Celebrating Tamil culture

Auroville recently hosted a two-day festival to celebrate Tamil heritage and culture – a first of this scale and vision. The brainchild of Balu from Mohanam Cultural Centre, and Meenakshi from Auroville’s Tamil Heritage Centre and Ilaignarkal School, the festival brought together artisans, performers, farmers, VIPs and visitors for festivities on Auroville land.

Fifty stalls displayed the contemporary and traditional crafts of local artisans and nomadic tribes, including metal, wood and stone crafts. Performances included storytelling, street theatre by local artists, a puppet show and traditional folk dance. Children participated in drawing games, and girls played “checks” (a game similar to hopscotch). Young women took part in a kolam drawing competition, tracing their elaborate designs in white powder on the red earth. The traditional games of breaking pots and lifting heavy stones drew large crowds. “In the old days, if a man could lift the stone, the village would offer a girl in marriage,” says Meenakshi. “One person at the festival said, ‘Now I’m ready for marriage!’ And lifted up the stone!”

Visitors were invited to eat and drink local specialties, such as a delicious fermented ragi porridge drink, and local woman took part in a traditional food competition. Many locally grown millets were on display, including ragi, kombu and samai. Meenakshi recounts how one farmer brought his collection of 100 varieties of paddy seed, all displayed with their traditional names. “We could see immediately that we have lost this knowledge”, says Meenakshi, referring to the shift in local dietary habits towards the consumption of mostly polished rice. “The top officials who attended were flabbergasted by the display of the traditional varieties,” says Meenakshi. “They said, ‘we should have one festival just for this!’”

Traditional sports and martial arts were played, such as kabaddi (in collaboration with the Auroville Kabaddi team), kho-kho, sillattam, kotipul and thayam. A Siddha medicine doctor took visitors’ pulses and prescribed traditional remedies. “Even the attending MLAs went to the doctor for a checkup,” laughs Meenakshi. A selection of heritage books was on display, reflecting the passions of Meenakshi, who is a celebrated poet in the Tamil language and an expert on Tamil culture.

Balu appeared slightly stunned by their achievement of bringing together so many different bodies in the planning phase. “The festival brought together three village panchayats, the Auroville Foundation, the Government of Pondicherry, Aurovilians and local entrepreneurs,” he says.

He and Meenakshi were motivated to organize the festival because of their positive experience of staging a smaller event during the Pongal festival in January, when they served the traditional pongal dish outside Solar Kitchen to 1000 people. Their Pongal event promoted 34 local vegetables that are not generally used in Auroville, and included a display stand with the vegetables and information about local crops. “Many people kept coming back to taste, three or four times,” says Balu. “The young generation was very impressed – it was educational. Every time we do something with akka [sister, referring to Meenakshi], it’s enjoyable, and we learn from her. She’s the one holding lots of wisdom about Tamil culture here.” Meenakshi chimes in, “Many people wanted to buy the vegetables, but I had to say, ‘It’s a display!’”.

After the success of their Pongal festival, Balu and Meenakshi became aware that the Pondicherry Government was providing grants for cultural festivals in rural areas. They submitted and received approval for a concept that would bring together the artists of the region in a celebration of traditional heritage in a two-day festival on Auroville land in the Isaiambalam area.

Meenakshi was keen to include a nomadic tribe that is trying to settle on land outside Auroville, to give them a chance to express their own culture. “Traditionally, they are professional beggars,” she says. “They used to go from door-to-door with instruments and a well decorated bull and say nice words, such as ‘This house will flourish’, ‘Good news will come’, ‘More crops will come’, ‘You will be blessed by the Lord’. It’s called nala. The women make gift bags with waste material from tailors’ shops. They also do quilling [decorative paper work].” The festival included a stall displaying the tribe’s beautiful and finely detailed paper decorations, and Meenakshi’s Tamil Heritage Centre continues to work with the tribe and supports the children’s education.

Balu and Meenakshi say that their promotion of Tamil heritage, arts and crafts is a response to the rapid loss of knowledge about local traditions in recent decades. Meenakshi points out that most of the traditional arts and crafts are associated with agrarian culture, and as people swap agrarian life for urban jobs or sell their land, they become distanced from traditional craft practices. “For example, mat weaving needs grass and water, and if there’s no water, there’s no weaving,” she says. “For pottery, you need a particular soil. Pottery has lost its charm and use, as people are now using materials such as aluminium, stainless steel and plastic. Pottery still has great importance for religious ceremonies, so now people only use it for Pongal and ceremonies. Our region was also known at one time for Koothu, our special Tamil theatre, which uses stories from the Mahabarata and Ramayana. Now people like to go to movies and watch TV instead.”

While the festival received good attendance from dignitaries and coverage in the local media, Meenakshi expresses some disappointment that more Aurovilians did not participate. She acknowledges the marathon took place on the same weekend, but they planned a two-day festival in order to give people plenty of opportunity to visit. “The mainstream of Auroville is not participating fully,” she says. “They think, ‘It’s Tamil.’ But Tamil culture has a universality. I’m sure Mother and Sri Aurobindo chose the Tamil land as the place to come down and put their siddhi because we are open to receive that force. It’s there in the soil, the water, the people, the various layers. We have a lot to share regarding the universality that is already existing in Tamil heritage, culture, literature, history. The motto of our Tamil Heritage Centre in Auroville is ‘All our habitat, all our kith and kin, we are one.’ So the universal love is there in the Tamil metta. We want to express this to everyone through these functions and festivals.”