Tamil as a world language

Back during the Neyveli years, we went to the local sabha to watch live musical performances and theatre.  I simply assumed then that most of India was into the highbrow cultural life.  And have been disappointed to find out ever since that most of India does not care a shit about the intellectual and cultural lives, even though seemingly every Indian is proud of its rich heritage!

One of the plays that we watched was by Kathaadi Ramamoorthy (?)  A character in that play was from Tirunelveli.  This character comes to Madras (as it was known then) and speaks with a strong Tirunelveli dialect that others find it difficult to understand, which then set up many comedic situations. 

Why is the Tirunelveli dialect so distinct?

Turns out that there is a historical linguistic reason, which I did not know until I read David Shulman's Tamil.

As the Pandyas weakened and other kings and invaders from the north attacked the Tamil country, the Vijayanagara forces reached well into the region by the mid-14th century.  They didn't merely attack, raid, and return with the riches, but came to stay, writes Shulman, who adds that Telugu-speaking farmers and merchants also arrived and "settled mostly in the far south of the Tamil country in the basin of the Tamraparani River."  Yes, the same river that is a pleasant walk from my grandmother's old village!

Telugu speech, present from ancient times in the border zones of northern Tamil Nadu, now became a natural presence throughout the southern region.  You can still hear it today in Tirunelveli District--a distinct dialect with archaic features preserved in relative isolation from the evolving fate of Telugu in Andhra and Telengana, somewhat like the Rabelaisian French of Quebec in relation to today's standardized French.

Again, all I have is only one reaction: Mouth wide open!

From this post, six years ago

This was in the mid-14th century, by when the three powerful forces--Pallavas, Cholas, and Pandyas--were in decline.  But, their achievements prior to that had already made Tamil a world language.  Among the many pieces of evidence that Shulman writes about is Quanzhou, which I had also blogged about a while ago.

Throughout all these, Shulman discusses plenty of poetry and literature from those periods, and how the language evolved to become more and more cosmopolitan.  I have a hard time choosing my favorite among them.  I loved his story about the eccentric improv poet Kalamekam (Black Cloud.)  I will outsource that to this reviewer:

Asked to write a poem in the form called venpa about a mountain made to shake by a fly nearby, he ups the ante: “Why not the whole universe?” The venpa is a notoriously tricky verse form, tightly restricted in its cadence, with a complicated pattern of double rhyme. The resulting Tamil poem is a little miracle of assonance and rhythm; Shulman beautifully captures its lyrical eccentricities:

The eight elephants that stand at the cardinal points,
great Mount Meru, the oceans,
the Earth herself—all teetered and tottered
when a fly came buzzing
into the wound left on Vishnu’s body

by the cowherdess with the musical voice

when she struck him
with the thick churning rod.

(It helps to know that in traditional texts the directions are, indeed, guarded by elephants; Mount Meru is the axis mundi; and Vishnu was incarnated in a village of cowherds as the mischievous, larcenous, adorable baby Krishna, whose long-suffering mother Yashoda was forced on occasion to deliver corporal punishment, with cosmic consequences.)

Can Indian-Americans play ball?

(Have sent this across to the RG editor)

Srikanth "Sri" Srinivasan received an overwhelming Senate confirmation as a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and was sworn in on June 18th.  The Senate confirmed his appointment with a 97-0 vote.  Yes, this same current Senate, where bills routinely go to die, found his credentials to be so compelling that apparently they had nothing but congratulatory remarks.  Who would not want to be loved thus?

Srinivasan is the first Indian-American, and the first South-Asian too, to have reached that stratified judicial atmosphere.  Further, with the commentary on the DC Circuit Court as a springboard for nominations to the Supreme Court, and with all the uniformly lavish praise for Srinivasan, there is a distinct possibility that he could very well become the first Indian-American justice at the highest court of the land.  Is it any surprise at all, therefore, that Srinivasan’s ascent did not go unnoticed not only by Indian-Americans like me, but even in my old country?  It was a judicial appointment that echoed all the way on the other side of the planet.

Many of the biographic sketches that accompanied the reports on his nomination included the name of the village in southern India where his family roots are--Mela Thiruvenkatanathapuram.  Try that for a tongue-twister!  When I learnt from a Google search that this village could be located very near the village where my father grew up, I called him up right away.  Indeed, the two villages are not that far apart and are located along the banks of the same river, Thamirabarani.  

