Kural of the day – 100

Jack of all trades:

Honestly, I never had been this much consistent in my entire life. I was only consistent in my inconsistency. I treat myself as Jack of all trades. That’s my track record. But here with this “Kural of the day” series, I can pat myself on the back for keeping up my words thus far. I am writing this post to highlight the 100^th Kural in my series, a little milestone of the long journey and it would be more of personal journal about how I started this. So hop in!

Failed attempts:

I always wanted to learn all Thirukural since my school days. I tried thrice and left halfway through over many reasons. In School days, I desired to memorize all Kural but couldn’t continue due to lack of zeal. Later in college days, I tried with pocket sized book and failed again. Then I attempted with an app and was unsuccessful as I couldn’t connect with author’s explanation. Then out of the blue, during a debate over FB post, the idea of this “Kural of the day” series had born.

Authors I follow:

This time I tried a different strategy. I didn’t attempt to memorize couplets and started following seven different authors (Mu Va, Kalaignar, Solomon Pappaiah, Sivayogi Sivakumar, Parimelazhagar, Ashok Subramaniam and G.U. Pope) explanation. Understanding a Kural is all about one’s perspective. So it is ideal to follow as many authors as possible to get complete meaning of a couplet. This I experienced in the very first Adhigaram (கடவுள் வாழ்த்து / The Praise of God). Start should be perfect for any new activity to feel good about it and build confidence from there to continue the same.

I started of this Kural series with below couplet which i posted in FB on Jan 27^th 2020. Meaning, “What use is in learning for who don’t surrender himself to God.” Being non believer of God, I felt disconnect with this book at the start itself. But the moment I read Kalaignar’s explanation, there’s no turning back. He is comparing learned/ wise to God and gave a different perspective altogether to this couplet. So to devote more time in learning from different authors, I stick to one Kural per day.

Translation and Meme:

In the first post itself, I got a funny feedback from my friend Yogesh about English explanation which i found online. He said he finds it easy to follow actual Kural than explanation. Which is in a way true and I couldn’t find a better English explanation other than this. So from day 2, I started writing English translation part which is in a way helping me to remember the content of Kural forever.

After a week, I got a sense that people are not following the series as they were at the beginning. It is quite natural that folks get bored of philosophy and written posts. Many people tried preaching Kural with small stories, songs, real events and so on. But none tried with meme which is currently in trend among youths. So I gave a try with below Kural and immediately got the feedback from my dear friend, well-wisher AK. Appreciation is the fuel to engine of excellence and getting it from close friend who could give genuine feedback about us meant a lot. Searching meme is the toughest part in my series and sometimes I take more than 30 minutes to think of an appropriate scene to relate with couplet.

Kural selection:

This is yet another hard part. Thirukural is also known as Ulaga Podhu Marai (Universal Scripture). I wanted to test this quality of the book. Is it really a universal scripture and stays relevant to current world? So I am choosing couplets randomly to sync with current affairs. And I am in awe of the great Thiru Valluvar and damn he is genius. How could one think of all life situations and provide possible solution to lead a peaceful and meaningful life. There are few couplets which are irrelevant to current digital world but again with our perspective we could turn them as meaningful. That’s the beauty of his work.

Feedbacks:

As I said, appreciations and feedbacks are very important to continue a task. Appreciation is a basic human need to carry on our effort and feedback helps us to improvise the same. I was watchful in keeping my posts short as I thought lengthy posts would be boring to read. But I got an interesting feedback from my close buddy Sambu for below couplet which is self-explanatory. I felt it was genuine criticism and later started adding more points to my content.

In another instance, i expected many comments for this particular couplet which I quoted as “One of the most controversial couplets”. Surprisingly i got only two feedbacks and this from my cousin brother was an eye opener which is again self-explanatory. I was cautious before posting this Kural and kept only Kalaignar’s explanation for the very reason. I felt other’s explanations may lead to unwanted comments and I added as much meaningful points to my own words. But I could have covered other side (Female) too as per his feedback.

And this response from my Junior Vishnu is special one. He being a non-Tamil, following Thirukural proves its quality of Ulaga Podhu Marai quality. I was motivated to learn that non-Tamil also following my work and post that we talked hours regarding the importance of Thirukural.

Thank You:

I must thank all who are boosting me in all possible ways to continue posting Kural. Thanks for feedbacks, appreciations, helping me with grammar, sharing my memes with others, reminding me when I was late in publishing post, reminding me when I post couplets from same topic back to back, hours of discussion over couplets, small argument when you oppose my view and finally FB likes.

I hope I will continue with same zeal and finish all 1330 couplets.

PS: Got permission from concerned to post private WA chats.

100^th Kural of the Day!

40. கல்வி..குறள் 391:

கற்க கசடறக் கற்பவை கற்றபின்
நிற்க அதற்குத் தக

Translation by Boopathi:

What to do: Everyone must learn

How to do: Learn the content without any faults

What to learn: Whatever is needed (Ethics, discipline and life lessons)

Then: Follow what you learned

In short, everyone must read Thirukural and lead your life accordingly.

மு.வ உரை:

கல்வி கற்க நல்ல நூல்களைக் குற்றமறக் கற்க வேண்டும், அவ்வாறு கற்ற பிறகு, கற்ற கல்விக்கு தக்கவாறு நெறியில் நிற்க வேண்டும்.