Thirukkural-On Wealth-On Ignorance-Kural-402

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A person of no learning wanting to display his knowledge and skills to an assembly of learned men, would be like the joyless emptiness attendant on a woman, without both her breasts and femininity, seeking the fullness of love.

Parimel Azhagar gives this interpretation, with which Manakudavar and Kalingar concur. This obviously is the straight-forward interpretation of the Kural, with which all of us agree.

But Paridhi gives a different interpretation, which is that, falling for the empty words uttered by an ignorant person is like falling in love with a breast-less woman. This implies that in the same way, there are some speakers, who captivate unthinking persons, with just words with no meaning or underlying ideas.

Many of the latter-day politicians, who make attractive alliterative speeches, of all words and no deep sense, would belong to this category of Paridhi"s delineation.

In a discerning society, they cannot continue hoodwinking all people, all the time. At some stage their ignorance will get exposed.

“A fool"s mouth is his own destruction" (Proverbs 18:7)

'inna Narpathu', apparently borrows from this Kural, when it says:"

“Innaa, mulaiyilaal penmai vizaivu"