canada my family migrated to england when i was a child and i travelled to south india in 1839 i was good in learning different languages and that made me a scholar in tamil sanskrit and telugu i started several schools and taught latin english hebrew mathematics and philosophy i decided to translate the tirukkural and i completed the project in 1886 in 1900 i completed my translation of the thiruvaasagam bharathidasan statuestoryteller lotus rani essayed the character of bharathidasan and addressed the participants of the walk i am bharathidasan and i was born in 1891 my teacher was subramanya bharathi and i named myself after him i was a poet novelist essayist and a rationalist my mission in life was to promote my mother tongue tamil to change the idiosyncrasies arising from old traditions and to use new formats to convey revolutionary ideasavvaiyar statuethe life of avvaiyar was played out by s vijayalakshmi enacting avvaiyar she said i am avvaiyar and i lived in the sangam age over 2000 years ago i loved to write poetry about people and the universe those days some people said it was a waste of time for a woman to write poetry a woman was expected to be married and give birth to children but i did not want to spend all my time taking care of children and husband so i prayed to god please make me look in such a way that no man would want to marry me and my wish came true i lived a long healthy and happy life