Written By: Senthamil Stefi
On Monday October 1st, 2012, I released a youtube video challenging the Thamil youth of the world to speak in their mother tongue to any Thamil person they associated with on Saturday October 6th for 24 hours. Within less than 24 hours of release, the video reached over 1,000 views, bringing in a total of nearly 3,000 views upon the date of the challenge. Many were eager to participate as social media feeds began to flood with posts by Thamil youth saying they accept the challenge.
How did it all begin? Who inspired me? It all began with one of my best friends, Ruban Santhira. He is one of the people in my life that taught me the importance and value of keeping the Thamil language alive. He explained to me how in our society its slowly dissipating and the more he spoke the more I realized it was true. With that in mind I challenged him to speak in Thamil with me and vice versa even though I knew it would be very difficult for me especially because it was being typed. Before you knew it the conversation was dead on my end. I couldn’t fully convey my thoughts speaking solely in Thamil. He encouraged me to try to find alternate words to explain what I was trying to say even though I didn’t know the exact Tamil translation for them. He sole handedly inspired me to come up with this whole challenge idea and for that I truly thank him.
During the day of the challenge I found it very difficult as expected. But I did try my best. The whole purpose of the challenge was not for it to be “successful” but rather for people like myself who speak English on a day-to-day basis to challenge ourselves to try our best to speak our mother tongue for the day.
Having done the challenge, the next day as I reflected upon it a sense of fear began to grow inside me. I realized that if I, myself am not comfortable with the Thamil language how can I even begin to expect my future children to learn it or become comfortable with it. I realized that it is our generation that is in between the older generation that is enriched in culture, tradition and language, and the much newer generation that isn’t in tact with that. If we want all of the culture, tradition and language to be passed on into the generations to come, we ultimately have to build a comfortability with it ourselves and attempt to understand and embrace everything that makes our Thamil identity. But the fact of the matter is…whether or not you want certain things to be passed on is up to you. It’s not something that can be forced upon, of course. But that day forward I made a conscious decision to try to better learn the Thamil language and understand the rich culture and traditions such that I can too expose my children to what my parents exposed me to.
I for one don’t want the aspects of what defines my Thamil identity to die with my generation. Thamil is one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world… lets try to continue to keep that torch burning bright… The choice is yours.
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Tags: Speak Out
