Translations

 Original Source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/8746/ I had written this letter 13 years back. I was reminded of this letter recently when I replied in a similar vein to someone else. Sorrows are of 3 types. Aadhidaivic, Aadhibhotic and Adhiyaatmic. These are called Tapatrayam. (Adhiyaatmic is also referred as Adhyaatmic). They occur due to divine forces beyond our knowing. They occur due to the happenings in this world, we create and bring it upon ourselves. Among this, we ought not think about the reasons for the first type of sorrow. We must surrender ourselves as far as possible. This is what has been told. But its easy and usual/customary for us to say this until it occurs to us. Any person must have to traverse through sorrows. Knowing can temper the sorrow's fierceness somewhat. It can provide us with easy respites. Some hiding grounds can be created mentally. Still we say. "I understand your pain", as a fellow being - is what we say. Humans are capable of only that. Hi...

 Original source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/183918/ Dear J, This happened a few minutes back. I was reading in the Tanjore Central Library as usual. A well-dressed old man wearing a watch with white straps entered the library. I focused my attention towards him as I have once already seen him stealing books from the library. As I went outside to alert the security regarding this, I saw him sleeping sound. I didn't feel like waking him up. I didn't try to mention about this to anyone else as well. And that old man left the library with the stolen books. This event kept pricking me for several days. My fears and incapability was mocking me right in my face. Today, he came again. He stole the library books. I could stand it no more. When he was leaving, I stopped him. "Why are you hiding the books under your shirt", I asked. "For reading", he said with a smirk. I told him to return the books that he took. He took out a single book. I couldn't subject myself ...

Original Source:  https://www.jeyamohan.in/185998/ Dear J, I read the following in your Aug'16 article published in Dinamalar. 'Irom Sharmila belongs to the Meitei tribal ethnic group. This community claims the complete Manipur as their land. On that behalf, Manipur has been witnessing constant ethnic strife since 1950s, which has resulted in several thousand deaths.' This article was found when searched for Manipur in the web. It is surprising. Why are there no references in Tamil to such a reality? - Arasan Kumar Dear Arasan, There is a lot being written about Manipur now. Continuous riots and a recent video have triggered our regular and social media browsers to talk about Manipur. I have always been advising to avoid any immediate reactions. Common readers ought to wait for the detailed articles written from inside the zone. The voices being raised today against these violence are pretty welcome. They gather as the nation's voice. These are the only source which can...

  original source: https://www.jeyamohan.in/184695/ Education on Hindu religion was prevalent in our environment till a couple of centuries ago in various forms. Arts, Story-telling and Lectures on topics regarding temples propagated religious principles among people in multitudes of forms. On the other hand, folk arts and story-telling forms explained these religious principles among people to no lesser extent. I have been observing the higher philosophy and religious details explained in TamilNadu's folk arts and stories recently. Its amazing that one can explain the complete Hindu spiritual traditions merely by citing the examples and sentences from the folk arts. Life in our Indian villages was marred in the last 2 centuries due to droughts and wars. When the Maratha and Nayaka empires waned in the 17th century, anarchy prevailed for half a century with no strong reign in the country. Europeans started capturing India. Under British's exploitation, India faced two great fam...