From: sundar@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu (M. Sundaramoorthy)
Subject: "All I need to know ... ... "
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 7 Sep 92 18:23:50 GMT

There was a best seller in US last year entitled: "All I need to
know I learned from my Cat". Recently, I saw a poster, saying, "All I need
to know I learned in my Kinder Garten" and listing the morals one learns
at that level.

If we look back, we also learned all the morals an average human being
needs to know during our school days from  Avvaiyaar's
'aaththichoodi', 

	aRam ceya virumbu
	aaRuvadhu cinam 
        .....  ...  ..
'konRai vEndhan'

	Odhaamal oru naaLum irukka vENdaam
	oruvaraiyum pollaangu colla vENdaam
        ..........  ........  ....  ......
and 'moodhurai'

	caadhi iraNdozhiya vERillai caaRRungaal
	needhi vazuva neRimuRaiyin - mEdiniyil
	ittaar periyor idaadhaar izhikulaththor
	pattangil uLLa padi.

from VaLLuvar's 'thirukkuRaL',

	kaRka kacadaRa kaRpavai kaRRapin
	niRka adhaRkuth thaga

	vaaymai enappaduvadhu yaadhenin yaadhonRum 
	theemai ilaadha colal

from Bharthiya's 'paappap paattu'

	'Odi viLaiyaadu paappaa - nee
	Oyindhirukkalaagaadhu paappaa
        .............................

and so on.

Whatever we missed in the schools have been taught to us by Kannadasan, Vali
and now Vairamuthu with their countless number of film songs. Nobody would
have escaped these songs emanating from the blurring speakers of the public
and private functions, AIR's 'nEyar viruppam' and from our personal collections.

My question is, 'Are we still not matured enough to know these morals ourselves?
Should we continue to learn these morals from ThiruvaLLuvar, Kannadasan etc.?.
Should we keep reminding ourselves again and again?. Assuming that most
of the netters have crossed their teens, I think we have crossed the age
of learning 'morals', rather we are in a position to teach to the next 
generation. 

What we need to read and discuss for our age are not these morals, but the books
that talk about the contemporary society. There are thousands of
Tamil and English books in US libraries on Tamil literature, culture,
society, politics etc. It is very easy to loan books through inter-library
loan from Center for Research Libraries. It takes just 10 days to get a book.

True, we need to spare some time to do this. But if we do, we will be 
benefitting ourselves. Many of us don't want to do this, but still want to
'contribute' to the net discussion. We don't want to put any effort to learn
and tell new things, but throw the same old arguements again and again,
boring and irritating others. We pretend to have love for Tamil language
and culture, but we hardly discuss anything that throws light on these
subjects. Doing lip service by personifying the language as 'thamizhannai'
or 'kannith thamizh' or praising 'thamizhukku amudhenRu pEr', or 
'thamizhan enRu colladaa' etc. would not help to enhance our literary,
cultural and social standards. We have seen the results of these rhetorical
utterances over past several decades. And continuing in the same nostalgic
path would worsen the situation further and result in deterioration of
culture. To put in simple words, we are fooling ourselves doing this.

We should rise to the occasion and change our approach. We should start
looking at the contemporary realities, not continue to live in the
nostalgic past shown by our Tamil teachers and the politicians nor
the imaginary present projected by the commercial magazines and masala
movies.

M. Sundaramoorthy
sundar@indigo1.hsis.uci.edu
sundar@esv1.hsis.uci.edu

Let me try some Tamil quotations:

"enakkum thamizh thaan uYir moochchu
 aanaal adhai piRar mEl vida maattEn."
	     
            - TN Poet Gnanakkoothan

"uyir pOna pinnaalum
thamizhingu vaazhuvadhaal
thamizhengaL uyirukku nEralla"

	    - TE Poet Al Asumadha

P.S: Please do not try to correct, if I wrongly quoted or transliterated
Avvaiyaar or Valluvar, as my intention here is not to teach or learn those.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.indian.telugu