Just before the start of the Sri Lankan civil war, Ahilan Ratnamohan's parents emigrated to Australia. Ahilan's parents deliberately choose to speak only English - and no Tamil - to their sons. That way the boys do not stand out in Australia because of their language.
But what if years later it turns out that the curiosity about your parents' language is too great?
What if your mother's language is not your mother tongue?
During his childhood in Sydney, Ahilan never learned Tamil. For the past seven years, he has improved his spoken Tamil through Skype conversations with his mother, allowing them to communicate in “their” native language for the first time. But it soon became clear to him that he would have to spend hours studying to master written Tamil perfectly. Unfortunately, you can't learn Jaffna Tamil in textbooks or by watching the news. It is passed down through (grand)parents and through the community. It continues through diaspora meetings around the world. That makes it beautiful and at the same time elusive.
The Tamilization of Ahilan Ratnamohan is a story of a son and a mother. A personal story of memory, loss, language fascination, identity and diaspora. Ahilan plays the performance entirely in Tamil. His mother - next to him on stage - is his language teacher who corrects him, prompts him and operates the English/Dutch surtitles. In this way, Ahilan traces the roots of his language loss.
