It’s been more than a year since the last time I was in Chennai, India. I knew that I would miss home, friends and the city itself. It somehow never struck me that I would miss Tamil¹.

I did my high schooling in India and I took Tamil as my language elective till my twelfth grade, mostly because everyone else took Sanskrit and French and I had to be the non-conformist. It definitely did not help boost my grades in the all-important final ‘board’ exams and I hated memorizing stupid answers to stupid questions. My mom had to undergo a lot of my incessant ranting about how a lot of what Thiruvalluvar (a famous Tamil poet) said didn’t make any sense.

“How can a man be a tree?”
“No, he is saying that an inconsiderate man might as well be a tree.”
“I feel bad for the tree.”

Thiruvalluvar used to write sets comprising 10 couplets each and each set would extol a particular virtue. And more often than not, the last couplet of each set would claim that there was nothing greater than that particular virtue. “Amma, idhulla logic-ae illa!” (”Amma, there is no logic in this!”) I would shout out. And my mom would nod her head and ask me to repeat all ten couplets to make sure that I remembered them all. There were other poems where the female protagonist would constantly complain to her ‘thozhi’ (girl friend) about how her lover had abandoned her and I always hated the thozhi for not having a life of her own. I also absolutely despised abstract poems and I would deliver a standard dialogue to my mom:

“Idhu English’la translate panna kooda oru mannum puriyadhu, thamizh’la… exam’la pass-aana maadhiri thaan.” (”This poem would not make sense even if it were translated to English! I’m definitely failing my exam.”)

And she would nod patiently and try to make me understand the incomprehensible poem.

Sometime ago, while wasting time on YouTube, I came across a song from the movie Bharathi (a biopic on the Tamil poet Bharathiar). It suddenly brought back a flood of memories (I succumb to nostalgia way too easily). Very rarely did I enjoy opening my Tamil textbook, but I do remember those rare moments of joy vividly. I think it was in the 6th grade when we read about ‘Veerapandiya Kattaboman’, one of the early Indian dissenters of the British rule. I remember how I used to say his speech out loud and ask my mom if it was better than the late Sivaji Ganesan’s² highly praised enactment. I would read aloud Bharathiar’s poems and marvel at his skill of saying so much, and with so much force and vigor, with such few words. I used to see the pictures of the students who had topped the state exams in Tamil, at the back of the Konar Tamil Study Guide, and I would convince myself that my face too would one day adorn that poorly designed back cover. I missed out narrowly on that accomplishment, though (I was a mere 40 marks short).

It’s not usual for me to start reminiscing about a language. I complained and grumbled throughout my school years about how much I hated studying Tamil and about how it was not going to be useful to me in any way. But then I recently read some of Bharathiar’s poems for the first time in about 2 years and it gave me goose bumps.

Alphonse Daudet wrote in his short story, ‘The Last Lesson’, “When people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language, it is as if they had the key to their prison.” While Daudet said that in the context of his story, the line resonates. Reading Tamil literature transported me back to the place where the language was born; to the place where I grew up. Being able to have that special connection is a wonderful comfort.

Thanks, Mom.

Footnotes:

1. Tamil is the language spoken in Chennai
2. A very popular Tamil thespian

External Links:

1. Song from the movie ‘Bharathi’
2. Sivaji Ganesan as Veerapandiya Kattabomman

Photo Courtesy: Ravages

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