The Main Antagonist of the poem is A
pandiyan king
Nedunchezhiyan hailed as
"Thalai Aalanganathu Seruvendra Nedunchezhiyan" The poem weaves two themes, one of a beautiful palace with a queen inconsolably weeping and missing her husband, another of a chaotic war camp with the
Pandya king Netunceliyan busy and attending his injured soldiers. The former is the
akam-genre poetry, the latter the
puram-genre. The poem neither names the king nor the queen, but this is alluded to by the metaphors and the words that paint where she lives with her attendants (palace) and by the role and achievements of the man who is at the war front. Similarly, the city itself is not explicitly named, but alluded to by the details included. In the Tamil tradition, as linked in a medieval commentary on this poem, the unnamed king is presumed to be Netunceliyan. The poem paints the Tamil region in the cold season, with the northerly wind and retreating monsoonal rains. The people are described as huddling around fires, people then putting their warmed hands on their cheeks, how animals and birds shiver. Women wear simple clothes and minimal jewelry (wedding bracelets) inside their homes and mansions, as their husbands are away on war. In contrast, on the war front, men are decked up in their protective gear inside their simple tents. The
Netunalvatai verses provide social and cultural information. Musical troupes were accompanied by dancing girls in the city. Women prayed to Korravai goddess in temples seeking the safe return of their husbands (lines 48–52, 185–194). They would light lamps, offer flowers and rice with their prayers. Lines 101–102 suggest that Tamil merchants traded with Greek-Romans (
yavanas) for designer lamps. == Verses ==