Yesterday I went to a beautiful exhibition at the National Library in Singapore. The National Library has always been a special place for me and my mom. My mom used to take me to the library for story telling sessions when I was a little girl. That instilled my love for books and this love affair continues. So my mom and I went to the exhibition which was about the Chola temples in Tamil Nadu and the Tamil inscriptions on the temple walls. I had just come back from India to the temples featured in the exhibition. There is a tonne of history, architectural history and iconograpic information embedded in these temple. I had the pleasure of a wonderful Tamil scholar walk me through the big temple and it was a truly wonderful intellectual journey. So I was really excited about learning more about these temples, their iconography and the empire building by the King Raja Raja Chola who had built these Chola temples. The exhibition was good and it was a nice way to connect with the Indian scholars and writers - many of whom were close friends of my parents. One of them, Dr Thinappan, a former colleague of my dad - and now a Professor at the South Asian department at the local university was also there. He greeted me by saying that he uses my videos as a teaching aid for his students on what is culture and the role of Tamil culture in Singapore. I could not remember the video I had done. But many years ago the Ministry of Community Development in Singapore had interviewed me in my capacity as an Indian artist/cultural commentator about Indian culture. I was very happy to see that this video is now being put to good use in institutions of higher education such as the local university. It reminded me of the important role of digital records of cultural knowledge for the benefit of future generations.
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