My Dad's Interview - Tamil Education in Singapore

Today a Tamil professor Dr Seetha from the National Institute of Singapore came to interview my dad. She was doing a project on the History of Tamil Education in Singapore and my dad was her key advisor. My dad was also one of the pioneer scholars who had made a deep impact on raising the bar on the teaching of Tamil and Tamil Education in Singapore. My dad had to overcome many challenges and had to negotiate both a Western padegogy mindset seeking to introduce their tools into the Tamil teaching framework while encouraging the Tamil teaching community to adopt best practices from other related disciplines which would enrich the teaching of Tamil. My dad was the first voice in Tamil teaching who insisted that Tamil scholars should ensure that they also write in English - so as to ensure that their work reaches a larger audience. My dad was clearly a man ahead of his times and he faced much resistance. Most Tamil teachers and scholars were not hungry and aggressive about interdisciplinary and empirical based research. They strongly resisted the introduction of advanced teaching methodologies and exploration of socio-linguistic research. My dad pushed on and achieved much success in winning the respect of many other scholars and teachers who understand the importance of his work. India understood the impact of his work and often invited him for conferences and presented awards to recognize his thought leadership.

Coming back to the interview this morning - I felt like the reporter from Tuesdays with Morrie. I had to direct the camera crew and ensure that the professor kept her questions sharp and focussed. I also had to direct the professor's assistant to document the whole recording from different angles. As I explained to the crew that came these are some of the few and rare recordings that you are going to make given my dad's frail health. Once they understood what I was saying they worked with great focus, tenacity and tinged with much compassion for my dad. I guess they understood what great passion my dad had for Tamil language and culture and how despite his ill-health he had agreed to be interviewed. A more vain scholar who wanted to look sexy in front of the camera - wld have said no. But my dad not only gave a brilliant interview but he gave me some critical insights about language, culture and teaching Tamil for a minority community in Singapore. I am familiar with the issues as a minority artist. The limited funding opportunities coupled with the extreme difficulties of popularizing the Tamil culture. It has been and continues to be a real struggle selling an ancient classical tradition to a Singapore audience fed on a steady diet of MTV and Hollywood movies. The thing that moved me the most was when my dad said that in this lifetime my health has precluded me from achieving all that I wanted to do for Tamil culture. I hope that in my next life I can come back and continue working to promote Tamil culture and literature.