TRAVEL BACK TO HIRUKKURAL TIMES

How many times have you revisited Thirukkural to grasp it? Author Rushani Mahendran brings it alive — turning ancient couplets into magical journeys of wisdom, wonder, and truth that endure

- SONU M KOTHARI

On a December night in 2024 in the UK, a mother was busy tucking her children in to sleep. She then got a request to spin a tale of time travel. In this story, her young listeners travelled back centuries, landing in the same period as the Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar to learn a list of life lessons from his enduring Tamil text, Thirukkural.

That mother was Rushani Mahendran (@iamrushani on Instagram), an author, educator, and entrepreneur. Little did she know that these new bedtime tale rituals would soon become the foundation of her next writing project. "I'm born and brought up in the UK, and learning Tamil literature here is quite difficult. We don't have as many resources or even teachers. But I was lucky. I had a good teacher with deep knowledge," shares the Sri Lankan Tamil. The challenge, however, was to pass that wisdom to her second-generation. That is when she found the common link that connects her children to her — time travel. Rushani mentions, "For bedtime, I used to make a time travel story where they meet Thiruvalluvar, and he sets them on a challenge. When they complete it, he gives them the kural and its morals. They then understand it because they have already been on the journey."