Tiruvalluvar has been hijacked by every Dravidian party

While Shapkespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit” in his play Ham let, Tiruvalluvar proved the same though his work, Thirukkural, each of which is just one and a half sentences long. However, each of them packs a lot of wisdom, which is why Thitukkural is hailed as the common man’s ‘Veda’. 

The Dravidian political parties, who embrace rationalism, and do not accept the Vedic classification of humanity into the four categories, namely, the wise(those who give directive principles), the rulers, the business class and last, but not the least, those who serve, have, without exception, accepted Tiruvalluvar’s work as a moral code of conduct. According to them, Thirukkural is a body of work which suits everyone.

No one knows Tiruvalluvar’s actual date of birth. He is said to have lived in Mylapore around 1,500 and 2,000 years ago Recently, while travelling by Metro, a man seated next to me showed me the screensaver on his mobile phone. It was of Tiruvalluvar’s gigantic statue at Kanyakumari. Moved by curiosity, I asked him why he felt the statue of Tiruvalluvar should be held in such a high esteem? He promptly named a Dravidian political leader and further said, “If such a leader mentions Tiruvalluvar’s name as iconic, then it must be correct.”

Tiruvalluvar could have been turned into a political icon; luckily for everyone, he has become a social icon and even a philosophic one, to many. One body of work, 1330 couplets—this is the sum total of Tiruvalluvar’s contribution. But what a timeless appeal it possesses! Political parties hijack his legacy in order to stay in the limelight, while literary societies and universities in other countries have translated his work in their own languages. 

Thirukkural is an extraordinary masterpiece. The words are so pithy and so succinct that the work has lent itself to exhaustive research, over centuries. Divided into three sections— virtue, wealth and love— the cantos cover every aspect of life and echo everyone’s angst on various issues in life. For those needing a crash course on governance, Thirukkural is an ideal tutorial; for something as simple as highlighting the pitfall of consuming alcohol, one needs to look no further than Valluvar’s work. For the politically-correct and pragmatic people, Thirukkural is a bottomless pit, where one can keep on mining for a wealth of guidelines on life and living. 

When you read Thirkkural, and reinterpret it, the work lends itself to a fresh reasoning, each time. Its incomparable strength lies in the fact that one can interpret the work for today’s youngsters. The work is a moral precept. However, it is not a dry, philosophic piece of creation, but a hugely poetic one. You will find subtle humour, wonderful word play and an ocean of meaning in any Thirukkural. What’s more, it is so beautifully constructed that even children take to Thirukural very quickly and love to show-off their prowess in reciting the couplets. 

Tiruvalluvar’s statue may be a screensaver on an ordinary man’s mobile phone, or he could beam at you from a calendar. He is nothing short of an icon, nay, a saint who guides us on how to live life—not denounce it. To many he is a saint. While Thirukkural continues to command respect and holds its own in the world body of incomparable works, unfortunately one cannot say the same of his temple in Mylapore. When I last went there, it was a den for card players and rummy characters.