“A Walk Across the Sun” is an unforgettable story of success, failure, fear and immense courage. A book that takes us into lives of strangers and the dangerous world they live in.

It is the day after Christmas, the Ghai family, made up of a father, mother, grandmother, housekeeper and two teenage girls, Ahalya and Sita spend a family evening by the waterfront home by one of Tamil Nadu’s coastal villages. Collecting seashells, the family is cocooned in their happy little world, unknowing that from this day on, their world would never be the same. A Tsunami, sweeps away the family, leaving only two survivors, Ahalya and Sita. Ahalya, quickly decides that they must find safety, and plans to make the trip to Chennai, to a hostel run by nuns. With the help of their father’s friend, they fetch a ride and make the journey, only to find them in a life they could never have imagined: in the chilling dangerous underworld of the international sex-trade and human trafficking.

On the other side of the world in Washington, Thomas Clarke, a young successful lawyer finds himself in a loss of his own. After his wife Priya leaves following the death of their daughter Mohini, Thomas is left alone and confused. Soon after, being wrongfully blamed for a mishap at his prestigious law form, he is offered a choice and finds himself at a crossroads, where he must decide whether to take time off work, or to work pro-bono for a non-profit for a year. While he desires to be a judge one day and wants to continue at his firm, his witnessing of a kidnapping of a 10-year old girl at the Park leaves him wondering if a trip across the world with a non-profit is what he needs to find himself…

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had to follow some bizarre rules:

Don’t shower, cut hair, or clip nails at night—or on Fridays.
Don’t touch anyone on the shoulder. They will not grow.
If you touch someone on the shoulder, touch them on the head immediately afterward. Then they will grow.
Don’t exchange items on the stairs.
Don’t rest your head in your hands.
Don’t rest your chin in your hands.
Don’t rest your cheek in your hands.
Don’t rest any part of your face in your hands.
Don’t ask anyone who is leaving the house where they are going.
Don’t call out to anyone when they are leaving the house.
Don’t sneeze when leaving the house.
If you sneeze, sneeze again for an even number.
Don’t return home when you leave the house until you finish what you set out to do.
If you return home because you forgot something, drink a glass of water before leaving again.
Don’t pass a safety pin from hand to hand.

The list goes on…

Thinking back now, I can’t believe I was ever able to keep track of these little rules. At the time, they were considered almost as laws at home. My mother’s favourite line before every rule was always (in Tamil, of course): “The ancestors said…” It wasn’t until recently that I stopped to think about who these ancestors, or moothaatheyar, were in the first place.

According to my family, the moothaatheyar were our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents, whose wisdom was endless and whose advice one should follow on all matters. They have opinions on how the youth should behave, what career options are best, right down to how someone should comb his or her hair in the morning. I’ve heard the ancestors be quoted so many times that I started to wonder whether they’d written a book of rules at some point. But the problem for me is, and has always been, the fact that we have never met them. What exactly gave them their authority?

Now, as much as I respect the older generation, we have to remember that they were young too once upon a time. In fact, they were probably, at our age, just as lost as we are now. To put things into perspective, take for example that scene from that old sitcom, 8 Simple Rules. The mother, Cate, talks to her husband about an old tradition that existed in her home. Her mother would always cut off the edge of the Sunday pot roast, simply because her own mother had done so all her life. When she questioned her grandmother about this, she too claimed to have cut the edge off the roast because her own mother had. When Cate finally visited her great-grandmother, she found out that she had only cut off the edge of the roast, not because it had some sort of significant meaning, but because it had not, at the time, fit in the small pan she owned.

The point? The younger generation often has a habit of copying the older generation without questioning their motives. Cate’s mother and grandmother cut the edge off the pot roast simply because they saw their mother do the same, without ever debating its benefits. And the older generation isn’t always so wise. While this simple act of cutting off the edge was helpful in Cate’s great-grandmother’s era, it does not translate into her own generation.

