The author comes from a Brahman Tamil family which settled in northern India. Similarly to many other members of the elite, she chose English as her preferred intellectual medium and she learned formal Tamil only once she left India. However, her multilingual background led her eventually to investigate tamilpparru, devotion to the Tamil language.

Many nationalists everywhere will proclaim passionate love for their language, but in the case of tamilpparru, it leads to rarely reached heights: some devotees of Tamil have literally died for the sake of the language.

So, there you have the examination of an interesting ideology...

NB: If I sound skeptical, it is not because I dislike Tamil. I find classical Tamil is one of the most beautiful Indian languages -- but I cannot quite fathom how people can protest Telugu or Hindi so intensely while embracing English. But that's where the seemingly exotic tale becomes all too familiar, whether in Lebanon or in the Balkans, aka de te fabula narratur.

Dravidian, Tamil