Thirsika Jeyapalan

Thirsi is a 26 year old British Eelam Tamil Content creator also working in TV production.

Can you tell me a bit about yourself, like where you were born and where you live now?

So I'm 26, British Eelam Tamil and I was born and raised in northwest London. That's where I lived until my mid-twenties and now I’m based in the Midlands, about two hours away from where I grew up. I studied fine art, went to Art school and since then I've been working in TV production with credits on shows like Gogglebox, Squid Game: The Challenge, and The Fortune Hotel Season 2. Outside of work, I create content that celebrates my love for Tamil food, especially the dishes I grew up with. I’m passionate about sharing those stories and am on a mission to learn and preserve all of my amma’s recipes, and that has led me to the conversation we're having now.

What does being Tamil mean to you?

I think with Tamil being one of the oldest languages in the world, which is crazy, and to be part of that, I feel incredibly grateful. And it's just not just a language, it's just also a culture that has so much rich, deep history, beauty, and strength. There's so much, from our food and clothing to our hospitality and people, there’s so much to be proud of, especially the hospitality.The way our people show hospitality is truly something else. In Asian or immigrant families, if you say you like something, you can expect to get loads of it, it’s their way of showing love and affection.

The question my mum would always ask the most is like, have you ate? That's like the most asked question I would say in Tamil.  I think it's just that  unspoken [thing], you don't need to say I love you, it's their way of showing affection. 

And also being Tamil fills me with just so much joy and pride. For a long time, I felt conflicted because I couldn’t read or write Tamil fluently but I’ve come to realise that doesn’t make me any less Tamil.

I used to think identity worked like a ratio, half British, half Tamil but now I see it as more of a fusion. There’s no need to measure or divide, it all mixed together within me. 

How would you describe your connection to Sri Lanka?

I would say my strongest connection would be with the Tamil Homeland 

I think it's because that's where my family roots are, our history, culture, and identity are deeply embedded in the North east and Yalpanam. Even though I was born and raised outside of Eelam, the stories and the traditions and the memories that are passed down by my parents, they've kept that connection alive.

My only visit to the homeland unfortunately was in 2012, and I haven't been able to go back ever since. But I think that trip definitely had a lasting impact on me. I still remember meeting my extended family, standing inside the homes where my parents were born, and seeing the front entrances of their old schools. It gave me chills. I was 14 at the time, and I expected to feel like I fully belonged but instead, I was surprised by how foreign I still felt.

But then, what stayed with me the most is the love and generosity of the people and like I said earlier, the hospitality. If I mentioned liking something, my cousin or uncle would run to the nearest shop to buy me bottles of Necto, and my athai would cook kathrikai and puttu just because she knew it was my favourite.

So I think my connection to the homeland goes beyond geography; it lives in the language, the food, the people, and a collective history shaped by resilience and displacement. It’s layered and sometimes complicated, but it’s real and it continues to grow as I explore and reclaim more of my heritage.

What led you or your family to leave Sri Lanka?

My dad fled the conflict in the early 1990s, he left quite early and my mum joined him in Germany in 1996. They were both seeking refuge and trying to build a safer life away from the conflict, but my parents often don't speak about it, it's just way too traumatic for them to open that box. My dad became the main provider for his family back home too, supporting them from abroad while adjusting to life in a completely new country. He was also doing everything he could to help bring his loved ones out of the conflict zone and give them a chance at a better future. He’s one of seven siblings, only one of them remains in Jaffna today. The rest, like so many others, have been scattered across the diaspora, displaced by the war. On my mum’s side, she’s one of five, and four of them are also living across the diaspora.

Do you feel a sense of home where you live now? Why or why not?

Yes, I would say I feel a strong sense of home where I live now, in England.

Most of my family is here, and my parents have worked hard to build a stable and supportive life for me and my younger brother. This is where we grew up, where our memories are rooted from school days to birthdays to everyday moments that have shaped who I am. 

It’s also where I’ve studied, built friendships, and now started my career. These experiences have helped me grow and find a sense of belonging. While my cultural identity and emotional ties to the Tamil homeland are deeply important to me, this place has also played a big role in shaping my identity.  It's familiar and it's layered. It's where I've felt supported by the people around me, like my family and my friends. So yes, but even though there's like complexities with, of having roots elsewhere and this place truly feels like home now and not going to lie it has taken a while to get to this place of understanding of home. 