Just as well, as the younger generation, we live in a world that is very much different than that of our parents or our grandparents. Though there are some rules that never change (“Don’t smoke”, for example—because let’s face it, the motives behind that one are pretty obvious), there are also some really tedious habits that our parents have, those that may have helped them in their day, but will only hinder us in ours.

It’s very easy to make up a rule and have the younger generation follow it. I can very easily decide that one should always jump on one foot three times whenever someone coughs, in order to ward away bad luck. I can pass this “rule” onto my children, and they can pass it onto theirs. But the fact remains that I made up the rule, and that it was entirely baseless. Sure, it doesn’t hurt to follow small rules such as, “Don’t pass a safety pin from hand to hand”. But you may enlighten yourself if you stop and ask “Why?” Perhaps your parents have a legitimate reason deep-rooted in culture.

Who knows, you might learn something worthwhile.

Television reference for the win:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6MnK9zl530

Like what you read? Read more by Keerthana:
Remembering Our Literature
Society and Expectations: Negotiating Between Boundaries
Opinion Piece: To My Tamil Friends

Tamil Heritage Month began in 2010 and seeks to celebrate Tamil heritage, culture, and history. Throughout this month, we will be providing you with educational material such as this that seeks to help us understand our culture, roots and heritage.

ROOT is the Dravidian civilization that is still alive since pre Christian era.

LANGUAGE is Tamil, the mother of all modern Dravidian languages, vibrant, serving to this day as the medium of communication by which this heritage draws its sustenance to exist.

SEMINAL EVENT is the creation of the literary masterpiece and grammar called Tolkappium circa 1500 BC, that function as a blueprint for the Tamil way of life and grammar.

CULTURE is The Tamil concept of love and life known as Aham and Puram.

BOOK is Tirukkural, an incomparable ethical masterpiece written in first century BC for mankind.

RELIGION is experiencing Iraivan, otherwise known as the inner light as defined by Tirukkural, yet allowing the freedom and flexibility to conceptualize the Godhead to one’s ability in specific terms to experience and comprehend that inner reality.

MUSIC is the Tamil classical music as codified in the immortal epic Silappathikaram during second century AD.

DANCE is Nattiyam or koothu as documented by the epic Silappathikaram.

ART is symbolized by the statue Siva Nataraja, the best metaphor for the God principle as per Albert Einstein.

CREED is Yathum oorae yavarum kelir, meaning “every place is my place and everyone is my friend” proclaimed by a Tamil poet 2000 years ago.

TAMIL DIASPORA starts its story in the now extinct and submerged Lemuria continent south of Sri Lanka/Tamileelam several millennia before Christ. After the sea swept the land of Lemuris the Tamils moved north to Kapadapuram. During this period of Idai sangam or the second academy, circa 1500 BC, only one book, Tolkappium reached as safely. Sea erosions did not leave Kapadapuram either and Tamils again moved still northward to Madurai, the seat of the third academy or kadai sangam around 100 BC. Most of the currently available classical Tamil literature is of this period, breathtaking for its elegance and sophistication.

PEOPLE: Now more than 70 million Tamils live in 75 countries.

OBLIGATION: Willingness to adopt or inherit the value systems of Tamil heritage; discover Tamil heritage. It will lead you to excellence and respect will come to you. Excellence in any endeavour always brings attention to the uniqueness of that individual and elevates the heritage that induced it. Do not let the world label you as a Tamil after you excel. Be Tamil first so that it can induce and help you to excel. Let your actions speak and be anchored in the bedrock of Tamil heritage.

Source:

International Tamil Language Foundation (2000). Tirukkural; The handbook of Tamil culture and heritage; Guide to Tamils Future. Illinois, National Publishing Co.

Watch and enjoy the video!

I like to think of songs to create dance videos that will get me many views internationally. To date, I have over 1 million collective views on all my uploaded YouTube videos because of it. Immediately after the official release of “Why This Kolaveri Di,” I had thought the same only because I noticed its view count increasing at a rapid rate every time I went back to check. I reached out to a close friend who I dance with, Senduran Bhakthakumaran (2wist), and he was all in for the idea. We’ve been in close contact with Anujan Meshach Asokan (X-cluzive) in wanting to make a dance video and so he came up to Waterloo and we decided that “Why This Kolaveri Di” would be the song to which we dance to. He’s the one who came up with the idea of dancing to dubstep version though our initial plan was to dance to the original version. We were hoping our moves would go viral as well. To date, it has been shared on Facebook over 6,000 times and has earned over 27,000 views worldwide (averaging over 1,000 views/day). We find it astonishing just as much as everyone else is.

