Before the year is out, one more bicentennial-linked exhibition has opened at the Indian Heritage Centre. This small but nicely curated exhibition, like the better bicentennial themed shows, uses the event as a starting point to examine the long history of Tamils in South-east Asia.

This historical context gives the show more oomph as the narrative notes that the Tamils, a mercantile people, have been present in the region since the early centuries of the Common Era. The Tamils in fact were an important trading link between Roman Egypt and the Arabian peninsular in the west and South-east Asia and China in the East.