Pandiyan
Yaadum ooré, Yaavarum kélir
The tile means Any place is ours and all folks are our kin. It is from an ancient Tamil poem by Kanian Poonkundran from Puranaanooru compiled sometime around 100 BC.
Here are some translated lines. Translation itself is over 100 years old. It was done by Rev GU Pope, a Christian Missionary and a Tamil scholar. And gender bias was not seen critically those days!
To us all towns are one, all men our kin,
Life's good comes not from others' gifts, nor ill,
Man's pains and pain's relief are from within...
How do we look at the lines? In amazement, especially at the farsighted vision and the wisdom of the poet; or do we look at humankind cynically and say they haven't progressed at all in 2000 years; or do we find more clues on what drives groups, societies and humans at a fundamental level? Take your pick.
Some viewers had commented in my previous photo that my words were patriotic. I don't know about that. I am a pacifist and a happy member of my family, my city and my nation but I may look at humanism even ahead of nationalism. And world sooner or later will have to move beyond these 'convenient barriers' and I am sure it will. And humanism will encompass something more than humans as well.
I see many conflicts as struggles for identity. Given time, space and the means, human quest for relatedness, an equally powerful urge, will find its place. We may have to work on it. Building its vocabulary and creating its machinery and lending a hand to its apostles.
Yaadum ooré, Yaavarum kélir
The tile means Any place is ours and all folks are our kin. It is from an ancient Tamil poem by Kanian Poonkundran from Puranaanooru compiled sometime around 100 BC.
Here are some translated lines. Translation itself is over 100 years old. It was done by Rev GU Pope, a Christian Missionary and a Tamil scholar. And gender bias was not seen critically those days!
To us all towns are one, all men our kin,
Life's good comes not from others' gifts, nor ill,
Man's pains and pain's relief are from within...
How do we look at the lines? In amazement, especially at the farsighted vision and the wisdom of the poet; or do we look at humankind cynically and say they haven't progressed at all in 2000 years; or do we find more clues on what drives groups, societies and humans at a fundamental level? Take your pick.
Some viewers had commented in my previous photo that my words were patriotic. I don't know about that. I am a pacifist and a happy member of my family, my city and my nation but I may look at humanism even ahead of nationalism. And world sooner or later will have to move beyond these 'convenient barriers' and I am sure it will. And humanism will encompass something more than humans as well.
I see many conflicts as struggles for identity. Given time, space and the means, human quest for relatedness, an equally powerful urge, will find its place. We may have to work on it. Building its vocabulary and creating its machinery and lending a hand to its apostles.