COIMBATORE: A common thread among tribal communities is their culture of passing on history orally. While many such stories perish as communities go extinct, there still is a treasure trove of these stories locked in the memories of surviving members.
In an effort to uncover such stories and immortalise them, volunteers from Coimbatore and the US are on a mission to document tribal dialects in South India. They record folk tales in the voice of tribal children and broadcast them on American Tamil Radio. This initiative has so far produced 68 child storytellers across Tamil Nadu.
“Though most tribal languages are not written, they have great histories. The programme has made them proud of their language. We also hope it helps them improve their reading and listening,” said Odiyen Lakshmanan, a writer and collector of Irular songs. He has undertaken ‘Reading and Language Retrieval Movement’ for Irular tribal children for the last few years.
The programme was started a year ago to create a platform for tribal children. As many as 68 children from 36 groups of tribal sections – Solakar, Malayali, Pazhiyar, Alu Kurumba, Kani, Irula – across Tamil Nadu, and a few from neighbouring States took part in the programme, which has been airing for more than one year.
Lakshmanan said initially children read stories in the languages they have learned and retold them in their native language. Soon, they started writing the stories down in their native slang with Tamil script. To top it, they also learnt stories from their parents, grandparents and other tribal elders, while some even started writing their own stories.
“Their grandparents play a major role in passing folk tales to the next generation. They recount real incidents in the form of folk tales. The children write them down. The American Tamil Radio, an internet radio available on a mobile application on which the child storytellers go on air, is based in California Bay Area. It has given a platform for the children to narrate folk tales for listeners from around the world,” Lakshmanan added.
The radio has dedicated listeners among the Tamil diaspora in the US, Canada, Malaysia, and Singapore. “The storytelling programme is aired every Wednesday at 2 pm IST. It will be broadcast again at 6 pm on Fridays for listeners in the US. As the number of participants and listeners has increased, the programme has become an inevitable event in this radio,” said Nagappan Suryanarayanan, a volunteer and former news editor of American Tamil Radio. He lives in Lowa city in the US.
“Lakshmanan and his team record the stories and send the audio from India. Mrs Viji Azhagar from Kentucky, a member of our team, gives an introduction to each story. Others manage tasks such as making flyers, mixing the soundtrack, and broadcasting. It will take a week to complete all the works for one story,” Nagappan said.
He said the programme, apart from documenting tribal languages in the narration of children, encouraged storytelling, listening and reading among children. “The director of American Tamil Radio and the head of the programme Arumugam Pechi Muthu is supporting us to continue the programme without any hurdles. Recently, we completed our 68th-week programme,” Suryanarayanan added.
Mementoes, certificates to encourage participants
The show is popular in North America, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore. Many children in the United States are eager to hear these stories every week. Thinnai Ara Variyam, an NGO, distributes mementoes and certificates to the participants to encourage them