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From: Balachandran Ramakrishnan%TECHNIP-MALAYSIA@...
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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:32:07 +0800
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Subject: [agathiyar] Tamil publishing and reading (Was: Akilan,Kalki,and JeyaKanthan -filmisation)
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Singai Palani wrote
>>It is indeed a sad day when we have to show these movies to attract
>>potential library users to borrow Tamil books which are harldy borrowed.
>>One of the reasons why young people do not borrow much tamil books is
>>that the tamil books are unattarctive and not contemporary in nature-well
>>at least that's what some of them say.
These observations are true. Even in the Public Library in Kualalumpur
there are many good tamil books but people seldom borrow them. They look
new even after beeing on the shelf for five or more years. Why Tamil books
do not gain popularity amoung younger diaspora Tamils? First of all the
books are not attractive and printed on paper backs with minimum amount of
illustrations. One can seldom see Tamil books on glossy paper with
colourfull
photos. Secondly about 50% or more of Tamil books are either novels or
short
story collections and about 30% are of literary nature and only very few
books focous on General knowledge and technology. Thirdly new releases are
not
promoted or advertised like other language books. Even Tamil magazines are
not printed in glossy papers (except cini magazines) and carry little
informative articles (except for countable few). With all these drawbacks
if one has to read Tamil books he should either love Tamil or he might have
been persuaded to read.
Even in Tamilnadu the situation is similar, only that the percentage may be
lesser. We need a sort of tamil renaissance to improve usage of Tamil and
Tamil reading. We had to have inspiring articles in the language, we need
books on technology and science, we need books on philosophy. To persuade
the publishers and the authors to publish such books we need to increase
the readers base. It may be a catch20 situation. Any views from the
netters,
for or against?
Anban
Balachandran
