by Vidya Balachandar, ‘NPR,’ Washington, DC. October 9, 2016 Even if you knew nothing about Vijaya, her haunting portrait would likely give you pause. She peers out of the page, unsmiling, her silver hair pulled back and her eyes conveying an unspoken anguish. From the accompanying narrative, we learn that a few years ago, almost… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Arts & Culture
Tribute to Ainkaran – A Unique Artist from Tamil Eelam
by ILankai Tamil Sangam, October 2016 Sivaaingaran Chelvadurai, a tech-supervisor turned impressive stage singer, who performed on equal footing with renowned playback singers over three decades and who was born and raised in Tamil Eelam, emerging from a family of social activists and intellectuals, passed away at age 55 in Columbia, Tennessee, USA. Ultimate… Read more »
India’s Disturbing Oscar Entry Takes on Police Torture
by BBC, London, September 28, 2016 A thriller in Tamil language has been chosen as India’s official entry to the Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Oscars. Sudha G Tilak writes on an unusually gritty crime drama on police brutality and corruption. A homeless young man is walking down a street after watching a… Read more »
M.I.A.’S Provocative Pop
In recent years, her controversies have been more vital than her music. by Carrie Battan, ‘The New Yorker,’ September 12, 2016 Later this month, the inaugural London offshoot of Afropunk Fest—the forward-thinking musical event, held annually in Brooklyn, that explores race, identity, and visual art in black counterculture—will take place. Initially, the headliner was to… Read more »
Sangam Kalai Vila
Ilankai Tamil Sangam (ITS), USA successfully hosted its bi-annual cultural show “Kalai Vila” on Sunday June 5th in West Windsor New Jersey. This year the Kalai Vila 2016 was combined with a super singer show. Over 100 students from different parts of New Jersey show cased their talent in Tamil language, music and arts… Read more »
About Sri Lankan Refugees, Looks Like a Prophecy
by A.O.Scott, ‘The New York Times,’ May 5, 2016 Jacques Audiard’s “Dheepan,” which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes a year ago, arrives in North American theaters having lost none of the timeliness that was widely noted last May. Screening in the South of France a few months after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, as the… Read more »
2nd Tamil Studies Symposium May 6-7
Full program http://ycar.apps01.yorku.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Tamil-Studies-Symposium-Program.pdf The 2nd Tamil Studies Symposium Bearing Witness: Unspeakable Crimes, Invisible Atrocities 6-7 May 2016 at York University The most challenging paradox of the 21st Century may well be the saturation of our media with news of atrocities, even as many conflicts around the world are described as ‘wars without witnesses’. While news reports… Read more »
New Tamil Writing
by Words without Borders, New York, April 2015 This month we present Tamil writing. The Tamil literary tradition of associating images with landscapes informs the fiction and poetry here, as writers locate their considerations of alienation, exile, and diaspora, and address how identities and customs change with both figurative and literal terrain. In tales from… Read more »
Poetry after Libricide and Genocide
by Cheran Rudramoorthy, ‘Indialogs,’ Barcelona, Spain, January 2016 http://revistes.uab.cat/indialogs/article/view/v3-rudhramoorthy/pdf_26 Cheran Poetry after Libricide & Genocide Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings – Heinrich Heine Healing the Forest To heal a still smoldering land, we went; no bird in sight. An empty sky above the sparrow-flying earth. An ash-covered landless… Read more »
From Tamil Tiger to Star of a Palme d’Or Winner
The lead in Jacques Audiard’s latest film left Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war and arrived in France to work a series of low-paid jobs. His extraordinary story is mirrored in the new work from the director of A Prophet
“The Other Side”
By Indrani Balaratnam, March 30, 2016 A glimpse of the streets we would have called home, I’m laughing in the park, climbing the coconut trees, Cycling through the dusty lanes, playing at the local spots. It’s a strange relationship: Caught in opposition of the surveillance state, And, gratitude, for finally seeing the corners we’ve never… Read more »
How the Chola Flag left a Mark in Lanka
The journey in search of trans-oceanic art traditions reveals how the Chola rule in Sri Lanka made an indelible mark on the island nation’s history and brought about changes in the socio-economic and cultural spheres.Two Chola temples, namely Siva Devalayas, in Polonnaruva are the important Chola monuments in the island nation, according to S Kannan,… Read more »
Pressing Your Case: Nonviolent Movements and the Media
Introduction by Nada Alwadi Organizers and strategists of nonviolent movements often struggle in dealing with the mainstream news media. Some consider it their enemy, because coverage can be patchy or inaccurate. Others unrealistically expect the media to advocate for their causes. Yet few resources for activists have provided a reliable explanation of how an… Read more »
A Sri Lankan Lesson in Free Speech
London — I gave a talk last month at the Galle Literary Festival in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. This festival, whose home is in the southern city of Galle, has become over the past decade one of the brightest lights in Sri Lanka’s cultural firmament. This year, it established “outreach” festivals in Kandy, in Sri Lanka’s… Read more »
Jaffna: The Past, The Present, and The Future
https://vimeo.com/131349915
Fundraising for Tamil Chair at Harvard University
http://www.harvardtamilchair.com/ Harvard University has endorsed the idea of a Tamil Chair in their Department of South Asian Studies. The following note, was part of a letter received from Harvard University: “We are very pleased to convey to you our desire to support the establishment of the first Sangam Professorship in Tamil Studies at Harvard University…. Read more »
Handmade: Stories of Strength Shared thru Recipes
http://handmade.palmera.org/ Food is their life and a language they are at ease with. So what better way to tell their story than through food? So much more than just a cookbook, HANDMADE tells the stories of 34 women of Sri Lanka, in the time of war, before and after, through food. With beautifully transcribed stories… Read more »
Celebrating a Bountiful Harvest
Thai Pongal, the agrarian festival of the Tamils, will be in full flow around the country today. It is a festival celebrated not only in Sri Lanka and India, but all over the globe where Tamil populations are concentrated. It is essentially a festival of thanksgiving by farmers after their first harvest of paddy, but… Read more »
Review of “Alapparungkarunai”
Tonight I saw a beautiful Tamil Ballet of Tagores performed exquisitely by the Kokuvil Kalabhavanam free in aid of the Faculty of Medicine’s Student Hostel. It was organised by the Alumni of the Faculty of Medicine. I went expecting to hear some song and dance. To my surprise the play was so well choreographed with… Read more »
Call for Submissions for Tamil Studies Symposium
Call for submissions for a Tamil Studies Symposium in Toronto at York University. The pdf includes the call for submissions in both Tamil and English. CFS Tamil Studies Symposium 2016