At the beginning, many thought his Tamil speeches were mere political gimmicks, but the Tamil speakers who recently watched his Thai Pongal and Norwood speeches and the 15 minutes Tamil speech he delivered yesterday (19 Feb.) on the Neithra Channel after the Tamil News Bulletin, were surprised over the improvement he had made over a short period.

Now he speaks Tamil with confidence without any script and his pronunciation, stress, intonation and gestures are very clear. This is not possible without genuine learning.

In Norwood on Sunday, the President, beating his fist in the air, declared in Tamil in a native command "Vettyin Sinnam Vettilai Sinnam; Vettilai Sinnam Vettyin Sinnam" (Symbol of victory is symbol of leave; Symbol of leave is symbol of victory) and wound up his speech "Oonkul Ellowrukkum Enathu Nallasikal, Vanakkam" and I could read in the faces of the audience that his Tamil speech was very impressive. The 15 minutes Tamil speech he delivered to the Tamil brothers on 19 Feb. was very convincing and emotional.

The President has also become the first head of state who addressed the UN in Tamil and I hope he would pursue his attempts to learn the language. My sincere good wishes to him.

M. A. Kaleel