The campus of the Government Industrial Training Institute, Trichy, lies parallel for some distance along my daily commute between Srirangam and the place of my work. On its compound wall on the outside there are a number of supposedly inspirational sayings–and also some don’ts–written in Tamil (Black lettering on yellow field). I have seen them and at first look I told myself they do have some relevant messages, perhaps for the students inside rather than the travelers on the highway. Yet, one day I took pictures of them and felt that a few of them deserve to be on my blog, with my own interpretations. Hence this post.
Message
1
Translated: I regret I have only one life
to give to my nation.
My
comments: This message is supposedly exalting the spirit of sacrifice in the
cause of the nation, a patriotic one, a nationalistic one. Someone said, “...the
idolatry of Nations is almost better than reverence for God and humanity”. He
adds, “...Nationalism is a great menace”.
The
message above, then, grates on me.
Message
2
Translated: Man creates Black Money. At
times [however] money creates evil men.
My
comments: Black Money should be understood as that accrued through underhanded
dealings, in whatever manner. I do not like the qualifier “At times”. It seems
to me that money creates desire for more of it leading inevitability to
acquiring it any which way. Otherwise, I would give this an 8/10.
Message
3
Translated: It is hard to acquire good
habits, but once acquired they are easy to adhere to. It is easy to acquire bad
habits, but once acquired they are difficult to forego.
My
comments: The statement as given is not value-neutral; it embeds value-judgment.
One needs to have an ear for one’s own conscience, developed over time almost
exclusively through introspection. One must understand the above with the above
rider.
Message
4
Translated: The only good friends in this
world are books.
My
comments: Oooh! I do not know where to start. First, this must be facing the
students on the campus! Second, I can off-hand cite enough books of many kinds
that are popular and send out immoral messages. Third, every book must be, at
first read, taken to be true but that should NEVER be THE CONCLUSION. One must
seek out many books (I would include even technical books whose standards vary
from negative infinity to positive infinity) and filter out the unfit contents of
the book (again, one’s conscience comes into play). Same goes for newspapers
and website news. Fourth, you get a book as a good friend only through such
filtering, and refer to Message 3.
Message
5
Translated: Sleep is a wily thief. He takes
away half of your lifetime.
My
comments: This is about as bad a message as a message can be, particularly on
the walls of an educational institution. When one spends the time she is awake
fruitfully (conscience), her brain does, unbeknownst to her, make sense of and
imbibe what she has learned when she was awake. Without sleep, it is hard to remember
what one has learnt. This message, if I were the head-honcho of the
institution, would not have been allowed to be put up in the first place!
Message
6
Translated: Forget the injury that caused
you suffering; but, do not forget the lesson it taught you.
My
comments: A bad adage (if indeed it is claimed to be one). It is badly worded,
to mean that the injury caused suffering.
This is nonsense. An incident/accident caused the suffering through the injury.
It would be better to change the sentence, or better still, remove it. It adds little
value to one’s thought process.
Message
7
Translated:
When one does not understand and/or when
one is jealous of others, man considers the others fools.
My
comments: Oh, I love this one; I have seen such behavior from all the people
in positions of power doing this to her subordinates (not excluding me when I
had any power at all). If one were to ask himself the reason for such a behavior
on his part, the honest answer is “fear”. What if there comes a situation when
one becomes a subordinate to the one who is currently his subordinate? So, don’t
tell her the right way to do something and also, this is crucial, if the subordinate
shows a better way, one must pull ranks and ask the subordinate to “obey!”
Well,
for the readers of this post, you may have your own take on each on each of
these. Kindly share those. Thanks in advance.
Raghuram
Ekambaram
2 comments:
This is a very interesting post. Something taken from an everyday facet of life. It is nice to see a blog on something so simple as a compound wall inscription (for lack of better word) and give your impression on it.
Message 4 is so true. We live not in the world of where all authors are like Ilangovadigal or Kalki and we should thus choose (if indeed we ever choose) books as carefully as we do friends. There is enough literature created by political figures out there enough to poison/alter minds (not the actual genuine political accounts or biographies).
Message 5 indeed should be removed from that wall. It is dangerous imo.
Raghavan Ramalingam
Thank you Raghavan. Sometimes I feel that I may be imposing on others, but now under COVID-19, I think I am OK. Thanks for your considered comments, million times better than a "Like" on a Facebook post.
RE
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