Remembering our Heroes

Written By: Kayalvizhi J.

Today, marks the 25th anniversary of Maveerar Naal. The first cadre, Lieutenant Shankar passed away on November 27,1982. In remembrance of his day of passing and the countless sacrifices of our courageous heroes, November 27th was declared as Maveerar Naal (Heroes Day) in 1988.

In the fight for freedom our country has given a huge price. Our Maveerarkal. Maveerar Naal is not a day of mourning, it is a day of rising. It is a time to remember in honour and withpride the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters. They gave themselves protecting us – our land, our identity, our culture. In a time and age when even family may not always protect each other, our Maveerarkal sacrificed themselves for our liberation and freedom.

The Kaarthikai Poo was declared as Tamileelam’s National Flower in 2003 for it contained the colours of the Tamileelam National Flag, red and yellow. Today, we must wear our Kaarthikai Poo with pride today. When someone asks, “why are you wearing that?” we must speak of the sacrifices of our Maveerarkal. The sacrifices of our Maveerarkal must not be forgotten. It must not just be recorded in books and museums. The sacrifice of our Maveerarkal must be honoured, and the way to honour them is to move their dreams for a free Tamileelam forward.

Our kin, our people, still suffer enormously in the hands of an oppressive regime. Even now, years after Mulliyvaikal, we hear stories of the suffering of our people – our people face rape, disappearance, coercive population control, and disenfranchisement. It was to fight this oppression that our Maveerarkal gave themselves. We too, the children of Tamileelam have a duty to protect our Mother, Our Nation.

As Thalaivar has said, “the patterns of battle may change, but our battle ideal will never change.” The pattern of battle have changed, but our freedom is still dear to us, and we have a responsibility to liberate our nation from oppression and genocide. Our Maveerarkal have protected us, our lands – now it is our responsibility to move their dreams forward and work towards protecting our people and land. We, the Tamil youth in Canada have education – and this education can turn our nation around. What can we do legally to bring justice to our people? What can we do socially and culturally for our people? How can we use our young engineers and IT professionals to build something for our people? We need to believe that we can change the fate of our nation through our education, and actually work towards it. If we do not, we will just have another generation of Tamils who will be oppressed, raped and killed by the Sri-Lankan Government. How many of us are willing to idly watch?

Remembering our Maveerar

Written By: Prynth N.

Every year, in the month of November, Remembrance Day is commemorated to remember the fallen soldiers who defended liberty, equality and humanity of their homeland with their life – this is observed in North America and in many parts of the world. Many of those wars were fought outside their homeland to prevent the invasion of their hoemland and a dictatorship state.

As the people of Tamileelam, we commemorate our Remembrance Day, Maveerar Naal on the 27th of November. In Tamileelam before 2009, there was the Maaveerar Week that had incorporated many festivities in different cities were people showcased their love for our heoroes of Tamileelam. Themes such as sacrifice, determination, dedication were very dominant. Almost every family had a Maaveerar who sacrificed their life for Tamileelam. Thuyilum Illam was filled with not just graves, but legacies of the past that our resistance movement was built on. I was told how even vehicles passing by Thuyilum Illam slowed down to show their respect to our fallen.

I can only imagine how much our people held this month dear to their hearts in Tamileelam because I never had the chance to go back to my homeland. I didn’t even get the opportunity to be born in my own homeland because of the genocidal Sri-Lankan onslaught against our people, which forced my parents to flee the country.

Today in our homeland, everything has been wiped out to erase our identity, history and pride. Will this stop us from remembering our heroes of Tamileelam in our homeland and the diaspora? Will this shake our morale to such an extent to forget the 30+ years of legacy that paused in Mulivaaiykal?

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Thangachi’s Corner: The Art of Tamil Cuisine

CTYA’s Blog has started a new Feature every other Wednesday called “Thangachi’s Corner”. “Thangachi’s Corner” is a comfortable space to discuss relatable topics and issues relevant to the Canadian Tamil youth of today. For more information about this feature or to suggest a topic, feel free to e-mail us at blogs@ctya.org!

Written By: Keerthana Raveendran

The task of learning Tamil cuisine was my Everest once upon a time.

I spent a lot of time helping my mother cook as a child, was preparing breakfast for my family every morning by the time I was in grade seven, and could follow a recipe to the letter to make anything I wanted, but when it came to Tamil food, I was stumped.

You see, I always need a plan. I need to know exactly what has to be done before I do it. I need to be able to coordinate multiple tasks to ensure maximum efficiency. In fact, while cooking, I even make a point of looking through the Nutrition Facts labels to simultaneously optimize health benefits.

This particular nature made it all the more difficult for me when I realized that Tamil cuisine was very much about the senses. While I, who have taken a myriad of chemistry courses in the past, am rather procedural in the precise manner that I use lists and follow recipes, Tamil cuisine focuses instead on the experience. There is no set measurement regarding the amount of salt that is put into this curry or that. You don’t measure the amount of onions you slice, count out a specific number of curry leaves to wash, or quantify individual mustard or fennel seeds in teaspoons before tossing them into the pot. Instead, it is your intuition that is put to work as you ballpark these values in a trial and error fashion.

This makes for a very subjective process that puts quite a bit of responsibility onto the chef, as what is too salty for one may be tasteless for another. I suddenly understood why a lot of the Tamil adults with whom I came into contact often complained about high blood pressure.

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