Thirukkural with the Times explores real-world lessons from the classic Tamil text ‘Thirukkural’. Written by Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar, the Kural consists of 1,330 short couplets of seven words each. This text is divided into three books with teachings on virtue, wealth, and love and is considered one of the great works ever on ethics and morality. The Kural has influenced scholars and leaders across social, political, and philosophical spheres.Motivational speaker, author and diversity champion Bharathi Bhaskar explores the masterpiece.There are airports where journeys begin, and those where something within us quietly comes undone.That day, somewhere between departure gates, amid the hum of announcements, I met a friendParam – Paramasivam. A man who could laugh at anything, dissolve solemnity with a joke.But that day, he sat still. The laughter had withdrawn from his face.Over an overpriced cup of coffee, his story emerged. He was traveling for a funeral, that of a childhood friend.“Heart attack?” I asked.“Maybe,” he said. “We don’t even know how he died. But we all knew he would, soon.”What followed was not a story of death, but of a long companionship. His friend had slipped into alcoholism. Param had tried everything — rehabilitation centres, jobs, repeated chances. Each attempt ended the same way. Each failure left Param a little closer to his friend.He had pleaded with the friend’s wife not to leave her husband. He had endured humiliation from his own family for supporting an alcohol addict. For years, he quietly paid bills.“This must be a relief,” I said, almost reflexively.Param looked at me, his voice steady but wounded. “I only wish I had done more. I wish I had stayed in the same city. I wish I had somehow brought him back. I am guilty. He was my friend.”In that moment, the words of valluvar rose, not as poetry remembered, but as truth revealed:Mugamnaga Natpadhu Natpadru: NenjaththuAgamnaga Natpadhu NatpuThe love that rests only in the smile of the face is no friendship at all; that which dwells in the quiet smile of the heart—that alone is friendship.I was reminded of Khalil Gibran, who wrote, “When you part from your friend, grieve not, for what you love most in him, may be clearer in his absence.”. Yet grief lingers, because love does not dissolve with absence.In the Mahabharata, there is a moment of grace. Karna, in playful ease, pulls the pearl strings at Bhanumathi’s waist. The pearls scatter.Duryodhana enters. He doesn’t question. He simply asks, “Shall I gather the pearls, or string them back?”Science, too, bows to such truths. In his famous book Phantoms in the BrainDr VS Ramachandran writes of a patient who had forgotten how to smile; the trauma had damaged the neural pathway.The patient could obey every instruction but could not smile when asked. And yet, one day, when a childhood friend visited him, he smiled.Because there exists another pathway — the one that awakens not by command, but by memory.The face had forgotten. The heart had not.As our flights were announced, Param and I walked in silence.Friendship is not always joy. Sometimes, it is endurance. Sometimes, helplessness. Sometimes, a quiet, unrelenting guilt that asks for nothing, yet gives in abundance.When did your friend enter your life? So gently that you cannot trace the beginning. They arrive without announcement yet rearrange the inner landscape of your being.And when memory falters, somewhere, in the unseen chambers of the heart, a presence remains.And in that silent, forgotten space, before thought can intervene, the heart remembers.And it smiles.
