It was the first day at my first company. I got introduced to my new colleagues. Off to work. We got to meet again during lunch break. One of my colleagues asked me “Where are you from?”. I said, “Chennai.” Immediately the lady remarked, “Oh so you must not be knowing Hindi”. I said yes. Further more she asked, “Why do people in Tamil Nadu always say ‘Tamil, Tamil’ and do not learn other languages?”. I said “That’s because it’s our mother tongue and we’re attached to it. Being in Tamil Nadu, we did not have any necessity to learn any other languages than Tamil and English”. Many of us have faced such a situation.
People at workplace start talking in Hindi and assume everyone knows Hindi. When we intimate that we do not know Hindi, some of them say sorry and start talking in English.
I often read a lot of articles that Stereotypes Tamils as “Lungi wearing community with no proper education and their own slang”. In fact those are amateur writers who probably have written without knowing our culture and the way we live. There are a lot of educated people and technically savvy people. We have great legends in almost every field.
We are not rude but stereotyped to be. Tamil Nadu is known for its Hospitality and when someone says Chennai is not a place for non Tamils, I feel sad. I agree that we may not be fluent in other languages and hence our people may ask you to repeat or talk in Tamil when you converse in other languages. But that doesn’t mean the people are rude. We are proud to belong to a Literature rich language that is sustaining for ages. The richness of our literature is beyond imagination.
The oldest and first literature Tolkaapiyam is said to have originated in 1st Century BCE. The world famous Thirukkural is another sangam literature that was also dated to the 3rd Century BCE. We can boast that it is the only literature which has been translated in about 37 languages. Tamil is a language that has sustained and lived for more than 2000 years. Tamil inscriptions are found in many countries like China, Egypt, Indonesia. We can boast of Subramaniya Bharathi who wrote on Women Freedom even before our Independence. The architecture of Cholas are speaking for themselves even today. The Tanjore Brihadeeshwara Teemple was constructed over 1000 years ago with great precision that could not be found even with modern Architecture skills in the World.
Of course, people may not be interested to know the richness of our language. But for Tamilians, it is our emotion. It is our Sentiment. It is our heart and soul. Every section of population has mix of people who maybe polite, rude, proud, intelligent, lazy, active and so on. We are human beings and we can exhibit different character. Hence stereotyping people based on the language they speak or the region they come from is not wise nor fair.
People also tend to talk about the SriLankan Tamils topic without proper knowledge about it. People see Tamil Fishermen news as a joke. And recently I read a Facebook status which said “If it comes to Fishermen, they are Tamil Fishermen, whereas if it comes to Legends like APJ sir, they are called Indians”. In fact, it is true.
Another prevailing comment about Chennai is about it’s weather. Yes, of course it is hot and humid. But it is by nature. Getting a city with a pleasant climate is by nature and cannot be called an achievement. Without understanding this, people start complaining about our place. And of course, no one forces people to talk in Tamil or live in Chennai. If you do not like our place, you can feel free to quit.
If you do not like to appreciate the richness of our language, please move on. But do not stereotype or comment. And yes please do not call any language as a National Language. If so, please read well and judge. We have something called the Official language only and ours is one of them. If someone is proud in talking in Hindi amidst the foreigners, so do we feel proud in talking in our Tamil in front of other language speakers. Our language is our freedom.