryly paradoxical: what is gathered “for pleasure” is precisely what produces burning and distress. This serves a medical-ethical critique: caustic substances (and, by extension, stimulating habits) are taken up for taste and exhilaration despite their capacity to inflame, ulcerate, and derange bodily humors (especially heat/pitta).
On a second, more inward reading typical of Siddhar speech, the same sequence becomes a metaphor for desire and compulsion: the mind “scoops” what it calls sweetness, but the contact with craving produces agitation (heat), frothing thoughts (koppaḷam as mental turbulence), and finally a forced consumption—habitual feeding of sense-objects even when one knows it burns. The Siddhar preserves the uncomfortable truth that what is called “love/affection” (anbu) can, when entangled with attachment, participate in self-harm.