Coimbatore: The quality of Tamil teaching in schools and colleges has been declining over the years, said Tamil scholar Silamboli Chellappan on Saturday. He was speaking at the fifth annual function of Ulaga Tamil Panpaattu Maiyyam at Dr NGP Arts and Science College in the city.
Chellappan, who was conferred with the Tamil Thatha U Ve Sa award for his scholarly work in the language, narrated an incident to explain this. "About 10 years ago, when i was interviewing candidates for the post of a Tamil teacher, a candidate did not know who wrote Kambaramayanam," said the nonagenarian.
The annual conference also saw Tamil writer Vannanilavan being conferred with Periyasami Thooran award for creative writers and professor K Mani with Dr Nalla Palaniswami award for Tamil scholars from other disciplines.
Introducing the awardees, professor and writer Sirpi Balasubramaniam said the award was earlier conferred to writers and scholars such as Ki Rajanarayanan and Tho Paramasivam.
Speaking about writer Vannanilavan, Balasubramaniam said he had written extraordinary works about ordinary people. "Vannanilavan was one of the first writers to document fishermen and their travails in their own language," he said. The writer, who also has a long experience in journalism, has written seven short story collections, six novels and two poetry collections. "He should be given the Sahitya Akademi award," Balasubramaniam added.
Addressing the gathering, Justice R Mahadevan of the Madras high court said great Tamil literature was at par with the best international writings and said
Tamil writers should be recognised in their lifetime.