How do you stay connected to Tamil culture or language?

At home, we mainly speak Tamil, and I’ve grown up immersed in Tamil films and music, it’s a big part of how I stay connected to my roots. My parents also made sure my sibling and I attended Tamil school growing up, which helped build a deeper understanding of our language and culture from a young age. 

But above all, it’s the food that keeps that connection alive for me. Cooking traditional Tamil dishes is something I hold really close, and I hope to carry these recipes forward for future generations. While some might say you can just find them on YouTube, it’s not the same. Each town and village in the Tamil homeland has its own unique way of preparing the same dish, and those personal, regional touches are irreplaceable. My friends and I have tried to also start a small tradition of our own: once a year, we wear our favourite sarees and take photos, just like our mothers used to often in front of rose bushes, capturing that same nostalgic energy and those timeless moments. It’s our way of creating cultural memories that we hope our children will one day cherish.

I recently gifted my cousin a board game called Inthu Enna by Mozhi Games, and it’s turned into a wonderful way to connect generations during family gatherings. Usually, the elders chat among themselves while the younger crowd does their own thing, but this game changes that  by bringing everyone together, sparking laughter, and definitely stirring up our competitive sides.

Have your ideas of home changed over time? 

Yes. I used to think that home had to be this physical place and like a specific land or country that we felt ‘home’ in. And in 2012 we traveled to Chennai and that was the year before we travelled  to the  Tamil homeland. For many Eelam Tamils, places like Chennai can feel like the closest connection to their motherland, especially when returning to Eelam itself hasn’t always been possible. I still remember when I went with my mum to Marina Beach and she pointed out across the water and said to me that that's our homeland across the ocean  She hadn't been back since 1996, and that's crazy for 16 years, having gone back to your homeland  You haven't seen your family, you've haven’t seen your dad and your brothers. Just having  phone call conversations as FaceTime wasn’t a thing then as it is now. 

Over time, I’ve come to understand “home” as something layered. It’s not just a place, it's a feeling. It’s found in language, in food, in memories, and in the people who make you feel like you belong. For me, home now exists both in the homeland and in the life my family has created in the diaspora.

Do you think that the younger generation of tamils connect to the past differently? 

I'm a first gen, my cousins are now having kids, who are 2nd gen and I've seen the way they bring up their kids and it's in a different way than I think the younger generation of tamils are. They are very much connected to their roots in a different way from those previous generations.

I recently saw a young Tamil boy online excitedly talking about wanting to cook sothi and idiyappam for his future wife and kids. It honestly melted my heart. Moments like that show how culture is still being passed down, just through new expressions and experiences. 

I feel that second-generation kids will  have a more filtered or distant connection to the past. Our generation grew up with our parents' trauma still very close. But I think many parents today are actively trying to break that cycle. They’re more aware of mental health and more mindful about how they communicate with their children.

I remember watching The Killing Fields, the Channel 4 documentary, when I was 14. My dad knew some English but not enough to fully understand it on his own, so I watched it with him. That experience stayed with me. It made me realize how deeply important it is to understand and carry our histories.

Kids today might not have had those same experiences. They haven’t always seen their parents start over in a new country, learn a new language, and struggle to survive. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe some have. But for many, that reality feels more distant. They’ve heard the stories, but they haven’t seen it firsthand.

At the same time, I’ve noticed something really beautiful. Especially on social media, so many young Tamil people are proud, confident, and outspoken about who they are. When I was a teenager, I just wanted to hide that part of myself and blend in. So seeing that pride now feels incredibly powerful.

At the same time, I do worry that without a recognized Tamil state, future generations might grow up feeling disconnected from the full depth of our history. Especially the struggles that shaped our diaspora and the realities of what happened back home, including the genocide.

That’s why I think it’s so important for us to keep educating, to keep sharing our stories, and to find meaningful ways to keep that connection alive.

Is there anything you wish people outside the community understood about your experience?

