College students display skills in Tamil oratory

Unique Tamil oratorical contest for college students in Tamil Nadu, assessing language proficiency and oratorical skills with cash awards.

A novel contest is under way in Tamil Nadu for college students aged 18-25. Sol Thamizha Sol assesses the proficiency of the participants in Tamil and their oratorical skill. The winners receive cash award. Participants are given a set of six topics a day before the contest. They will speak for four minutes each. “This is a unique competition. Each contestant is given a number and even the judges know only the contestant’s number. When our number is called, we pick a topic from the lot and enter a room where there are two judges. I had to speak on the beauty of Tamil,” says S. Pandi Ganesh, who won the first prize at the first zonal competition held at SRMIST on January 26.

The competition was organised by Tamizh Perayam, which was established in 2010 by SRMIST founder T.R. Paarivendhar. Over 500 participants from Chennai, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, and Tiruvallur took part in the first of the nine-round contest. 

Pandi, a third-year history student of Madras Christian College, says his topic was Enathu inimmai thamizh mozhi (My sweet Tamil language). He started out by saying that even Gods loved Tamil. And he added that even Lord Shiva had a passion for the language and cited Thevaram  and Periya Puranam.

Though it was not a condition, participants are expected to speak in Tamil and not use the other languages. In the first round, 36 students were selected. In the next round, the candidates were given topics on the spot and four minutes to prepare.

Pandi spoke on the need for women’s education. A total of 16 candidates were shortlisted after the round. The third round involved a debate on a topic. Candidates were paired and each team was given a topic to debate. “The topic we were given was ‘Does the current education system prepare students?’ I said it did not prepare the students,” he says.

The total prize money is ₹40 lakh. Pandi says the contest is an inspiration for people to read a lot. “At the awards ceremony, the judges indicated that reading would help a person to speak well,” Pandi says, adding, “Now, I will have to read more books to ace the State-level competition.”

K. Vaishali, who won the sixth prize, is a third year student at Dr. Ambedkar Law College. In the debate round, she had to argue in favour of the importance of cinema in life. She said films gave people an opportunity to argue for the rights of women. “The films give us information about the laws of the land,” she argued. “Similarly, people have learned about our epics Ramayanam and Mahabharatham by watching them in film and not reading them,” she contended.