Chinese mum teaches Bharatha Natyam

MUAR: Forty-two students aged from 8 to 16 performed Indian classical dances, the Bharatha Natyam, here for the first time under the guidance of a Chinese teacher. The dances was staged at the Sri Muthu Mariamman Temple in Jalan Mohammediah here. The teacher, Lim Siew Wan, from Malacca, began teaching the dances in March l998.

She started learning the dances after giving birth to two boys when she was 27 years old. She has about 80 students from Malacca, Muar, Alor Gajah, and Shah Alam.

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36th Chennai Book Fair 2013 opens at YMCA ground, Nandanam

Chennai, Jan 12 (TruthDive): The 36th Chennai Book Fair was inaugurated at YMCA Physical Education College Ground, Nandanam on Friday, January 11, 2013.

School education minister N R Sivapathi inaugurated the book fair in the presence of minister for information and special project implementation K T Rajendra Balaji and Chennai mayor Saidai S Duraisamy.

This year Chennai Book Fair would have 747 stalls in 180,000 sq ft area, with 450 participants with more than 10 lakh titles and one crore books.

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Interview with D. Selvaraj, winner of the Sahitya Akademi award

•         Almost four decades have rolled by since the world-renowned Czech Tamil scholar Zvelebil made his assessment of writer Daniel Selvaraj’s contribution to modern Tamil literature in his famous work A History of Indian Literature published in 1973. Selvaraj’s novel, Thol (Hide), which speaks about the travails and struggles of the Dalit tannery workers of Dindigul in the composite Madurai district from 1930 to 1958, has been chosen for the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2011. The novel has already won the Tamil Nadu government’s award for 2010.

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D. Selvaraj gets Sahitya Akademi award for his Tamil novel

Eminent Tamil novelist D. Selvaraj, one of the founders of the Progressive Writers’ Association has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Tamil Literature for the year 2012.

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A historic vow revisited

On the 130th birth anniversary of Subramanya Bharati, Panchali’s Pledge — an English language translation of the poet’s classic Panchali Sabatham — by Usha Rajagopalan was launched by the Chennai Chapter of the Association of British Scholars (ABS).

The book attempts to translate the many poems that culminate in Panchali’s pledge when she was disrobed at the Kaurava court. “I grew up listening to Bharati’s songs in films and kutcheries, and always went into a trance. I couldn’t understand the songs, and I decided I would learn enough Tamil to translate this book into English,” says the author.

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A British journalist & the Tamil poet

On November 23, 1907 on Chennai’s Marina Beach, ‘between the esplanade and the surf’, a huge crowd had gathered around a small platform. A large lamp had been set on the platform to dispel the quickly enveloping monsoon darkness. In the teeming crowd, a lone European stood out. What was a white man doing at an extremist meeting being held at the height of the Swadeshi movement? He was no official or trader or missionary or even a vagrant. He was one of the finest late Victorian war correspondents, Henry Woodd Nevinson (1856–1941) whose work had been commended by writers such as Lawrence of Arabia.

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Tamil writer’s latest triumph

Born in Thanjavur District, J.M. Sali, an international figure in the Tamil literary world, has been awarded the ‘Cultural Medallion 2012’ of the National Arts Council, Singapore. President Tony Tan Keng Yam presented the award at a brief function held at the President’s residence recently.

The Cultural Medallion was instituted in 1979, to recognise individuals who have attained artistic excellence and have contributed to Singapore’s arts and culture.  

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