The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Tiruchi News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 19, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Tiruchi

Reporter's Diary

The participants at a function to distribute prizes to winners of the Joint Hindi Competitions at Tiruchi on Thursday were taken by surprise when the VIPs invited for the function recited bhajans and poems in different languages. It was the Reader and Head of the Department of Hindi, St. Joseph's College, K. S. Prantharthi Haran, who set the ball rolling by reciting the Tamil film song "Inthiya Naadu yen veedu, Inthian yenbathu yen peru, yella makkalum yen uravu" composed by late Kannadasan, to stress the importance of national integration and the need for learning all languages.

The Station Director of the All India Radio, K. Vageesh, presented a bhajan composed by noted royal composer of the Trivancore Province Swathi Tirunal.

Underlining the importance of Hindi language, Dr. Vageesh said Swathi Tirunal, who had composed poems in many Indian languages, had composed a lot of Hindi bhajans. He recited the whole bhajan "Vishweshwara darshana kara, chelamana tum Kashi" (to have the darshan of Lord Vishweshwara, oh mind go to Kashi), much to the joy of the other VIPs and the participants. He said the composer, who had mastered many Indian languages, had explained the literary and cultural richness of the Hindi language in this bhajan. Taking a cue from Dr. Vageesh, the Divisional Railway Manager, D. K. Saraf while concluding his speech, recited the famous Urdu poem "Sare Jahan se Accha, Hindustan Hamara" composed by Allama Iqbal and made the participants repeat the lines.

* * *

It was a red letter day for the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Manaparai, when one of its students was selected to receive the prestigious `Rajya Puraskar' award from the Tamil Nadu Governor, P. S. Ramamohan Rao, on behalf of the award winning students of the entire Tiruchi district. A total of 27 Scouts (boys) and Guides (girls) from various schools in the district were selected for the Rajya Puraskar award for the academic year 2003-04, based on their performance and achievements.

The Chief Educational Officer, V. C. Rameswara Murugan, selected M. Ganeswari, a guide of the Government Girls Higher Secondary School, Manaparai, for receiving the award on behalf of all those selected from Tiruchi district. This honour has proved a boon not only to the Guides but to all students of the school, observed the headmaster, S. Palanichamy.

* * *

It was a rare opportunity for a cross-section of film-lovers on Sunday to watch films that are rarely screened in theatres. The `Short Films Festival', organised by Nimai Gosh, was conspicuous with its screening of several short films directed by film-makers from Tamil Nadu.

The interaction session held at regular breaks during the festival was marked by the presence of just a few Visual Communications students from the colleges in Tiruchi. Even more pronounced was the absence of women students, especially with the number of women's colleges in the city, offering courses in Visual Communication, being quite high. The result was the absence of a feminist perspective while reviewing the films that were screened, especially a couple of the lot that had feminist themes.

Surprisingly enough, a few speakers in the session noted such programmes being rare in the city, the occasion provided a golden opportunity for students opting for communication courses to enrich their knowledge about the different forms of visual media.

(Syed Muthahar and Prathibha Parameswaran in Tiruchi.)

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