Who doesn’t love a Quiz? It is engaging, thought provoking,
competitive and above all, it is pure unadulterated fun. So, when I was
planning on conducting an event for the annual Pongal Celebrations Vasantham,
an idea struck me. We have had Movie Quiz, Mythology Quiz, B-Quiz, SpEnt Quiz
conducted on Campus, but never a Thamizh Quiz. What’s a Thamizh Quiz?
Technically, it is the same old Quizzing wine served on a new Bottle titled
Thamizh. It involves framing questions that sound alien on first reading, but
has breadcrumbs enough to find the trail to an answer, the answer having a
Thamizh connect- literature, movies, history, people, et al. The event became
an instant hit that I followed it up for Vasantham 2015 too. This is the tale
of the Thamizh Quiz, a solemn voice of Thamizh sung in English.
Consider this Question.”X
means ‘self-speak’ or one’s own speech. X is one of the few Tamizh words which have
all forms of phonemes-The nasal, The Hard vowel and the Medium vowel. X was
first mentioned in Tholkaapiyam, but surprisingly, the word is never mentioned
in Thirukkural. What is X?” The question sounds tedious and is encoded
with a lot of trivia, but the answer is easily decodable. Infact the answer is
specified in the Question itself! The word is Thamizh, which has Vallinam ‘Tha’, Mellinam ‘Ma’ and Idaiyinam
‘Zha’ in it. In a surprisingly curious manner we have also learnt that the word
Thamizh is never mentioned in Thirukural, truly making it a Universal Literary
Work. Sounds Fun?
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| Being QuizMaster :) ! |
The best quiz questions are the ones which have a story to
it, which combines beauty, breadth and balance, all in a well-framed question.
“The
giant swing in Bangkok hosts one of the 12 Royal Ceremonies of Thailand where
holy verses from literary works Tri-Bave and Tri-Yampavai are recited. These
works are Thai translations of original Thamizh works X and Y.” Needless
to say, X is Thirupaavai and Y is Thiruvempaavai, holy verses on Vishnu and Shiva
respectively. Here’s another. “Connect these. Antiquity, Harmony,
Clarity, Independent, Serenity, Idealism Universality, Reason, Order, Humanism.”
All these qualities are the criteria for a classical language status. Thamizh
is one of the 6 recognized classical languages, and the more profound fact is
that it is the only one which is still in wide usage amongst common speakers. That
is not an easy question to crack.
One reason for conducting this Quiz was to bridge the gap
between what we want to know and what we should know. We know a lot more
about a Foreign Football Club than our own mother tongue. We are very much
disconnected with our roots, because fundamentally we don’t take pride in our
cultural and linguistic backgrounds. We have to wonder why we keep distance
from our identities and pretend to be someone who we are not, trapping
ourselves in places where we don’t belong.
One of the Connect Questions displayed pictures of Anaconda,
Cheetah, Cash, Mango and Ginger, asking for a specific connect between them.
A lot of connections are possible, and that is one of the positives of Quizzes,
because it encourages possibilities involving a lot of educated guesses. The
answer that I intended was that all these English words are of Thamizh origin:
Anaconda from ‘Yaanai Kondran’ (Elephant Killer), Cheetah from ‘Siruthai’, Cash
from ‘Kaasu’, Mango from ‘Maangaai’ and Ginger from ‘Inji’. Another Etymology
question was “X is a richly flavored soup of Anglo-Indian origin, spiced with curry powder
and served with a dollop of tangy sour cream. X translated literally from
Tamizh means pepper water”. The soup is Mulligatawny, from the Thamizh
‘Milagu Thanneer’. Amazing how English borrows a lot from our language!
We are at the brink of facing a ‘never-before’ challenge of
losing relevance due to an overwhelming influence of English. Not more than 10%
of today’s existing languages are expected to survive the century. Thamizh,
which has an unbroken chain of literary tradition, is facing a crisis today because
a significant percentage of Thamizh people do not know to read or write in
Thamizh. Tales of Chola and Pandya kings, Austere Avvaiyar’s classical
literature, Our Architectural marvels, Supreme achievements in arts and culture
are read more by foreigners in printed coffee table books than in fast forward
Tamil homes. This has to Change. We have to take pride in our roots and
represent our identities.
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| Interacting with the Participants |
I took the liberty of introducing
innovative rounds in the Quiz finals. One such round is ‘Minimalist Lyrics’
where the first line of a Thamizh Film song is represented in an image. The
task is to find out the lyrics from its minimalist representation. Another
round is, ‘Titular Books’ where the
literary inspiration for prominent movie titles has to be found out. For
example ‘Soodhu Kavvum’ is taken from the famous lines in Bharathiyar’s Panchali
Sabatham. It was also fun naming the popular “pick your poison” quizzing
round in Thamizh as ‘வேண்டப்பட்ட விரோதி!’
Quiz questions should give ‘Eureka
Moments’ when the answers are revealed. “X is a Thamizh word for the
ethnic group Yadava. Similar to Yadava, X also means both king and herdsmen. Ilangovadigal gave special mention to X in Silapathikaaram as
they provided accommodation for Kannagi.” A word which means both king
and herdsmen? ‘Kon’ is King, and ‘Ko’ means cow, hence, herdsmen are called
Konaar! All Thamizh students have an acquaintance with the famous ‘Konaar
Guide’.
Thamizh Book Shops have become
glorified stationers where people queue up to buy “Tamil Guide Books” to pass
an exam. No other Thamizh book sells as much. If a Thamizh Book sells a meager
5000 copies, it is considered a bestseller whereas the benchmark for other ‘light-read,
skim through’ English ‘novels’ is in the million copies range. This is no
rivalry, because, truly Thamizh has no enemies. One has to be living
under a rock to be saying Thamizh isn’t universal and accommodating.
Bharathiyaar asked to translate literary works of other languages into Thamizh
alongside creating immortal Thamizh works. “Every
town is my town. Everyone is my kin. Good and bad don’t come from others” says
an ancient Puranaanooru Poem. Relief comes from within. Thamizh is Innovating.
One Quiz Question example would suffice.
“KaReFo is a non profit
educational research organization founded by lyricist Madhan Karky. Their focus
is on Tamil Computing and language growth. One of their beta products includes
Agaraadhi.com, which introduces new foreign words into Thamizh. One example of
the word is Thaami(தாமி)
which roughly means ‘something one does to oneself’, the English original of
which was an Internet Sensation in 2013.” Thaami is the Thamizh word
for Selfie!
There is no denying the fact that it is important to learn
foreign languages to be connected to the world. But to be connected to
ourselves, we have to protect our voice amidst external qualms. We owe a debt
to the forthcoming generations to preserve the unbroken literary tradition.
That is the message of the quiz, to keep learning, to reach for the sky while also
staying deep rooted in our identities. Say Welcome to English and Thamizh will
reply back in kind as ‘Vanakkam’!
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