Kamala Harris talks of her ‘chithis’, sends Twitter and world’s 120 million Tamils into a tizzy

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN
Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI:

Kamala Devi Harris scripted history on Wednesday as she became the first Indian-American and also the first woman of colour to accept the nomination for vice-president from a major political party in the US.

Harris, 55, was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate on Wednesday at the virtual Democratic National Convention.

In her acceptance speech, Harris profoundly remembered her mother Shyamala Gopalan from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Harris said her mother raised her and her sister Maya “to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage. She taught us to put family first— the family you’re born into and the family you choose.”

In reference to her Indian heritage, Harris used a Tamil expression in speaking of “my uncles, my aunts — my chithis.”

“Chithi” means aunt in Tamil and Kamala Harris using the word during her speech came as a pleasant surprise for many in India and the US.

The word “Chithi” set the desi Twitter abuzz as many people pointed out that this was the first time that a Tamil word was spoken at such a convention.

For the 120 million people in the world who speak Tamil, more so those in Tamil Nadu, it was an emotional moment. The speech soon went viral on social media even as the search for the word “chithi” spiked on Google. Tamil is 5,000 years old. It is one of the world’s oldest languages along with Sanskrit, Chinese, Egyptian and Lithuanian.

Harris opened her vice-presidential acceptance speech on Wednesday night at the virtual Democratic National Convention by remembering her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, lamenting the fact that she could not be there to see her daughter’s achievement.

“My mother taught me that service to others gives life purpose and meaning. And oh, how I wish she were here tonight but I know she’s looking down on me from above,” she said.

Harris’ mother, who hailed from Chennai, studied at the Lady Irwin College here, and went to the University of Berkeley in the US on a scholarship at age 19 to specialise in breast cancer. She died of cancer in 2009.

Her father Donald Jasper Harris, a Stanford professor, was from Jamaica. They had met at Berkeley and got married, and divorced in 1971. Shyamala raised the two girls as a single mother.

My mother instilled in my sister, Maya, and me the values that would chart the course of our lives.She taught us…