Daily Dose of Thirukkural # 0

With all the shenanigans by the politicians, the would be politicians, self appointed guardians of civil rights and freedom, disgruntled elements, thin skinned public who take offence at even unintended slights - the World today and India especially have become a difficult environment to express any sort of opinion or view.
The general thinking

• about 60 years ago seems to have been - ‘I believe that you’ve a right to disagree with me, and I will defend your right to do so’
• about 30 years back seems to have lost some tail - ‘I believe that you’ve a right to disagree with me, and I will defend (myself)’.
• about 15 years ago definitely lost the entire tail - ‘I believe that you’ve a right to disagree with me’
• about couple of years now, it has morphed - ‘I believe that you’ve no right to disagree with me’

>;-/
In such circumstances, it is only be preaching some wise words can we strive to achieve some morality and decency.  With that in mind, I’ve decided to dish out one couplet of Thirukkural every day - and hope at least one person somewhere can learn/understand from it.
Now you may ask why Thirukkural and not from one of the holy books, of which mankind has so many.  For,

• I don’t want to get into a religious bracket of any kind by resorting to any (one) holy book.
• No one can correctly identify the religious belief of the Author Thiruvalluvar of Thirukkural.  Speculation ranges from Hindu to Jain to Buddhist (please keep in mind that Christianity hadn’t reached India at the his time and other religions had not even been founded).
• Kurals are short and to the point.  It should be easy to explain them, if necessary.
• The author Thiruvalluvar, after all, is reputed to be a resident of Chennai, that was Madras, my Home Town.  Why should I venture anywhere else?
• 0:-D

So the presentation plan is to

• present the original couplet in Tamil, followed by
• a Tamil explanation, to be followed by
• a literal English translation; to be rounded off with
• a few lines of explanation/interpretation for today’s world, and
• a mad.madrasi take if it tunes with some current or contemporary event.

Though it is usual to commence from the 1st couplet, proceed through the 1st Section dealing with Righteousness before proceeding to the 2nd (Wealth) and 3rd (Pleasure) sections, I plan to disregard the 3rd Pleasure Section and its 250 couplets, in toto.  Writing on that section would probably force Google to brand this blog as one with ‘adult’ content.
:-P
Thus the plan to start from the 2nd Section - Wealth, with its 700 couplets, because it is the largest and also deals with Politics, Economy and Society, which are of special interest in monkeyshine nutworks. 

However, the actual 1st post, the next one, which will be ‘Daily Thirukkural #1’ *will* be the 1st couplet of the Kural itself, as it starts with a prayer and should be appropriate.


(The accepted likeness of Thiruvalluvar, the author of Thirukkural)

update: [23 Dec 2011] Series renamed as ‘Daily Dose of Thirukkural’, with the abbreviated reference DDT#

update: [10 May 2012] Series renamed to reflect the reality as 'Dribbly Dose of Thirukkural', with the abbreviated reference DDTH#

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