Something I really wish people outside the community understood is how exhausting it is to constantly explain that I’m Tamil, not Sri Lankan. It’s frustrating when people reduce Tamil identity to a nationality that  sees us as just an orange stripe on their flag. Also, when non-Tamils see Sri Lanka purely as this exotic holiday destination. There’s so much pain and displacement tied to that identity for many of us, and it often gets overlooked.

I wish more people took the time to learn the history before travelling somewhere or making assumptions. Too often, I walk into a room, say I’m Tamil, and the response is, “Oh, so you’re Sri Lankan?” And every time, I have to say, “No, I’m not,” and explain why. It’s frustrating, and it just shows how invisible our story still is to the wider world.

And like, the people are lovely, I’m talking about the Sri Lankan government. It’s also frustrating because  the government specifically sees us as just this orange strip.  In the Sri Lankan flag, that orange part is meant to represent us, and the green is to represent Muslims. So I don’t want to identify as Sri Lankan when they only see me as just a little orange stripe on their flag.

How has the displacement shaped your understanding of identity?

Displacement has made me reflect deeply on identity, especially the idea of what my life could have been if my parents hadn’t had to flee Eelam. I’ve always, always questioned that. Like, I often find myself wondering, how different my life would be if I was born in Eelam. Would I have chosen the same path? Would I be in the same career or somewhere similar? Would my interests or my career or my sense of self be the same? Also as a woman, it's very different growing up here compared to what it would’ve been like growing up there. For example, I think of freedom and because it's such a big part of being brought up here. You're a mix between two identities and, I always wonder how, as a woman, what would I be like there? Could I be as outspoken as I am now? Also, living in the diaspora means constantly having to navigate those hybrid identities. Diaspora kids have learned to like, carry both their Tamil heritage and their new Canadian or Australian or British identity. I don't see identity as fixed anymore. It's very, like, layered and fluid and it's shaped by movement and memory and the stories that we inherit and like, we choose to carry forward.

What was your motivation in starting your Instagram page?

My motivation behind  starting behind my Instagram page and TikTok just kind of came from my love of documenting everything around me. My cousins even joke that I'm a walking CCTV because I've got everything captured. I'm that uncle at any family gathering with a video camera in their hand. Like at any family parties or gatherings, they call me the family archive museum. And it's a lot of pressure.

I have this hard drive dedicated to, like, my niece and nephews with everything from their first birthday and now they're like 16 years old. I've kept everything. I think it's also a reflection of the war, how my parents never had a tangible feeling of memory and I think with photos and videos it's a way you can go back and see what happened, where, with who, how, what was going on. When my parents fled the country they had a few photographs with them of themselves and of their family and that was it. That was their ‘if their house was burning down’ item, the thing they’d grab. So I've always kind of captured everything ever since my mum got me my own camera, from a young age I've always taken photos of everything. 

When I left home for university, I began to miss my amma's homemade food and I would constantly ask her for recipes. I have that book where I used to just write down all the recipes  and I'd go to my flat and make them and I would also make it for my non-Tamil  friends. So it was just nice to share that and I really loved it. Making food itself is a love language. 

It especially became challenging when I moved to Germany for six months and while I was there, I couldn’t just go to my Amma’s kitchen on the weekend and grab food or certain ingredients that I wanted. So that's when I started to really get into recreating her dishes. It was more for survival but then I just loved it and also making things my own and playing around with it and having fun. And then it kind of led me into sharing my journey of food and connecting with my roots through food. And that's when I decided that  I'm gonna start documenting on Instagram and TikTok. 

What do you hope people would take away from it?

 I hope that others come away with a deeper understanding of the complexities that come with being part of the diaspora. How displacement doesn't just mean that you're physically uprooted, but also having to navigate identity and memory and belonging in layered and sometimes conflicting ways. You're just trying to figure out who you are.

I want people to see and understand that being Tamil isn't just about a language or geography. It's about the history and resilience of the Tamil struggle and our culture and our community. And I hope that, especially for those outside our community, it encourages more empathy and curiosity rather than making assumptions, rather than reducing ourselves to an identity in a box. And I hope they feel inspired to learn and listen and understand the stories behind who we are.