Calling all young musical artists!!!

Are you a music lover? Do you live and breathe music? Are you creative? Do you make your own music? Are you wondering how to bring your music to the limelight? Arts and Culture Council of Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance has come up with an online music competition. This is your chance to shine and expose your talent! We will post your music on our YouTube channel for others to listen to, and each month audiences will vote on their favourite music!

Deadline to Enroll:December 20, 2011

$500 worth of gift certificates for the winners!

*********************************************

Terms of Participation:

1.) ISAI WAR will begin the season with 6 contestants and continue for 5 consecutive months. The contestants must sign up through e-mail at isaiwar@ctya.org.  The contestants must have unique names.  The contestants may be a team or an individual.

2.) The voting will take place from the midnight on the 1^st until 2300 hr on the 20^th of each month. Contestants will have the opportunity to encourage their fans to vote for their music. There will be no voting after the 20^th. So sit back and enjoy the music, or get up and dance!

3.) FANS MUST “LIKE” THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE IN ORDER TO CAST THEIR VOTE.  “DISLIKES” on YouTube will not be counted towards the votes.  “LIKE” on Facebook page or anywhere else will not count either.

4.) At the end of the voting period, the contestant with the lowest votes will be eliminated from the ISAI WAR.  Each month there will be one less contestant competing.  The finals will take place between two contestants on the 5^th month.  After the finals, the contestant with the most votes will be the champion of the season.

5.) At the end the voting period, if the difference in votes between the 2 contestants with the least votes appears to be less than 10 “LIKES”, ISAI WAR admin will announce tie breakers.

6.) When preparing the music in video format for YouTube, the title of the song, name of the group AND the names of the individuals who worked on the song must be included!

7.) Administration reserves the right to request to remove any inappropriate content according to the YouTube Terms of Service.  http://www.youtube.com/t/terms

8.) No profanity or inappropriate comments to be used when commenting on the videos.  If used, it will be removed by the admin and the user may be blocked from future participation. Respecting others is key.

9.) Please keep in mind that a variety of age groups that will be listening to your music. So please present your music all ages appropriate.

10.) All contents must be original to the contestant.  Plagiarized contents will be removed from the contest.

11.) By agreeing to participate in ISAI WAR, the contestant give permission to Canadian Tamil Youth Alliance (CTYA) and its affiliates to broadcast their music on various media outlets.

12.) All participants must become members of CTYA.

13.) HOW TO SUBMIT MUSIC:

• Music must be submitted to the Arts and Culture Council 7 days prior to the 1^st of every month.
• Music must be submitted in YouTube supported formats. Please see the link for more info:
  http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744
• You may attach the video or a link to download the video on an e-mail and send it to isaiwar@ctya.org.
• Our Admin will add the music to our YouTube channel and publish the link on ISAI WAR’s Facebook page.
• Only music is important to the ISAI WAR.  You don’t need to have moving images for the videos.  You may use appropriate pictures or texts.

14.) THEMES:

• Month 1 – An introduction or a theme of your choice
• Month 2 – Passion
• Month 3 – Family and/or Friendship
• Month 4 – Freedom

15.) LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST, Share your music, have fun, be creative, and blow the minds of the music lovers out there!!!!Good Luck!

How many of us knew about Bodhidharma before watching the movie? Probably very few if any. How many of us know who he is after watching the movie? All of us.

Bodhidharma, also known as Daruma, or Damu, has been credited with the founding of Martial Arts (China) and Zen (Japan). According to the movie, he was a Tamil Prince, who traveled from South-India to the east-Pacific region to prevent a disease from spreading to India. During his stay at the Shaolin Temple in China, he taught the warrior monks physical conditioning exercises which later evolved as kung-fu and martial arts in China, and as Karate in Japan (McFarland, 1987).

