Tamil Society: Culture Representatives

My passion for cultural rep stems from my wish to welcome a variety of Tamil cultures from: Sri Lanka, India, Singapore or other countries in which it's an official language. I would love to be able to bring everyone together in an inclusive environment to learn about the diversity in Tamil cultures and how it varies between countries or even villages, as being Tamil forms a huge part of our identity and it is important to understand where it comes from. I am standing mainly because as someone who loves to embrace in my Tamil culture, I'm worried for the future generations where the culture may become diluted and lost within the Western world. For most of us, our parents have gone through many struggles during the Civil War in Sri Lanka to fight for our Tamil rights and I believe it's now our responsibility to keep our culture going forward for our parents and to value the lives of those lost during the identity war. Also, if I have the chance to become culture rep I would explore the different aspects of Tamil culture such as: language, arts, music, traditions, cooking and even the lifestyle of living. It would be nice to be able to remotely connect with Tamil villages and hear about the evolution of our culture and how it shapes how we live today. We can even try some of them out e.g. traditional cooking competitions. Overall, I'm good at communicating with others and making sure everyone feels included which I think are two important qualities of being a cultural rep. 

Culture can be defined as many things: language, food, dance, music, sport, films traditions, occasions and many other things. I want to share my passion for tamil culture with others and maybe make others discover new aspects of tamil culture. I am a huge tamil music fan - Anirudh, A. R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraja - and have watched most tamil movies that released after the 2000s and many form before as well. I read, write and speak fluent tamil and I learnt bharatnatyam for many years although kuthu dance will always hold a special place in my heart! 

I want to start offering tamil classes for those who are interested in improving their grasp of the language and just in general, help the society showcase our culture as best as it can. Working with other committee members, it would be really fun to organise many great events for pongal, new year, film nights, and even another great quiz night!

I believe I would be really suited to this role and appreciate the time taken to read this long reasoning

Nandri, Vanakkam,

Varsha