Love's eternal flame

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.

For the young, death feels like smoke drifting somewhere far away; visible but distant. Life is a horizon that stretches endlessly. But as the years pass, the horizon shifts. Just as a stream running atop a hill must eventually surrender itself into a waterfall, the path of life too bends toward its inevitable descent.

The first losses often come from a distance—distant relatives, grandparents, elders whose absence seems natural. But the circle keeps tightening. Parents, close relatives, friends; people we meet on an everyday basis begin their journey to the other shore. Some losses feel impossible to accept: “I was just talking to her yesterday; how can she be gone today?”

As one ages, the news of death becomes strangely more frequent than the news of life. I remember my mother, in her later years, turning to the obituary page of her daily newspaper first. Then, as though offering a silent prayer for the departed—or perhaps breathing a sigh of relief that no familiar name appeared—she would turn to the other pages.

Across civilizations, cultures, and religions, humanity has carried with it the idea of memento mori—'remember that you will die’. Far from being a grim obsession, this idea is a mirror, showing us what truly matters. Death, in its silent authority, has always been the ultimate purveyor of perspective. It strips away the petty burdens of worry, exposing how trivial most of our concerns are.

When someone close departs, the memories arrive like lightning—sudden, sharp, and luminous. Time, the great healer, eventually lays a hand upon the wound. Acceptance grows, but never fully without scars. A familiar song, a forgotten photograph, or a date on the calendar is enough to unearth the pain again. How powerless we stand before the mighty force of Time, who takes away everyone and everything.

I am reminded of a story from Franz Kafka’s life. One day he saw a little girl weeping over the loss of her beloved doll in a park. The next day, he handed her a letter ‘from the doll’, explaining that she had gone on a journey and would write of her adventures. Day after day, Kafka met the girl and read out letters full of imagined travels. Months later, he brought her a new doll, saying it had returned from its journeys. The girl protested, “But this does not look like my doll.” Kafka handed her another letter where the doll had written: “My travels have changed me.” The child embraced the doll and found peace.

Years later, after Kafka’s death, the girl, now an adult, discovered a letter hidden inside the doll. In it, Kafka had written: “Everything you love will probably be lost. But in the end, love will return in another way.”

That is the mystery of loss. People may depart, but the love they poured into us never vanishes. It lingers, takes new shapes, and strengthens us to continue living and passing that love forward. This great continuum—this unbroken chain of love—is perhaps all that life truly is.

For those who awaken to this realization, joy and sorrow lose their sharp edges. Life’s ephemeral happenings no longer bind them. Thiruvalluvar expressed this profound vision with unmatched clarity:

“Irul neengi inbam payakkum marul neengi
Māśāru kāatchi yavarukku.”


Those who see through ignorance to reality find bliss;

Others remain fettered by delusion.

In the end, grief dissolves into perspective, love returns in other forms, and we learn to flow—like the river—toward the sea of acceptance.