On a small island off the southernmost tip of India, a statue of the poet known only as Tiruvalluvar stands staring out at the confluence of two seas and one ocean. The statue is 133 feet high, symbolic of the 133 chapters that make up the 2000-year-old Tirukkural, a meditation on ethics, government, and the … Read More
“We’ve been waiting for a song like this.” This is what Rolex Rasathy says she hears from so many Tamil women, in response to her latest music video, Raavanan. In the video, which dropped first on Valentine’s Day, New York-based singer Rolex Rasathy and Toronto-based rapper Navz-47 team up to confront a man who has … Read More
Jude Ratnam didn’t realize he would be telling his own story. Initially, Ratnam set out to make a film about the Sri Lankan Civil War, using the railway connecting the Sinhalese-dominated south and the Tamil-dominated north as a springboard for his explorations. “You can’t rationally understand the process of art-making,” Ratnam told Kajal. “But one … Read More
There is something particular about hearing the same stories repeated again and again by family members. A loving frustration. There are the looks shot between siblings, across kitchen tables, of “this again?” There is the conviction with which a grandfather or a mother or an uncle tells the story, each time like it’s going to … Read More
KING IN THE NORTH The Canadian House of Commons declared January Tamil History Month earlier this week. The motion to declare Tamil History Month was originally proposed by MP Gary Anandasangaree in January of this year. It stated “the government should recognize the contributions that Tamil-Canadians have made to Canadian society, the richness of the Tamil language and … Read More
