When Tamil Nadu Government announced tax exemption for Tamil movies with Tamil titles, I did not feel bad. This act was different from the usual Tamil-fanatic acts that the ruling party is known for.
I was never amused by titles like 'Jeans', 'New', 'Run' etc. in the past. An occasional English name that is relevant to the movie's theme was ok, but a sudden surge of English names for Tamil movies was a plain marketing gimmick. After the announcement, this trend has almost disappeared ! I like innovative Tamil names like 'vETTayADu viLayADu', 'Ayutha ezhuththu', 'kAkka kAkka' etc.
These small acts will go a long way in saving the language from getting wiped out by socio-political environment of the country. I might sound backward, but I really marvel at Chennai that has been in the forefront of development while laughing at 'Hindi-only' speakers of the country.
Go to Mumbai - you cannot hear Marathi. Go to Bangalooru - you can survive without knowing Kannada. Go to Chennai - In one year, you WILL learn Tamil ! I don't find this to be rude. I equate it to Japan where you cannot live without knowing Japanese.
I agree that patriotism takes priority over one's language, but neglecting a 2000+ year old language for the sake of a 50 year old nation is stupidity, mildly put. A language cannot live on its own. It needs great poets and poetry lovers. It needs great personalities who speak it proudly. It needs native speakers who are proud of it. It needs the socio-political conditions to be favorable too.
Christianity would never have survived more than a couple of centuries without the political support of Rome. English is all over the world not because of just Shakespeare, but mainly because of the gun power of Britain in the last few centuries and the power of the US today.
Tamil lives on, thanks to its passionate native speakers.
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9 comments:
Financially the gov is loosing tax money (20% of production cost). So a big loss to the gov on the namesake of saving the language. Think about the big budget movies like "Shivaji", its tax amount runs in crores and the producer pockets all this money!
Do u think the govt/polititians is mainly dependant on tax from movies ?
i don't think so. polititians have many ways to earn their money. This act is for getting more votes actually, but I feel in the long way it will be good for the language.
Interesting and thought provoking.
Gov. can always offset the loss
in many ways.
awesome machan...one more person for the support for the ever-dwindling (I thought) tamil support group...
Language has to grow by expanding its vocabulary and there are lots of work going on in making the Tamil Akarathi for the computer world, how many of the Tamil speaking ppl contribute to it??? Only few of those who study/work in the the literature line do that...
I dont think by just naming the movies will help. Its mere stupidity to give tax exemption for the sake of keeping the movie names in Tamil. There are many other ways u can keep ur lang alive. The name should be meaningful to the script line and need not to be forced by such acts... do u think changing "Jillnu oru kadhal" to "sillunu oru kadhal" will help Tamil. Is Shivaji a Tamil Name?? There is old fight that we should not use the sanskrit letters in pure tamil poems.. I feel language should be in a position to grow by borrowing the words from other languages.
பழையன கழிதலும் புதியன புகுதலும் ஒரு மொழிக்கு தேவையில்லையா???
Hi AK,
Yes, its me. Akila from GCT - CSEA 2001 :)
I am recently into this blog world..
@sen, @anwin,
thanks !
@akila,
'Sillunnu' is really an overkill.
ja, ha etc should be officially made part of Tamil. Tamil is quite liberally Sanskritized in modern times. 'Pure' Tamil does not exist any more.
I would be happy abt a title like 12B because such a bus runs in Chennai (i ve travelled in it too !).
But titles like 'New', 'Run' etc are totally stupid.
I agree with your point that "Tamil is no more pure and we already use sanskrit letters in Tamil". That is what i am also trying to say.. So what is wrong in using the words from hindi/english that we use in our day to day life... கட்டுமரம் became Catamaran. We use Bus rather than பேரூர்ந்து. Did anyone of us use புகைவண்டி or தொடர்வண்டி. NO!!! Alteast we still call bus stand as பேரூர்ந்து நிலையம் but not the railway station as தொடர்வண்டி நிலையம். These are the changes u need to undergo. But still u can preserve the old Kanni Tamil!!! Keeping movie names in Tamil is not the one..definitely not !
If u want to show Tamil's beauty, name the streets/buildings/or create awards for poems from people/ make Tamil a compulsary in School, in addition to optional Hindi/French... There are many ways i say!
Apart from this point. Why are we giving so much importance to C-i-n-e-m-a... People claim its a powerful media to convey.. but is it really so? How many people changed themselves after seeing the movie "Indian" or "Anbe Sivam". Very few, if i am correct. I feel sorry that in our country, Politics and Cinema go hand in hand.. Cinema is an Art. People see it as an entertaining system. So Govt should also see that as an entertainment media and act accordingly... And should get the Tax for that. Cinema is doing more bad than any good. Not all, but most of them.. In that case, why should the Govt lose the money. We arent rich country... Cant the Govt get that Tax and use for the welfare of Poor???
I know its a bit lenghty comment. But i feel we arent in a better position to do few things for granted...
thought provoking post da AK. i will share my opinions too.
i feel there is no point in just changing the title as long as the content is crap. Just an eg, 'Run' movie was far better than 'thulluvatho ilamai' (which had all crap vulgar scenes)
do u think the latter deserves an exemption for showcasing crap but haing a tamil name?
23rd pulikesi is a real good movie... with "pure" tamil dialogues but i was told that Producer Shankar had to get a 30 mts appointent with Kalaignar to explain and get the exemption whereas a movie like "something something unakkum enakkum" easily got it.. i see no point here :(
by the way, who watches a movie based on name? its the cast/directors/musicians etc.. that pulls the crowd.. so the name is not even an attraction in tamil cinema...
as rajakumar says Govt need not take the loss (its a big loss mind u) to grow tamil (as they claim). U can keep all street names in Tamil, recognize tamil poets more, (remember we have this "saabam" of not even rewarding a poet like Bharathi) , award tamil writers more,make it as a compulsory second language and make students to take Tamil literature with passion. right now its been taken by those students who dont get into any other course :(
There are many many ways one can retain and grow a language and i also strongly feel Gove should get the help of media and newspapers to grow Tamil instead of this vote buying measure.
just my 2 cents...
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