Tamil Identity

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I never ever thought of writing on this topic i.e "Tamil identity" till I read the book written by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen "The Argumentative Indian". In that book he extensively talked about the Indian identity in general. I'm an ardent fan of his highly intellectual, intriguing and inquisitive writing about economic sciences with convergence of social science. I admire and respect him for thoughtful writings and idea but I personally felt he has focused his thoughts mainly on the perspective of northern India including Bengal ( His birth place). He augmented to Indian Identity by thoughts of Tagore, Sanskrit literature, northern moghal rulers,Gandhi, etc who basically hailed from northern India. What disappointed me was, He hasn't even cited a single thought of southern scholars, literature, Rulers, etc. He generalized Indian identity only based on north Indian perspective based on historical facts. I presume that most of the modern Indians think that north Indian Identity is different from south Indian.
I actually hail from southern state of Tamil Nadu and I personally think the south India or Tamil Identity has lots of deviations from north Indian Identity. What makes me to think so, because I have friends from most of states of India and I find their thoughts, basic instincts is different from me. I'm some times finding difficulties to have good relationship with them, this may be attributed to the difference in thoughts and idea. Most of the thoughts and ideas we possess actually have great influence of our inheritance and circumstance.So, it boggles my mind to think what's the uniqueness of Tamil Identity where I come from. To understand the identity of any man we got to look into his history and environment. Lets us first have brief look into history of Tamil people in general.
BASIC INSTINCT
Only Tamil kingdom invaded other parts of south Asia unlike northern rulers. Tamil Kingdom was basically ruled by chera, chola and pandian. These three rulers have great influence on Tamil identity in general. These rulers established "sangam" to flourish the tamil literature. Thats one of the main reasons why there are more than 1000 Tamil sangams outside India and Srilanka to protect and flourish the tamil language. Rulers from outside Tamil Kingdom found it extremely difficult to invade them. It doesn't mean that these rulers were united but they are united when outsiders invaded them. There were frequent conflicts between these rulers but they preserved the temples, literature and everything which possess their own identity. During pre-independent era also madras presidency has seen lots of freedom fighters who fought courageously against British rule. This brief history has lot to say about tamil people in general. Most of my friends too remarked that tamils are very diplomatic, hard working, brilliant ( depends on individual too), introvert,loquacious. Every tamilian has to agree that unity, inter alia, is weak, this statement can be conceded by lots of issues happening in tamil nadu and expatriate tamil places too now.
Castetism in tamil nadu is wide spread and most of the conflicts and confrontation occurred in the past clearly depicts the arrogance of dominance of one caste on other people. In Tamil Nadu development is also spoiled by the conceited nature of the castetism among the people of tamil nadu. Today, caste is over thrown by the open mindedness of not just tamils but also Indian by western education. The unique feature of tamil culture which is pretty hard to see in other culture is loudness. If we go to any one of the festivals in village, we can see the loudness in all the activities. Lets us take an example of "Pongal" which is uniquely a tamil festival in India has long standing traditional value. Apart from worshiping sun and cow, it also has activities to outcast sixty four arts of tamil culture especially "jalikattu" which shows the men's brave. In ancient tamil culture, every men was supposed to possess sixty four arts which is pivotal for any king to rule tamil kingdom. Those sixty four arts related to gamut of subjects such as love, brave, etc.
LANGUAGE
Many Indians tend to blame Tamilians for their linguist chauvinism, other way around can also be seen now in urban areas. Let me first analyze why tamilians are very sensitive in their language. From 200 BC onwards Tamils started flourishing and protecting their via establishing "tamil sangam". Sangam literature is considered to be one of the oldest literature and it has great antiquity. One of the literature, "thirukkural" which has been translated into many different language due to its thoughts and neutrality. Its often said, language is pivotal for thoughts of a persons. Language certainly shapes the thoughts and ideal because we acquire those knowledge by default when we read, listen, and watch to the literature, conservation and movies. One of the very famous director of Tamil cinema reiterated that "He attribute his thoughts to tamil language". It all happened after independence of Indian Union that politician started choosing a language as official language of India to represent Indian Union. They wanted to chose an Indian language which represents the majority and easy to learn too. They chose "Hindi" as an official language of India which is inevitable because Hindi is spoken by majority of population of India. But this provoked the sentiments of tamilians and they agitated against this imposition of Hindi during 1960. Here is statement said by C. N Anna durai in parliament
"It is claimed that Hindi should be common language because it is spoken by the majority. Why should we then claim the tiger as our national animal instead of the rat which is so much more numerous? Or the peacock as our national bird when the crow is ubiquitous?". During agitations there were about 60 people killed and self immolated. This has changed the attitude of Union government and retained English as one of the official language of India to this date.
These incidents may sound like French people agitating against English but Tamilians like to flaunt in foreign languages. Nowadays, the scene has been changed due to the English medium education in Tamil Nadu. Most of the people who are educated are ashamed of speaking in tamil in public. This has recently provoked political parties to staging protest against English too which I personally consider insane. Expatiates Tamils who settled in western countries and south Asia established "Tamil Sangam" to promote Tamil Language among Tamil people. This is a laudable effect because through this sangam they are able to spread the awareness of Tamil culture.
CULTURE
There are lots of rhetoric statements about Indian Culture. People in Tamil Nadu used to say that Tamil Culture is conservative. I don't seriously understand the word conservative in the modern times because ancient tamil culture never imposed rules and regulations on women education, and freedom. Equality in the society of ancient Tamil Kingdom was clearly seen from literature and Grammar of Tamil Language. There were lots of female poets who wrote poems in praise and against the rulers, one such example is "Avaiyar". Tamil Culture has long tradition of tolerance in religious freedom. Not alone Hindus contributed to the tamil literature in ancient literature but also Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains . Tamil Nadu has a little record of communal violence unlike northern India. If culture and language has to protected and promoted, people of that race must understand their identity. I want to know your views also.