The Thamirabarani at Srivaikuntam

Father added that there was extensive coverage of the nomination in the newspapers and on television.  He joked that we were not related to the Srinivasan family, but it seemed that father was a tad disappointed over that!

Srinivasan was born and raised far from this small village, in the northern part of India where his father, T.P. Srinivasan, was on the faculty of the University of Punjab.  Sri Srinivasan was four years old when the family immigrated to the United States as a result of his father taking up an academic position initially at Berkeley, before moving to Kansas.  I would imagine that an immigrant Indian family in Kansas in the early 1970s would have been quite an exotic addition.

My excitement about Srinivasan is not at all about identity-politics.  The intention is not to categorize and count the population by the respective hyphenations and demand any proportional representation.  Instead, it is a profound appreciation for this adopted country of mine where it matters very little anymore where we came from.  My excitement about Srinivasan is to celebrate the fact that one can come to the United States from any corner of the world and potentially become a Supreme Court judge.  

In a country where even only a couple of decades ago life was not easy for those who were not White Anglo Saxon Protestant, it is simply fascinating how different the contemporary landscape is.  In the current Supreme Court, three justices are Jewish and the rest, including the Chief Justice, are Catholic.  While we might have our own disagreements with the court’s opinions, we attribute those differences to legal interpretations of the Constitution that might be colored by politics.  The religious backgrounds of the justices do not matter to us. What a remarkably healthy change this is over the years past.   

If Srinivasan were to join the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy created by the retirement or demise of a current justice, he would then become the first who was raised in a religious background outside of the Judeo-Christian beliefs.  It is almost impossible to believe that a mere ninety years ago, a Supreme Court justice refused to speak with Louis Brandieis and sit with him for the court’s official portrait because Brandies was Jewish, and now it is entirely possible for one of Hindu origin to join that very court!  To borrow the comedian Yakov Smirnoff’s line, “America, what a country!”

With Srinivasan, we have yet another evidence that the Indian-American group is more than Spelling Bee champions, and math and science nerds.  There are Indian-Americans in movies and television shows, in the literary and corporate worlds, and even as animated fictional characters like Apu in “The Simpsons.”  If only there were a Cy Young award-winning Indian-American pitcher--and a southpaw at that--to complete the all-American composite image!

I live in a sacred place. The vedas say so!

The news item on Srikanth "Sri" Srinivasan getting overwhelming Senate confirmation on his appointment to the country's second most powerful court was exciting at so many levels.  For one, an Indian-American. And  a Tamil name at that!

In this news item, I noticed that his origins go back to Mela Thiruvenkatanathapuram, which Google reported was near Tirunelveli and by the Tamrabarani.  Now, I was on full alert.  We are talking about the territories where my grandparents are from.  Father's place, Pattamadai is only a mile in from the riverbank.

The Tamrabarani at Srivaikuntam

I couldn't wait to check with my father.

I called him up.  "Hold on a second" he said.

A few seconds went by. I realized that I was no longer holding onto a live conversation.  In such situations, I miss the old landline for the unique sound it generated to indicate that the phone was off the hook.

So, a second call.  "Looks like I mistakenly pressed something here" father said.  After a few less trivial topics, I ventured into the "Sri" and Tirunelveli connections.

"Yes, there was extensive coverage here in the paper" father said.  I asked him if he knew where Mela Thiruvenkatanathapuram is.  Father didn't know.  He thought that maybe the village has another name by which the locals, and he, refer to.

"My guess is the village is along the river where it flows from the south to the north" he said.

"Wait, doesn't Tamrabarani flow eastward?"

"There is a small stretch where it flows north" father replied.  "According to the old Hindu faith, a river, flowing north, or in the stretches where it does, is very sacred" he added.

"So, I live in a sacred place" I chipped in.  The Willamette, which flows by not even a couple of minutes of a walk away, is on a northward drift from here on its way.

"Yes, I remember you telling me that the river there flows north" father recalled.  And he got back to the "Sri" topic.  "But, I don't know where exactly this village is.  When I talk to our people from Tirunelveli, I will ask them" he said.

So, that story will continue another day.

For now, I am excited I live in a very sacred place.  But, of course, the Indians here also knew that.  The Native Americans held sacred the rivers and the mountains.  I wonder, though, if the north-flowing river was any more or less sacred than rivers flowing in other directions.

The Willamette, Spring 2013