manlion
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
- Messages
- 7,568
- Reaction score
- -3
Anyone who wishes to join as a student in my department should learn one or more Dravidian languages, and Tamil is a must". This was the precondition set by professor Janert, head of the department of Indology and Tamil studies at Cologne University, Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. Ulrike Niklas, a young German student, enthusiastically accepted the challenge and graduated in Indology and Tamil Studies from the department. At that time Ulrike didn't know that her small attempt would forge a strong cultural, social and literary " bridge between Germany and Tamil Nadu in Cologne.
Today Ulrike, 63, heads the Institute of South Asian and South East Asian studies (with emphasis on Tamil and Indonesian languages) at Cologne University — the sole full-fledged Tamil department in the European Union. Having produced hundreds of European Tamil graduates in the past 20 years, the department has a library that boasts of a collection of more than 40,000 Tamil books - the largest outside Tamil Nadu. The department recently hosted an international conference on Periyar and self-respect movement in Tamil Nadu, drawing delegates from all over the world.
Ulrike who has played an instrumental role in the development of Tamil studies in Germany, says her quest for Tamil literature grew manifold after she graduated from Cologne.
A visit to Thanjavur in 1981 inspired her to enroll in a four-week course on introduction to Tamil culture at the newly-inaugurated Tamil University. She came back to pursue an 18-month programme on an Indo-German joint scholarship.
Thereafter, there was no looking back for the young lady. Deeply absorbed in Tamil classics like Tolkappiyam and Sangam literature, Ulrike on weekends, would cycle to villages around Thanjavur to meet people and learn more about Tamil culture. To pick up the spoken language, she would watch movies of Sivaji Ganesan.
Ulrike did her PhD on the Tamil classic 'Muttollayiram' at Cologne University. After two years of study at Madurai Kamaraj University she passed the habilitation in Germany — with a collection of research works she had undertaken on Tamil literary theory.
She taught Tamil at the National University of Singapore for seven years before being called to Cologne in 2006 to head its department of Indology and Tamil studies. The department was later renamed as the Institute of South-Asian and South-East-Asian Studies in 2012.
It was Ulrike who introduced the study of the Dravidian movement and Periyar's teachings in the department's curriculum. She believes Periyar's ideologies are universal and have relevance everywhere. Over the past decade, she has been bringing her students to Puducherry every year to expose them to Tamil language and culture.
"It was a privilege when in 2010, then chief minister M Karunanidhi's office called me to be a special invitee delegate at the Chemmozhi conference held at Coimbatore," she says.The library at her department has more than 40,000 Tamil books, many being first editions. "From 1960s to 1980s, entire libraries of late Tamil pandits were purchased for our institute. The library was constantly enhanced with new collections until 2009. We now invest more in IT, audio and camera gadgets with which we create materials for a modern language and culture teaching course," she says. Ulrike, however, rues that space constraint doesn't allow them to exhibit the books in a systemic manner.
Her main worry now is to identify a worthy successor, to carry on the tradition after her. What irks her more is the university's plan to shut down the cash-starved institute if there isn't enough support from outside. If that happens, it would be a big blow not only to Ulrike but to the entire Tamil speaking world.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...n-heartland/articleshow/59870449.cms?from=mdr