Trip to India(cont)

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Once I reached cuddalore. I felt elated because I'm going to see my family members and friends. I received warm welcome from my family members. I took rest for one day. After that I started visiting my friends. At First, I went to my maths teachers house to talk to him. He was very happy to see me back after one year. Its very difficult to find a teacher in cuddalore who is willing to teach IIT JEE syllabus. He agreed to our request and taught me for one year. I'm very lucky to have such teachers. We were started discussing about Singapore educational system and pedagogy. I told him, How Singapore was able to emerge as a first world country from third world country.
Suddenly we shifted our discussion towards the opportunities available to cuddalore students .Since cuddalore is a sea town. Fishing is the main occupation and next is agriculture.It seems Government of TN has banned fishing during may 1- may 31 in view of developing the breeding of fishes. So, most of the family have to depend on Government for food but TN government was very irresponsible to the voices of fishermen during this season. I found most of my friends family were suffering and telling me how they were managing their everyday activities. Most of the businesses in cuddalore indirectly depends on fishing , so even these businesses were affected. There was sweltering heat waves in cuddalore because most of the people stomach was burning without food. There are lots of discrimination in the implementation of ban also. Few boats are allowed to go to sea. I found even though India liberalized its economy, the free market economy is not well established in traditional businesses or occupation.
After staying in cuddalore for few days, I went to my mother's native place srilaki to meet my relatives. Most of the traditional businesses in srilaki is in ruin. Actually srilaki is located near many pilgrimage. One of the main occupation in srilaki is agriculture. The main reason for agriculture in srilaki is attributed to good irrigation facilities and stable ground water. Now, ground water is badly affected by poor rains and irrigation facilities is getting even worse than before. Most of the children of these families are studying in government school or private school.These students seldom goes to school because they don't have money to make living.
Educational institutions such as schools, colleges are very scarce in number. I seldom see students who are aspiring for higher education from srikali. We can see many hard working students in srikali than cities, but they at last end up in mediocre colleges because they don't know how to work smart? . They know only to memorize the stuffs given in the textbooks and vomit the same thing in the exam paper. They respect books more than their parents. We shouldn't blame students ,the teacher didn't know what they are teaching to the students. Is it possible now to expect an Abdul kalam from villages. One of my friend's father reiterated me, those days people used the opportunities available in the villages and migrated to cities.Currently the education and health care facilities are very bad. The people who are living now depending on the traditional occupation. Since traditional occupation is getting ruined, they don't have anything to do.Tamil nadu had experienced worst suicide of farmers in cauvery delta regions. Srilaki is also under cauvery delta belt. In the next post, I'll be discussing Special Economic Agricultural Zones(SEAZ) and how to make big money out of agriculture and traditional occupation.

Trip to India

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After one year of stay in Singapore, I missed my motherland India and want to go back to home to see my beloved family members and friends. Since, I have to participate in the national competition in Singapore, I got only two weeks to visit India. So, I planned my schedule to cover all places which I have to visit. My heart started beating with joy because I'm going to see my India after one year. India is making headlines in the newspaper that economy grows more than 9%. Whenever, I browse through any newspaper in Singapore I always search any Indian news. Basically, Its the people view that as economy grows, the country's citizen per capita income increases and there will be an overall development. So, I presume that Indian people now becoming wealthier than before.
I read it in the newspaper in Singapore, India government plans to expand its airport due to overwhelming increase in the air passenger traffic. Economist often says that Singapore's development can be attributed to its strong infra structure which become a suitable place for foreign investment. This is very clear from the GDP of Singapore, about 60% GDP comes from MNCs headquarter in Singapore and rest from Singapore SMEs. Changi airport in Singapore is considered to be one of the best airport in the world which can handle about 70 million. On the contrast no Indian airport handles more than 10 million passengers currently. I don't know why Indians themselves hate Indians, in changi airport service is considered to one of the world's best but in chennai airport people scarcely respect the passengers. When the plane took off from Changi , I was anticipating time to go faster. Due to heavy traffic in chennai, plane has been delayed in landing.
Chennai was still almost same except traffic, air pollution has increased. I went directly to my hometown cuddalore in bus. Bus passes through by-pass, the road reminds me of PIE(highway in Singapore). Actually highway is better than many roads in Singapore. There is a signal of development but traffic is too heavy even in nights. I presume the reason for traffic in night was attributed to cancellation of train and construction of broad cage. I reached cuddalore and went to home in an auto. Difference in the lifestyles can be clearly seen in cuddalore which is a town located in erstwhile of pondy. Even though many countries like US, UK, Singapore are richer than India there is always something is lacking in those countries thats affection. You don't get affection anywhere outside India. Literally improbable to speak about affection in foreign nation. India is always India.

