One of the main reasons I’ve continued to follow so much of Chennai’s happenings over the last 15 years was the written Tanglish I could consume. This, despite never having lived in the cool parts of Madras that the Chennai Twitteratti seems to have experienced in the 80s/90s.

While I nominally can read தமிழ், ( no thanks to Keyes High School’s Veeraswami Kindergarten’s Tamil slant allowing them to be one of the few places in Hyderabad that formally taught you in தமிழ் for all those children of immigrants from Tamil Nadu settled in the Padma Rao Nagar - West Marredpally Areas of Rail Nilayam centered Secunderabad), I do not think in it anymore, it’s that much of a hop to understand it as naturally as the extra effort in reading it takes away from the probability of understanding it quickly.

This new feature at an operating system level, as path-breaking and progressive as it may be, and despite me making an additional effort to read more தமிழ், it makes me feel I’ll understand it that much less in the future.

Just in time for my family to have moved to Chennai.