A child's take on Thirukkural

A girl with age twice as much as the number of ‘seer' (words) in Thirukkural has written commentary for the same.

Fourteen-year-old K. Anjana Devi, a class nine student of Vasavi Vidyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School, has come up with explanations for 1080 of the total 1330 couplets that form part of ‘Arathup-paal' and ‘Porut-paal'.

She is yet to write for “Inbathup-paal”.

“I attempted a commentary because I felt those that are available at present are difficult to understand. Mine is for the common man,” she explains.

She says she chose Thirukkural because it has great messages, which if understood and followed will enrich life.

Beginning

With this in mind, the daughter of a mobile shop owner, R.T. Karunahariharan, started writing commentary in 2007. She was in class VI then.

“I started working as soon as I started learning grammar in school,” she says and adds that for difficult words she referred to a Tamil lexicon.

She prepared a rough draft, revised it to come up with a second and finally finished with the third.

“I kept revising because after I write, I used to think it can be improved and a few words can be replaced with better ones.”

Anjana wrote from 5 a.m. to the start of the school time and from after school hours to 11 p.m. “Sometimes I also worked for longer hours,” she recalls.

Her tryst with the couplets began when she was just two-and-a-half years old.

“My father taught Thirukkural, Kambaramayanam, Aathichudi and others to my sister K. Aishwarya Lakshmi and me,” she says.

“This helped me win many prizes at the State and National level.”

“As I learnt the couplets and other verses by heart at a very young age, I grew curious of the meaning. The Thirukkural commentary is an extension of that.”

Future plans

She plans to write a commentary for Moodhurai, a 30-verse Tamil work. “I am interested more in taking existing works to the people than adding to the ocean of literature,” is her explanation for writing commentary.

The girl can recite Thirukkural, portions of Kambaramayanam, Silapathikaram, Moodhurai in full, Aathichudi, and Gitanjali among others. She won the best child award from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 and a State award from Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.

She plans to become an ENT specialist.