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.
‘Would you like fries with that?’
The girl behind the counter asked the American standing before me at the McDonald’s outlet.
He hesitated.
A long hesitation for what should have been the simplest of decisions.
Big Mac. Drink. Fries. Yes or no.
I grew impatient. Why was his choice so difficult?
Only later did it strike me that the difficulty did not lie in the fries.
It lay in the burger itself.
Vegetarian. Vegan. Flexitarian.
A single patty had splintered into moral choices.
In that moment, under fluorescent lights and digital menus, I realised that food, once a matter of hunger, had quietly become a matter of conscience.
The World Economic Forum recently published data on changing global food habits. Vegetarianism, once considered marginal in the West, is steadily rising across Europe and the United States. Curiously, it is declining in large emerging economies such as India, where traditional diets are slowly yielding to speed, packaging and convenience.
Among Gen Z in Europe, vegetarianism is being embraced with fresh intensity: protecting animals, reducing environmental strain.
The logic is simple. Growing plants asks less of the earth than raising animals. Vegetables require less land, water and energy. Fewer forests are cleared, fewer resources extracted, fewer gases released. That is why a vegetarian diet produces nearly two and a half times less carbon emissions than a meat-based one. Eating vegetarian for a year can save emissions equal to removing a small family car from the road for six months.
Yet the case for meat-eating carries its own dignity. Across history, meat has been nourishment in difficult climates, insurance against crop failure, and a compact source of strength where options were limited. For many communities even today, meat is not indulgence but woven into livelihoods and traditions. In this light, meat-eating is not moral neglect, but practical inheritance.
But long before climate charts and sustainability panels, the Tamil land approached food through a softer instinct—not calculation, but empathy.
Across the world today, vegetarianism is no longer eccentric. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs adopt plant-based diets for health and longevity. European govts encourage reduced meat consumption. What appears newly awakened is, in truth, deeply old.
This is where Thiruvalluvar excels as a poet of compassion.
Avisorinthu āayiram vēṭṭalin oṉdṟaṉ
Uyirsegutthu uṇṇāamai naṉdṟu
Better than a thousand burnt offerings Is
One life un-killed, un-eaten.
A thousand ritual fires may blaze, but they do not equal the quiet mercy of restraint. Tamil Sangam literature echoes this gentleness. Puranānūru speaks of ascetics as kollā nōṉbiṉar, those who have vowed not to kill. Akanānūru describes hospitality through rice, milk, curd, fruits, honey, and vegetables. Meat appears openly in most places; its absence elsewhere is deliberate. Vegetarian food is not portrayed as denial, but as choice shaped by feeling.
Power too once learned restraint. Emperor Ashoka’s edicts from the third century BCE recorded reduced slaughter, protected animals, and banned killing on certain days. After Kalinga, remorse hardened into mercy, carved into stone.
Valluvar reminds us that progress is not only about what we invent but about what we choose not to harm. It was the same voice that echoed in saint poet Vallalar’s verse: ‘I shed tears seeing plants that wither without water’.
And somewhere between a burger choice and a spared life, the question remains quietly unanswered.
Motivational speaker, author and diversity champion Bharathi Bhaskar explores the masterpiece.
‘Would you like fries with that?’
The girl behind the counter asked the American standing before me at the McDonald’s outlet.
He hesitated.
A long hesitation for what should have been the simplest of decisions.
Big Mac. Drink. Fries. Yes or no.
I grew impatient. Why was his choice so difficult?
Only later did it strike me that the difficulty did not lie in the fries.
It lay in the burger itself.
Vegetarian. Vegan. Flexitarian.
A single patty had splintered into moral choices.
In that moment, under fluorescent lights and digital menus, I realised that food, once a matter of hunger, had quietly become a matter of conscience.
The World Economic Forum recently published data on changing global food habits. Vegetarianism, once considered marginal in the West, is steadily rising across Europe and the United States. Curiously, it is declining in large emerging economies such as India, where traditional diets are slowly yielding to speed, packaging and convenience.
Among Gen Z in Europe, vegetarianism is being embraced with fresh intensity: protecting animals, reducing environmental strain.
The logic is simple. Growing plants asks less of the earth than raising animals. Vegetables require less land, water and energy. Fewer forests are cleared, fewer resources extracted, fewer gases released. That is why a vegetarian diet produces nearly two and a half times less carbon emissions than a meat-based one. Eating vegetarian for a year can save emissions equal to removing a small family car from the road for six months.
Yet the case for meat-eating carries its own dignity. Across history, meat has been nourishment in difficult climates, insurance against crop failure, and a compact source of strength where options were limited. For many communities even today, meat is not indulgence but woven into livelihoods and traditions. In this light, meat-eating is not moral neglect, but practical inheritance.
But long before climate charts and sustainability panels, the Tamil land approached food through a softer instinct—not calculation, but empathy.
Across the world today, vegetarianism is no longer eccentric. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs adopt plant-based diets for health and longevity. European govts encourage reduced meat consumption. What appears newly awakened is, in truth, deeply old.
This is where Thiruvalluvar excels as a poet of compassion.
Avisorinthu āayiram vēṭṭalin oṉdṟaṉ
Uyirsegutthu uṇṇāamai naṉdṟu
Better than a thousand burnt offerings Is
One life un-killed, un-eaten.
A thousand ritual fires may blaze, but they do not equal the quiet mercy of restraint. Tamil Sangam literature echoes this gentleness. Puranānūru speaks of ascetics as kollā nōṉbiṉar, those who have vowed not to kill. Akanānūru describes hospitality through rice, milk, curd, fruits, honey, and vegetables. Meat appears openly in most places; its absence elsewhere is deliberate. Vegetarian food is not portrayed as denial, but as choice shaped by feeling.
Power too once learned restraint. Emperor Ashoka’s edicts from the third century BCE recorded reduced slaughter, protected animals, and banned killing on certain days. After Kalinga, remorse hardened into mercy, carved into stone.
Valluvar reminds us that progress is not only about what we invent but about what we choose not to harm. It was the same voice that echoed in saint poet Vallalar’s verse: ‘I shed tears seeing plants that wither without water’.
And somewhere between a burger choice and a spared life, the question remains quietly unanswered.
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