Bodhidharma is still a powerful symbol in China and Japan today. Many folllowers continue to worship him, and hold rituals after him. Every January 18, a Daruma Bonfire is held in Japan, where papier mache dolls off Bodhidharma are burned in a pyre (McFarland, 1987).  Each year, thousands of people buy a Bodhidharma doll at the beginning of a year, with a goal/wish, and paint one eye on the doll. They keep the doll with them throughout the year, and when the wish comes true, they paint the other eye. At the end of the year on January 18, they return back to the temple, thank Daruma, burn the dolls, and purchase a new one for the upcoming year. The dolls are said to represent persistence, since no matter how many times you knock it over, it returns back to its original pose, and the dolls eyes are in the ‘zazen position’ a meditation that is suppose to clear the mind and increase concentration (McFarlane, 1987).

For those of you who watched the movie, you know this wasn’t just any movie. It was a movie that brought the community together through our history and identity.  It evoked passion, and unity. This movie reminded us of the richness of our Tamil history, and the sophistication of our ancestors.

Media is a powerful tool, more powerful than any other tool in the world. It’s the only tool that truly reaches thousands of people at once, and makes people aware of things they never knew before. The power of media is unparalleled to any other medium.  7am Arivu taught us a great deal, to never forget our history, and to treat our ancestors knowledge as sacred, valuable and scientific.

Without the making of this movie, many us may never have known of Bodhidharma, going to show that media has the power to educate the masses in a medium they can quickly understand and grasp. While this movie made us aware of one part of our history, there are so much more that is still buried away. Filmmakers, journalists, artists and photographers have an important role in our community, a role that we must realize and encourage. They have the power to document, to educate and to empower our cultural practices, our traditions and histories. They have the power to raise awareness.

If you take a look at the many historical books that talk about Bodhidharma, there’s one thing that’s very difficult to ignore. If you look at the earlier reproductions, paintings and drawings of Bodhidharma, his facial features correspond with those facial features with South-Asians. However, as time progressed, Bodhidharma has been painted and drawn with Asian facial features, making him resemble a Chinese/Japanese ethnic background. In today’s popular imagination, his facial features have changed significantly from what he may really have looked like as a Thamizhan. If we don’t write and record our history, someone else will rewrite for us, and it won’t always be to reflect the truth.

Knowledge and information has been safeguarded within tight-communities in our community, making accessibility a problem. While some may think this safeguards information, the truth is information that is so tightly controlled, will eventually be lost with the holders of that information. Many companies have realized this today and have implemented knowledge sharing policies in their organizational structure so so that as employees leave, the knowledge is still retained by the company. We as a community need to work together to share our knowledge, our information, our histories, our traditions and our wisdom. Information and knowledge is wealth, and we need to cultivate and share our personal information and knowledge and make it part of our community’s collective knowledge and information.

7am Arivu may have taught us something important, but if we do nothing with it, then it would have been a waste.

Source:

McFarlane, N. (1987). “The Founder of Zen in Japanese Art and Popular Culture.” NY: Kodansha International Ltd.

Any athlete knows the effects of positive thinking and focus.  It pushes them to achieve great short and long term goals.  Staying positive and pushing out the distractions and obstacles to attaining your goals is part of confidence building.

Terry Orlick is a world renowned leader in the applied field of sport psychology, mental training and excellence.  In his book, ‘Pursuit of Excellence,’ he mentions positive focus reminders to help you in your ongoing pursuit of personal excellence.  Consider these focus positive reminders:

I am in control of my thinking, my focus, my life.

I am a good, valued person in my own right.

I control my focus and therein direct the whole pattern of my performance, health, and life.

I am fully capable of achieving the goals that I set for myself.  They are within my control.

I control the step in front of me by focusing fully on that step.

I am fully capable of focusing through adversity and staying on a positive path.

I learn from setbacks and turn them into positive opportunities for personal growth.

