Windsor Tamil Community Historical Dynamics

From historical and prehistoric times, the human race had moved through territories, established communities, and created townships, art, cultural rituals, and religion.  The varying nature of the land and climate;  the flora and fauna there shaped the cultural practices of the communities to see a mosaic of various art forms, culture, Literature, and language.

In that continuous travel of humankind Tamils, who have a rich culture and possess the oldest language of all the currently living languages had traveled to alien lands to seek green pastures from time immemorial. In that journey, Tamils had migrated to Canada, during recent times only after 1950, in a number of few families.

The first arrival, as remembered by the senior members of the Windsor Tamil community, had began around the year of 1960.  Few, less than five families, had migrated to Canada to settle in Windsor for higher education and employment of various professions.  In the initial days families that shared common values and culture enjoyed the company of each other, dinned together for their traditional food, had picnics, and at leisure times sang and danced together Tamil art of Baratham and enjoyed singing classical music and old cinema songs during family get-togethers.

Until 1990 there were only a few families in Windsor and socializing, family get-togethers were the only events among families.  From 1990 few families for jobs and a significant number of Tamil students, largely from Sri Lanka and few from Tamil Nadu, India for university and other higher education started coming to Windsor.  

There was a large Tamil population from Sri Lanka that had immigrated during the communal violence of Sri Lanka in 1983, mostly of them settled in Toronto and the Scarborough area of the Ontario province, and only one or two settled in Windsor.

The Tamil Student population that came to the University of Windsor were the first people to organize social activity events, like Maveerar Naal and Christmas Holiday Party in Windsor. They were the pioneers to start the Tamil Student Organization of the University of Windsor.  In a decade, at the advent of the new millennium, by 2001, a few Windsor University Tamil students who got married and settled in Windsor organized Tamil Bajan at the Windsor Hindu Temple. The temple was a North Indian Mandir and the Bajans were only sung in North Indian Languages until the Tamil Bajans were organized in 2002 by those pioneer Student families.  Newly married Tamil students and Tamil families that were already living in Windsor, together, were instrumental in conducting Tamil Bajan at the Hindu mandir Temple.  This paved the way for congregation discussion and to organize activities under an informal committee-like structure.  One of them was the organized classes to teach the Tamil Language to kids and the creation of a Thirumurai Thirattu (திருமுறை திரட்டு) for Tamil Bajan.  Still, those handwritten copies are in vogue in the temple.  The committee-like structure organized annual Christmas parties, Pongal and Chithirai New Year.  Christmas parties were conducted at community centers as the Tamil population was rather smaller in number around 100 including children. Pongal and Chithirai New Year were conducted at the temple as temple Tamil prayers.  The Christmas party was the main mass event for children and adults to perform on stage.  Some enthusiastic members organized Eastern Carnatic Music Day at the temple to respect the South Indian Carnatic Traditions.

World functioning is not without failures and it happened to the Windsor Tamil Community organization.  

Tamil weekly Bajan and Tamil classes were totally disrupted by 2004. The reasons were various, but mainly the Tamil community was small in number (20 families) and sponsorship of the weekly Temple Bajan fell on the shoulders of a few devotees, and it was felt cumbersome to carry on.  Since the Tamil class was conducted at the temple on the Bajan days, attendance with the dwindling community participation in the Bajan brought the Tamil Class to poor attendance by the year 2004. Though events of weekly nature, Tamil Class and Bajan came to stand still, once-a-year events Pongal Festival, Chithirai New Year, summer picnic, and Christmas get-together continued with good community participation.  The Christmas get-together and summer picnic were the main events for all Tamil families to socialize and families participated enthusiastically.

Disruption of Tamil weekly Bajan and Tamil Class was felt as a failure of logistics in organizing. As a reaction to that a Registered formal Organization was formed by the name Windsor Tamil Sangam in 2006.  The Tamil community activities were in two forms; one under the Formal Windsor Tamil Sangam and the other one under the informal Tamil community.

Windsor Tamil Sangam conducted a year Tami cultural Stage performance in summer with classical and light music performances and dance along with a summer picnic for Sangam members, but for various reasons, out of its control, the Sangam was dissolved in five years. 

But the Informal Group went on conducting monthly Bajan at the Temple, Restructuring Tamil Class, Pongal Festival, April New Year, Winter Christmas Party and summer picnic for all community members. 

Pongal Festival and April New Year Festival were conducted at the temple with good community participation and cultural programs for children like Folk dance and music, Villupattu, Drama and classical dance and music and singing.

The Christmas party too had several children and adult programs like classical and Western dance, and cinema songs, instrumental music by children, drama, villupattu and fashion shows. The main attraction for the children was the Santa Clause and distribution of gifts to children. The Christmas party, in other words, provided another stage for Tamil cultural performances beyond its religious significance. It was the golden memories for the families that lived during that time, how families gathered at one home and had their children practicing for stage performance, snaking, chatting, joking and children playing around.  This paved the way to discuss community events and organize it in a better way.

The period between 2010 and 2015 was a period that was instrumental in shaping up the Hindu Temple activities and restructuring Tamil Class.  It was started with a group of five families that never asked for donations or contributions from others as a policy. But devotees participating in the temple Bajan started giving contributions for the effort of those five families.  The five families were the core group organizing Pongal festival and April New year prayer and cultural performances at the temple.  During Pongal and April New year community participated at large, and a big sum of money was contributed to the temple organizing group of members.  This forced the temple group to have an accounting system that is very transparent and accurate.  Since then, scrupulous accounting for every penny collected became a code of practice and accounts were maintained by the organizers of the Hindu Temple event.  There were concerns raised by some community members regarding disclosing the accounts in a public domain that it may lead to less participation as some sections of the public may treat it as a privacy issue.  But in contrast, this developed a great deal of confidence and trustworthiness upon the five family temple organizing group.

