SLI
Lecture: TAMIL CULTURE: A CURTAIN RAISER
Date: 18th
October 2016, Tuesday
Time: 10
a.m. to 12 noon
Summary: The Tamils contributed significantly
to the fabric of Indian culture with a continuity of over 2000 years. The major
fields fall under all the three major areas of creative expressions,
literature, fine arts and performing arts, mostly form a religio-spiritual
angle typical to the Indian sub-continent. Such complex web would not be
easily understood by those who have not been brought up in this tradition or
even those who have been brought up without the awareness of the arts, music or
literature. An attempt during this occasion would be made to demystify the
culture of the Tamils by profiling the emergence of their literature, arts and
music during this lecture.
Speaker: Prof.
Swaminathan. S. Swaminathan was born in Pudukkottai, Tamilnadu in 1940.
After qualifying as a Mechanical Engineer, he worked as a professor in Indian
Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi for more than 30 years.
Realizing
that Indian youth have an inadequate understanding of their local heritage,
Swaminathan decided to acquaint the students of IIT-Delhi with various aspects
of Indian culture. The topics he begun to research and explore were Indian
music, Sanskrit, ancient Tamil literature, Tamil prosody, development of
scripts, Gandhian philosophy, etc. He has authored books on Mahabalipuram
monuments and Ajanta caves.
As an
activist, he has participated in and initiated a number of socially relevant
projects. Among other projects, he co-founded Tamil Heritage Group in
Chennai which has for over 5 years now been organizing significant talks and
events to promote Tamil heritage. He was also instrumental in setting up a
Centre for Arts and Culture, called Sudharsanam, in Pudukkottai, his
native place.
