To know Tamil can also mean to be a civilized human being

The constitution of India, which put an end to the bastard raj, noted that Hindi would become the official language, after a period of transition during which English would continue to be an official language.

I would learn about this later in school, but I already had an immersion of sorts into this history thanks to the loud political talk all around me.  The vehement opposition to imposing Hindi as the official language got into my system as well, even though by my time it was settled that Hindi and English would continue--indefinitely--as official languages.  My unwillingness to learn Hindi goes back to such a baptismal experience!

The anti-Hindi protests, which were violent as well, began in the city of Madurai.  I don't know why it was in Madurai that such opposition began, but I am not surprised even one bit.  Madurai has a long and rich history as the capital of Tamil--the language and its history.  (If only the city had also been made the capital of the new Tamil Nadu state!)

In an essay that reviews David Shulman's Tamil, Whitney Cox writes about the experience "as a college student living among Tamil speakers for the first time."

I was in Madurai, an ancient city in Tamil Nadu inextricably connected with the language’s millennia-long existence, and after much desperation, I came to find life in Tamil’s presence exhilarating. This is a frequently shared experience of the language’s foreign enthusiasts, which mirrors, however poorly, the insider perspective of many Tamil native speakers. Speaking, or even just listening to, well-spoken or (better yet) sung Tamil exerts a powerful allure over those who are at home in it. The sheer love for the language that I saw in my Madurai neighbors two decades ago shades over into an intense loyalty, even a quasi-religious devotion, of a sort rarely seen elsewhere.

From Shulman I infer a big reason for such "an intense loyalty, even a quasi-religious devotion":

"to know Tamil" can also mean "to be a civilized human being."

The current President of my adopted country perhaps think that these lands are shitholes.  He and most of his 63 million voters are clueless that they are clueless about the long and rich history in shitholes.  A history that meant even way back when that to know Tamil meant to be a civilized human being.  Centuries before Persian and French were honored as being the language of the civilized.

Madurai was a cultural center.  It was also the capital city for Pandyas.  No shithole, Mr. President!

Where did the language and people come from?   நாளைக்கு பாக்கலாம் (naalaikku paakkalaam--we will meet tomorrow)

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