It was a different cultural practice during Pongal that each member of the community dropped a handful of rice holding in their own hands into the boiling Pongal pot to make Pongal to be offered to God at the altar.  It is a feature of togetherness and equality to mark Pongal as a community celebration.

Restructuring of Tamil Class was felt as a need by the community as almost all families had small children and wanted their children to know Tamil.  After three long years since 2005, in 2008 members of the community got together to work out a curriculum to teach Tamil and collection of funds to pay for the Oak wood Community Center for class space.  Parents enthusiastically participated during class hours on Saturdays two-hour class.  During that time the pre and post evaluation showed that most of the children of 20 in number could be able to write tell the alphabetic order and spell 2 to 3 letter words within 3 months.  In the Christmas party a program was allotted for the performance of the students of Tamil class.  During that time the community thought about using the stages during each festival to provide some language training in the form of drama, speech, and recital to the children.  Later within a year, negotiations were made with the Essex School Board to bring teaching Tamil as an International language under the aegis of Essex School Board.  Since 2009 until now Tamil is taught as an international language every Saturday in the international language school.

Windsor Tamil community reacted with mass demonstrations on the streets of Windsor and in Michigan against the colossal genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Tamil Community grew and the informal organizers worked very closely with Hindu Temple of Windsor. The long need of enshrining deity of God of Tamils from time immemorial the lord MURUGAN at the Hindu Temple of Windsor took shape in the year 2017.  Funds were collected, from every nook and corner; Tamils supported even from distant areas of Windsor. Finally MURUGAN SWAMY WITH HIS HOLY CONSORTS VALLI AND DEIVANAI   were enshrined as per South Indian Tamil Tradition with Nadhaswaram and Melam.  Kumbabishgam was held in Dec 2017.  With the advent of Murugan Silai Murugan worship gained prominence in the temple.

During the month of June with Vaikasi Visagam, Murugan swami (Lord Murugan) with Valli and Deivayanai, was taken on a procession with traditional music of Nadaswaram, Melam, Kavadi, Pal kudam with much devotion.  Devotees flocked during that annual festival of Murugan with great devotion.  

Another event of popularity and devotion of Murugan event was 6-day Kandha Sashti fasting and 7 th day Murugan Thiruk Kalyanam.  This Thiruk Kalyanam is very different from any other Hindu Temples.  Holy Thali was tied by commoners as parents for Vaali, Deivayani and Murugan.  It was conducted in the fashion of a traditional Tamil Wedding with Seer Thattu.

In 2018 Chitirai Kalai Vizha was introduced as a stage for Dramas, Dance and songs by the Tamil community children and members to perform and exhibit their talent of creativity in music, dance and drama.

Another major event is the Month of May event that comprises 3 events, Blood Donation, Memorial Plant Sale and Athmashanthi pooja to commemorate the MULLIVAIKAL PADUKOLAI that happened during the month of May of 2009 in Sri Lanka.  This created a different atmosphere in the Hindu Temple that all communities participate and light oil lamps and buy plants to PLANT A PLANT IN MEMORY OF PASSED SOULS.  A fair number of members (8 to 10) participate to donate blood at the Blood Bank.

During the time COVID, from 2019 to 2021 and part of 2022, mixing and mingling and getting together was prohibited with law and restrictions and we could not organize cultural events at public halls and at the Temple.  But the Informal Group continued to organize all the events through zoom.  Every two months conducted talk shows, discussions, useful presentations on Health, Nutrition, COVID updates, mental health talks along with entertainment of Dance, Karaoke songs, games, famous Pattuku Paatu and much more.

Pongal, Christmas, Maaveerar Naal all were conducted through Zoom. Temple activities of Murugan Thiru Vizha, Murugan Kalyanam continued at the temple with the presence of minimum devotees of 5 to 10. But it was organized to Live cast the event for the majority of the Windsor Community members to watch the proceedings from home. During that time pre-recorded devotional songs sung  by devotees were played during Bajan time.

At the onset of COVID in 2019, before Canadian Government started offering financial help for loss of jobs for the student population; the informal group of the Tamil community collected funds and organized delivery of dry rations to students of Windsor, especially for those who had migrated from India and had no families in Canada to help them.  

The Tamil Community informal group was very instrumental in organizing Nvakiragam at the temple in February 2021 and organizing its Kumbabishagam as per South Indian Traditions. 

Most recently in February 2023, the Tamil community informal group was the first to organize a Meet and Greet event for new members to  come together and get introduced with the socio-commercial enterprises in Windsor.

There are few Dance and Music academies established by individuals to teach Dance and music in Windsor.

One of them is BharatamWin Dance Academy www.bharatamwin.com which established in year 2005 to teach Bharata-Natyam.

Meanwhile few new groups came to Windsor and were organizing new events and venues.  Marutham Arts was one of them organising Maraputh Thingal and Navarathiri celebration as their own venues; another one called Nunman, based in Michigan USA, started teaching and tutoring Tamil in Windsor and Michigan. These are the signs that the community is growing with its own growth, with new introductions and differences of opinion to add another layer.  And more groups form as the community keeps on growing.

Now we, the informal group that worked tirelessly for more than 20 years keeping the community together and organizing various events even during COVID period, has become a registered Not For Profit Organization.  It has encompassed and embarrassed all Tamil people irrespective their origin and will continue to do so.  The Tamil community is exemplary for keeping scrupulous accounts and issuing  tax receipts in conjunction with the Hindu Temple for the collected funds for the temple activity.  

The community activities will grow, and new history will be written.