Tamizh makkal, Tamizh magalgal (Tamils and Tamil daughters)

Discussions about Tamil (the language) and Tamils (the people) like Periyar and Annadurai seem to abound currently in India because the question of national language is back in the limelight.

The Dhaka Tribune has an in-depth article on the history of Tamil language and the identity of its people.
 
Perhaps it is time for me to tell my thirsting-for-all-things-Tamil twelve-year old that her great-grandfather went to prison in the '60s, along with C. N. Annadurai, protesting against Hindi imposition. 

But then again, I will have to deal with questions such as 'why don't you and daddy speak Tamil like Tamils do?', 'why don't you think in Tamil?' and 'when are you going to teach me Tamil?'  Alas, no Tiger Mom am I. 

So maybe it will become time for me to tell her that I am just about busy surviving somewhere, somehow; that, if my thatha wasn't snatched prematurely from this world, maybe I will now be a Tamil in Tamil Nadu rather than a Tamil in oblivion; that perhaps, she, my daughter, will have more opportunities to live life on her own terms; possibly, after the meandering and lost generations in between, she will connect right back to that proud, hardworking, self-respecting Tamil whose blood and love for the language runs deep in her veins.

Yes, maybe it is time for a Tamil moment between a Tamil mother and her much more Tamil daughter.      

Hidden Universes

A universe
Explodes inside me
(Not unlike the real Big Bang)
Each time I stumble
Onto music
From my teens.
How is it
That neither my Zambian-assembled husband
Nor my "half-Indian" kids
(the other half is "Canadian" or "American" as the case may be;
so says a 6-year old)
Nor even my sis-from-another-gen
Notice this world,
This oh-so-real-that-it-is-painful world
Hidden well
Inside me?
And so I come to ask
My peers
Does your universe
Explode too
Into millions of unexpressed moments
Occupying spaces that you didn't know existed
With every song, tune, beat
From our past?
Do you stop and wonder
'Who am I? What am I doing here?
Where is the world
That once used to be mine?'

Kodai kaala kaatre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4T0fjYELw8

Looking at the NCERT cartoon controversy through the prism of class

So much has been said – in English – about the lack of a sense of humour in Dravidian Tamils by reader-commenters in the English newspaper, 'The Hindu,' and commentators elsewhere.  However, few have understood how the anti-Hindi protests of 1965 aimed to bridge the gap between the socioeconomic classes by opening up access to the English language in Tamil Nadu and beyond. Fewer have connected how, by not illustrating this nuanced principle and urgent strategy for better economic prospects, the cartoon does a disservice to the protesters and to the history of Tamil Nadu . Instead, those who opened the doors are discussed, by some Tamils and non-Tamils alike, as uncouth trouble-makers with nothing more than political self-interests.  So much have we advanced since those days when English was available mostly to the elites; so much have we taken for granted the middle- and working-classes' economic potential in the English-speaking world! 

I say, let NCERT keep that cartoon in that textbook. Let us give history a chance to laugh at two Tamil leaders, Rajaji and Bhaktavatchalam, who were embarrassingly out of touch with the educational needs of the masses. I am assuming, of course, that history will give R.K. Laxman--the cartoonist who grew up in a family that mostly conversed in English--the benefit of doubt regarding awareness of class issues. I regrettably do not.