BETA

This week I have been doing a lot of soul searching and wondered what I could possibly write that hasn’t been written about before and that will hopefully make an interesting read.

And so I turned to real life for inspiration, last week was my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary, which is equivalent to a quarter of a decade in matrimony. First I would like to pass them and whoever else has achieved this wonderful feat my sincere congratulations and wishes. What our parents have is something that us ‘youngsters’ may not be able to achieve. For we have grown up in a society that is worlds apart from how our parents were raised; and with values and morals that are both eastern and western.

It is common nowadays for people to fall in and out of love and go from one relationship to the other without thinking twice about what lies ahead or of their future plans. With each relationship the individual in question becomes both wiser and bitter– something that our parents never experienced. Whether they married through love or introduction from their families, the certainty is that they were probably both each other’s first partners. There is something alluring about the innocence of this sort of relationship and that is probably the reason that their marriages remain strong and they committed to one another.

This would be a rare thing to find amongst newly weds of the future, whereby both partners were each others first. Although to our parents this sounds unfamiliar and more often that not undesirable, it is something that they will have to get used to. However serious or meaningless a relationship what happened within that cannot be undone. This is a fact.

eetings Oru readers, let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year. It seems like it was only a short time ago that I wrote an article about the origins and significance of pongal and yet another year has passed and pongal is here once again. And what a year it has been! So much has changed for so many of us, we continue to grow in mind, body and soul and the world around is also changing rapidly. Good events and bad events precede one another and each day someone somewhere in the world is suffering.

What this past year has taught me is that nothing is forever, not ideas, not possessions nor life…nothing is forever. However there was one thing that I found that never ever perishes and that precious thing is ‘hope’. Pongal is a significant time of hope for as the great saying goes ‘thai pirandhal vazhi pirrakkum’ (literal translation = month is born, the way is born) meaning that when the month of Thai dawns there will be way of love, peace, harmony, prosperity, joyousness in everyone's life.

When so much is going on in the tumultuous world we live in, we often forget to hope and instead turn to other means to try to achieve what we want – and not all of them are right, but we do it anyway. What we should try and remember is that like each one of us there are millions more people hoping for things that are important to them and each of their hopes and dreams are just as precious as our own.

By hoping one can persevere and get through even the toughest times, to place your hope and faith in a higher allows each of us the strength to get through life. To hope ensures that you never ever give up and succeed in achieving what you want no matter how hard that may be; Pongal is a time when this hope is given praise to.

This week I was approached by the editorial team to write an article about higher studies in non-‘science’ related fields. Cliché I know, but apparently still a necessary topic to write about. In addition, It seems that this task always falls on me as I am apparently ‘the obvious candidate’ to discuss such a topic.

As you readers may or may not know, I have just completed my studies in political science (ignore the science bit) and now I am studying for my MSc in the same field. Growing up I harboured the typical ambition for a Tamil youth and that was to become a doctor. But as I became older and slightly wiser I decided that it was not the career for me. Apart from being a complete germ’o’phobe I did not like the idea of having to work long arduous hours where I was in regular contact with blood, guts and the sorts. Now I know what you are thinking, that there are other fields within medicine that do not involve such gore…but it was not the career for me. Much to the disappointment of my parents, I decided to continue my studies in the dreaded Arts field.

Eventually with a lot of gentle persuasion and a lot of good exam results later my parents were happy that I followed a path that made me happy and that I could excel in. It just so happens that both my degrees have the word science stuck on the end of them…that’s always a bonus in for us Tamils.

Hello all, Thanks again for taking time to read this section of the paper. I have just realised that I have been writing for our paper for a year and a half. For those loyal readers who have read more or less most of these know that I have covered Tamil history, day to day problems, social problems and have cavorted with controversial issues (who can forget the debate about virginity that ensued!). I have even had the pleasure of people writing whole articles agreeing with what I have written about and sharing their personal experiences. More recently, I have been approached by email and social networking sites by various people from Austria to Australia and from Italy to India. It is always a pleasure to receive compliments and encouragement from people who enjoy what I write. I am also quietly overjoyed that so many people read what I write (not blowing my own trumpet…as maybe they have no choice other than to read it!).

Hello there readers! It has been a while hasn’t it? I hope my absence was not felt too profoundly by all of you. So, since my last article I have
finished my final exams at university and am looking forward to graduating next month. In other news, I have recently returned from Australia where I attended my eldest cousins wedding (it was the first wedding amongst cousins in our family hence my excitement!). It was a dream wedding where he married his sweetheart of 6 years. I can honestly say the wedding was blissful andlooking back on photos it was like a wedding from a high end bollywood film.

For me personally what made the wedding so enjoyable was meeting with my cousins, there are ten of us in total and it has been over ten years since I last saw some of them. My grandma was beaming with pride and during the wedding period seemed to have been miraculously cured of her illnesses and ailments. You could see in her eyes the sheer joy at seeing all her grandchildren, her daughters and their families gathered in the joyous occasion of her eldest grandsons wedding. It is a moment in time that can never be replaced nor recreated and I am sure it will be one of the happiest memories she will have in her lifetime.

A collection of thoughts by Uma Kumaran

I am in a state of despair and utter helplessness as I write this article. Merely a week ago I raved about the success of the TYO march in Hyde Park. It seemed to be a turning point for Tamils around the world; we felt a heightened sense of unity and truly believed that the decades of suffering that our race has endured will finally be resolved peacefully and politically. Alas the violence of the last week in Sri Lanka illustrates the nature of the world today, unstable, tempestuous and hasty. I for one feel like Britain as a whole are treading on egg shells, with the closure of Heathrow and a terrorist attack set to be ‘immanent’ in the UK our country of residence, what hope is there for sri lanka? A land thousands of miles away, out of sight and out of reach. What a poor little island, what seems like seconds after recovering from the tsunami it appears that it is on the brink of war once again.

This has been a week of remembrance for many people in the Tamil community, this week saw the annual day of remembrance, otherwise known as ‘Maveerar naal’, for those lost in the war in Sri Lanka. Currently CIA statistics estimate that as a result of the on going conflict in Sri Lanka that 60,000 civilians and fighters have died and more than one million have been displaced. Surely after 26 years of fighting the question on everybody’s mind is, ‘when is this all going to end’? Sadly I do not have an answer or even a prediction for this, but what I can offer some insight into is why it is so important for our community to remember those who have died in the war. The fighters and innocent civilians who have been killed have all been killed in the name of ‘Tamil eelam’ and pursuing the belief that one-day there will be a Tamil eelam. 
What I am attempting to explain is why the Tamil community places such a divine importance on this day itself.
Ultimately besides the political importance of the date, is one thing that makes this day resonate amongst the Tamil Diaspora around the world, that one thing is remembrance. In everyday lives where one worry precedes another, work is hectic, chores are plentiful and daily stresses cloud ones mind there is no time to think about personal worries let alone the worries of an entire community. So the allocated date of the 27th is all the more poignant for Tamil who live outside of their native homeland. It is a day where personal worries are left behind and the thoughts turn to more profound worries of an entire nation. The collective gathering and feeling of unity helps each individual grieve and remember those who have sacrificed their life for the greater good of the Tamil community.