Tamil or Thamizh? Does it matter...??

Curious heading, you think? Nope. It was a result of a small debate that I participated involuntarily at office yesterday. Our team has several Tamil speaking people from different parts of the country. I hail from Mumbai, one of them was from Chennai, one from Chennai (but speaks better Malayalam!) and one from Coimbatore. The resultant discussion was quite amusing to say the least.

Till '99, I was exposed only to the Tamil spoken in Brahminical households in Mumbai. I never knew there was a Palghat flavor to it until later in '00-'01 when many people told me about it. Probably, it was because the significant number of TamBrams (Tamil Brahmin) community that settled in Mumbai were from Palghat side. After '99, I moved down south from Mumbai to Bangalore. It was here that I got new friends who were from the inner cities and towns of TN. Tirunelveli, Madurai, Trichy, Kumbakonam, Thanjavur, Coimbatore, Erode and the like. Even here, I have mentioned only the big cities/towns of TN. The influence of Tamil dialects that I have gained since '99 has changed my own Tamil dialect to an extent that the Palghat effect has gone down significantly, but not completely removed. At the same time, I have a better appreciation of different dialects from different regions. And that has increased my respect for the language.

To recount a funny experience, I was once travelling in Madurai with a dear friend, Mani. We were travelling in a bus and there was a caution note painted at the top. It read "Karam Siram Puram Neetatheer". Mani asked me to interpret it for him. 15 minutes of painful deductions later, Mani told me that I was nowhere close to the correct meaning of it. Imagine me guessing somethings related to "complete karma"! "Puram" made me think of the word "Complete", Hindi influence. "Karam" made me think of "Karma", again a Hindi influence. None of my interpretations came close to mean - Do not put your hands, heads, legs outside. A safety warning. Quite simple in comparison to the lofty philosophical references that I was arriving at. :-)

The word "macha" is probably one of the most popular exports. Especially in Bangalore, you get to hear this so much amongst the college going crowd. In any college in TN, this is a essential part of the lingo. It is a word that would instantly bond just plain friends into a gang. Similarly there are other exports as well. Tamil also has imported a lot of words into its spoken language. For instance, using "naina" to refer to your father. I believe it is a Telugu influence, atleast someone told me so. Many Hindi words have made it in as well. There is a little pain point with the Hindi spoken by Tamils - distortion of spellings and pronunciation. Classic line used in this context is "Ek Gaon Mein Ek Kisan Raghu Thatha". But there is little that can be done. If Marwadis could damage pronouncing Tamil words, so could Tamils with Hindi. You have Northies pronouncing bahut as bohot and then the same guys chide a Tamil for saying it correctly. How is that? So, Case rested!

It is only after you start understanding and appreciating flavors of the language that you start loving the language used in the movies or by people. For instance, the language used by Kovai Sarala or Vadivelu. :-) Nothing more needs to be added. Unless you really get the feel of the language, how can you love that comedy? Puritans would squirm in their seats looking at how the languages get defiled. I would not call it defiling. But it is reaching the language to the masses.

Similarly with lyrics of songs. Some exceptionally beautiful poetry is sung in the form of songs. And unless someone helps you out to interpret the beauty, those songs are only half enjoyed. Take the case of the song "Vellai Pookal" from Kannathil Muthamitaal. Until I got the real meaning of the song, I only enjoying the music orchestration, guitaring etc. Once I got the meaning of the song, I loved the song in a much deeper sense. There are many more such examples, the last being the "New York Nagaram" song from "Sillunnu Oru Kadhal".

At the end of the day, it is also amazing that those who are used to all the dialects can switch seamlessly and appreciate all the flavors at the same time. No one complains, and mostly everyone enjoys. Regardless of what you say, ottukka or sernthu, it still means joint.

I will leave you with this experience with Chennai Tamil. Chennai has its own version of Tamil, quite distinct from the rest of TN. And Chennaities will defend it with everything that they have. Anyways, to cite an example, I once heard this line somewhere - "bajaarla ushaaraa ilangaatikka nijaar gayaps maamey!". I had absolutely no clue what this line meant. It was something to do with smartness in the market and something disappearing. That is what I could get. Nothing more. Mani came to the rescue again and told me it meant - if you are not smart in the market, you stand to lose everything including the UG". Imagine my look when I realised that I had memorized that line out of everything that Chennai Tamil had to offer! Tell me, this is still better, and I would believe you.

Disclaimer: If this post has hurt anybody, it was purely unintentional. You can send me an email at bgajanan[at]gmail[dot]com.