I embrace lessons from my experience and act on those lessons.

My powerful mind and body are one.  I free them to excel.

Every day in some way I am better, wiser, more adaptable, more focused, more confident, and more in control.

I choose to live life fully.

I choose to excel.

What I decide, I become.

(Orlick, 2008, p. 158)

Be creative, stick this as a note in your bedroom wall, in your desktop wall paper or somewhere you can see it daily.  These suggestions are not just intended for athletes but anyone who has positive goals in life.  If you want to learn more on this, read Pursuit of Excellence by Terry Orlick, it’s a great book and bound to give you the mental edge in achieving your goals.

Orlick, T. (2008). In Pursuit of Excellence: How to win in sport and life through mental training (4th ed.). Windsor: Human Kinetics

Every day is filled with small steps.
Every step is a learning hurdle.
Every hurdle can be overcome.
Every hurdle that is overcome makes you a stronger person.

As hard as the journey may be,
Never regret climbing those small steps.
Never regret crossing the hurdles.
In the end, that is what makes you a better person overall.

Technology is amazing! In reality, it allows us to take pleasure with a high level of solace in our day-to-day activities, enhancing the circumstances of our working, functioning lives. But don’t you think we’re pushing it? Don’t you feel that our dependence on technology has gone a little bit too far?

Ever come across a cashier who wasn’t aware that there was a sale on a specific item? You tell her the coat is priced at $50 but is 20% off and she can’t do the math because she doesn’t have a calculator! I’m no mathematician but instances like these astonish me! This may just be a minor problem we encounter in our daily lives but it seems to me that this is just representative of a larger issue.  We’re surrounded by technology; it’s at our fingertips and definitely makes several things a lot simpler, but that doesn’t necessarily suggest that we should depend on it to the point where we can’t think and do things for ourselves. People would lose their minds at even the thought of another blackout! Thu thu thu!

Keep in mind, it isn’t simply the way we utilize technology, but the way in which individuals tend to lose themselves over it and develop this kind of fixation. For example, it seems we can no longer live without our mobile phones. We have it by our sides when we’re eating, when we’re driving, while in class, texting while in the middle of a conversation with actual real human beings in front of us!

Don’t get me wrong, technology has more ups than it has downs. We can heat up food in minutes, people can be sent to the moon, diseases have been cured and we no longer have to jot down directions due to GPS systems. What I’m saying is we need to find a balance. When I woke up this morning and tuned in to the news, one of the “breaking news” was a report on the backlog of messages causing problems for BlackBerry users. THIS is breaking news? More important issues like the ‘Eurozone Crisis’ may be of more relevance to news, but no, BlackBerry’s backlog is a headliner.

My point is that we should try to find a balance, as with everything in life. Instead of always listening to your iPod or iTouch, it’s okay to buy a CD. Instead of reading novels by swooping your finger across your PlayBook, it’s okay to go to libraries. Instead of texting away or FaceTiming a friend who lives a block away, it’s okay to get out and chat with them over coffee. If we’re capable of looking forward to the future without forgetting our past, we’ll have nothing to worry about.

But, we fail to remember that the greatest leaders and revolutionists  in history have also been given the same amount of time as we have; they day was still 24 hours long, and the week was still 7 days. Time did not expand to allow for them to have more time to create positive change in the world, they instead utilized the time they had effectively.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an instrumental figure in the civil rights movement where he worked endlessly towards securing rights for coloured people. He dedicated his time to work towards ending racial segregation and racial discrimination.

Mother Teresa founded the Charity of Missionaries and dedicated her life to care for the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying. All the time she was given, she dedicated it towards humanitarian work.

Albert Einstein changed the face of science; deriving many theories that have helped us understand how the world functions today, he spent a lot of time working towards the advancement of modern science.

Alexander the Great lived 32 years, but he built the largest empire in the world at the time.

Next time you say you don’t have time to do something you feel like you should be doing, ask yourself if time is the real issue. Because, if you truly wanted to do something, you would MAKE time.

” Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn‘t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain

“The time is always right to do what is right.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one. – Mother Teresa