Information is wealth

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what makes cities ,towns,villages too different from each other?Its all about information.We are privilege to access more information if we stay in city or town.Information makes the human different from each other.Among the students,person who is more informed try and apply for many colleges.Information actually creates opportunity.Even in the job interview we have to show to the interviewer that we are more informed about the job and growth aspects of company.In India students in the village and towns are less informed to their counterparts in the cities.For example,take the proportion of the students studying in some of the prestigious universities in India such as anna university,NITs.we will find that about 80% of the students hailed from cities.In IITs and IIMs almost 100% of the students hailed from cities.
Even now in India there are lots of place which doesn't know that India has world's top universities like IIT and IIM.While I was preparing for IIT-JEE in my town.Many of my relativies asked me whether your preparing to join ITI.What a disgrace is this?IIT and ITI are at the two extremes of the Indian education.This is attributed to the flow of information.We all know that students studying in city can have a privilege to access to the coaching class.We came to know about coaching class through our friends or seniors or relatives.For each and every activity in day today life we need to know some amount of information.In this information technology world today its possible to disseminate information from one place to other place easily and efficiently.Why Indian government is not doing such an effort to disseminate information and make everybody access all kinds of information.
There is a growing concern in India as well as around the globe about the rich becomes rich and poor becomes poor.This is also attribute to the flow of information.Indian stock market is in bullish growth.India's economy is in the fast track.How many people really know about the india's stock market boom and its benefit?If all the people who earns more than Rs 10000 per month invest in the stock market we in India doesn't need to depend on FDI(foreign direct investment).Information makes people more knowledgeable.Real education is something which has to make students better citizen of country and world.But our educational system doesn't allow students to widen his/her horizon.We need overhaul in our educational system to make every citizens better informed about problems,opportunities and make them future architect of our country.

Is IQ inherited?

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This is the question which boggles my mind for many years.In India,people from certain communities are considered to be intelligent.I kept on thinking whether IQ is inherited.If IQ is inherited children from brilliant father and mother has to be intelligent.We see too many children who are very bright has intelligent father or mother.But there are exceptions.So what actually determines the child becoming intelligent.I was reading one of the psychologybook regarding the cognitive functions it even agrees that small part of IQ is related to child's inheritance.
Research finding about the cognitive functions of child says that socio-economic condition of the child plays the vital role in determining IQ of the person.Everybody is born with empty head,its the circumference which shapes us.Deep within,we know already that we are perfect just as we are right now.Abdul kalam was privileged to work with the great minds of India like vikram sarabhai,satish dhawan etc.He himself agreed that his circumstances shaped him.Even if all the people are brought in the same circumstances not everybody shines very well in this world. If it so Darwin's theory of natural selection goes wrong.
Brain studies shown that the left and right sides of the brain are accessed at different speeds and in varying sequences,in different people.Actually left brain is meant for analytical skills,memory,etc and right brain is for innovation,creative,etc.Then why parents and elders are asking us to work hard.If every person has different potential,what will the hard work does.This question is answered by saint thiruvalluvar in 300 BC.Thirukkual says that even if God neglects us by giving poor mind power or ability,If we work very hard and persevere in any endeavour.We will surely reap the fruit of our hard work.So we believe in hard work.

Rural discrimination in Indian educational system

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India the country where almost 60% of the population lives in rural areas.Villages in India are considered to be backbone.Because without backbone no individual can live peacefully.Educational system in India is broadly divided into CBSE,ICSE and state board.CBSE schools are rarely found in rural areas.State board schools maintained by state government are very poor in condition.
The quality of education in the rural areas are extremely bad.The place where majority of population lives is not getting good education. Is it possible for student living in rural areas to aspire for IITs and IIMs.I know many students live in rural areas study more than his/her city counterparts.I studied in the state board school in cuddalore old town where my friends used to study more than 8-9 hours after school hours.School schedule was very weird we had school from 6.30 am - 6.30pm.Many of my friends who studied in that school came from lower middle class and poor families.Since school is situated in town area we used to travel for more than half hour from our place.
Even studying for so many hours in school and in home many of my friends endup studying in bad colleges.Is it their fault or in educational system?.I had a privilege of studying in chennai.There students used to study little compare to my friends in village/town.But they all got good colleges.What is wrong actually here?.I believe that flow of information is restricted in village or rural areas.Since information creates more opportunities.how can we improve the condition in rural/villages school?.
suggestions to this blog is welcome