The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Tirukkural at her fingertips

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 22, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tirukkural at her fingertips

By Swahilya

A. Selvabharathi. — Photo: V. Ganesan

CHENNAI, MARCH 21. For A. Selvabharathi, daughter of MTC bus conductor Arunachala Pandian learning to recite the Tirukkural and study its meaning has been a passion even before she went to school.

By class VI, she learnt by heart all the 1,330 couplets and participated in several competitions. Winning prizes, in fact, seems to be her second nature.

Today, it is almost a game. Ask Selvabharathi to tell the 486th verse and she will begin, "Vilanguva Ukkam Udaiyan ..."

Questions thrown at her — verses with animal names, bird names, the 1002nd verse — are answered with ease without batting an eyelid she will expound on the Kurals.

She just learnt it 10 times and revised the verses whenever she went for a competition.

But this young scholar's aim is to become a doctor and translate medical books from English to Tamil. She has also learnt Tiruppavai, Thiruvembavai, Tirupallandu, Tirumandiram, Siva Puranam in Tiruvasagam.

She is also learning the poems of Bharathiar and Bharathidasan, Desika Prabandham and Kanninum Siruthambu.

Now in Class XI and having won many awards , Selvabharathi cherishes the Bharathiar and Tirukkural books gifted to her by the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, two years ago, the most.

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