[movie] My little role in Endhiran : The Robot

I've been working with Shankar's Endhiran since August 2008. I would like to share how it all happened. Around May 2008,
I Introduced myself to Mr. Shankar as Dr. Karky, working as a scientist in Anna University with fair knowledge in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. As my father was not very much interested in me working in films, I tried my best to shadow my other identity. I SMSed Mr. Shankar asking if I could take up Sujatha's role in Endhiran. I waited for a week, and then called him regarding the same. A few weeks from then, he invited me to his office. He was taken by surprise when he got to know that I was Poet Vairamuthu's son. After an hour's discussion he asked me to be the technical coordinator for the movie. There it all started. In this last one year, I have contributed a little to this huge project in a few areas. I also penned my first song, to AR Rahman's tune, for this movie. I thank Mr. Shankar whole heartedly for giving me this opportunity to work in his magnum opus with some of the world's leading technicians.

[research] FlowScore v1.0 for Tamil Lyrics

FlowScore is an algorithm designed by me to give a score to a lyric based on the musical property of the letters, words, lines & sections of that lyric. Apart from a classification of Tamil letters based on their phonetic stress, the algorithm also takes into account the மாத்திரை அளவு of letters, meter length of words, எதுகை, மோனை & இயைபு properties of a section and inter-line word flow. The algorithm gives a score between 0 & 1 for a given lyric. Some popular Songs & their scores are listed below.

ஆலய மணியின் - 0.3153
என்னை யாரென்று - 0.2537
காதல் சிறகை - 0.2947
நான் பேச நினைப்பதெல்லாம் - 0.2947
பாலும் பழமும் - 0.2409
போனால் போகட்டும் - 0.2330
அன்று வந்ததும் அதே நிலா - 0.4541
நினைப்பதெல்லாம் நடந்துவிட்டால் - 0.3556
கண் போன போக்கிலே - 0.3977
பார்த்தேன் சிரித்தேன் - 0.2191




Songs that have very rich musical properties may get a low score if they use more hard letters and doubling of hard letters.
the word அக்கா will get a score much less than the word அம்மா, which will get a less score compared to ஆமா.

Planning to include more properties to compute the score.
Will keep you updated.

[song] Hola Amigo

பாடல் : Hola Amigo
படம் : இளமை இதோ இதோ
இசை : வித்யாசாகர்
இயக்கம் : ராஜா
சூழல் : கல்லூரி திறந்த முதல் நாளில் நண்பர்களின் கைகுலுக்கல்
________________________________

நாலு சுவரும்
நாப்பது பெஞ்சும்
எல்லாம் தெரிஞ்ச
ஏழு பெருசும்
class room ஆனது எப்போது?

வறட்டி வடையும்
ரப்பர் தோசையும்
ஆட்டம் ஆடும்
கிழட்டு ஸ்டூலும்
canteen ஆனது எப்போது?

அடுக்கி வைத்த
ஆயிரம் குப்பைகள்
library ஆனது எப்போது?

பொட்டல் காடும்
மெட்டல் கேட்டும்
campus ஆனது எப்போது?


நீயும் நானும் நீயும் நானும்
நீயும் நானும் நீயும் நானும்
Hola Hola Hola சொன்னோம்... அப்போது

Hola Amigo.... Hola Amigo
Bailar Conmigo.... Nos Partido....
_________________________

மயக்கம் ஊட்டும்
professor குரலில்
தூக்கம் சொல்லும் Hola!

மதிய நேரம்
திரையில் கோடம்
பாக்கம் சொல்லும் Hola!

Tattoo போட்ட
Fundu கூட்டம்
Fashion சொல்லும் Hola!

Bottle போட்ட
பண்டுக் கூட்டம்
Tension சொல்லும் Hola!

Motor Bikeஇல் Harry Potter... Hola Amigo
Corridorஇல் Mary Peter... Hola Amigo
Exam Hallஇல் Thermometer... Hola Amigo

Arrearஇல் ஞானம் சொல்லும்

Hola Amigo.... Hola Amigo
Bailar Conmigo.... Nos Partido....
______________________________________________

கண்ணில் தோன்றும்
Rainbow மீன்கள்
இளமை சொல்லும் Hola!

Weekend விரதம்
முடிக்கும் திங்கட்
கிழமை சொல்லும் Hola!

வெட்கம் ஒளியும்
வளையல் ஒலியில்
கவிதை சொல்லும் Hola!

வோட்கா வழியும்
கிளிகள் விழியில்
போதை சொல்லும் Hola!

துப்பட்டாக்கள் தொட்டுச் சொல்லும்... Hola Amigo
பட்டாம்பூச்சி கூட்டம் சொல்லும்... Hola Amigo
ஆக்ஸிட்டோசின் ஆட்டம் போடும்.... Hola Amigo

முதன் முதல்... காதல் சொல்லும்
Hola Amigo.... Hola Amigo
Bailar Conmigo.... Nos Partido....
______________________________________________

[events] my mother's take on my iPhone

she asked me what i can do with my iPhone, that she can't with her nokia 1100.
no one in the world i think can insult my iPhone better than that.
i suppressed my variety of emotions and explained to her for over 30 minutes.
i lectured patiently, the touch interface, app store, and the variety of applications.
how you can watch movies, listen to music, manage contacts, email, internet, using maps, weather and more...
i also demonstrated how to type with the touch keyboard. rotate and zooming pictures. geo tagging.
after 30 minutes of patient listening, she replied...
"you never pick your calls. you always have a low signal where ever you go. what is the point of calling it a phone?"

within 48hrs of this conversation, i switched my mobile network. That is helping me a bit to get out of my depression.

[research] Automated Tamil Name Generator

creativity & innovation - a course i loved doing in my final semester bachelors.
i designed a small program in perl to generate tamil names based on tamil phonetics.
recently I found myself sitting and programming the same in java, something i've been missing for long.

it was a very simple idea. just to classify letters based on their positional frequency and to add some randomness.



some names it generated are amazing.
it will be great if the system can tell what these names mean.

female names : நசி, பானிலா, ஈயுறை, நெல்லகை, சானதிசகை, ....
male names : வாலு, நித், சப்கு, விறைன், சுனான் , மகான், வாற்றாடன், ...

where am i going to use this?
what will happen to this system if i am to introduce numerology ? :-O
will it be possible to give a score to a name based on its pronounceablity(?!)

can i sell this to political leaders who are being tortured to name babies instantly?

so...
thats my threshold.
thats exactly the point where i stop programming.
i cannot handle more than three questions at a time.

no clue on what i'll be programming next.
i'll let you know.

[project] iPaatti 1.0

http://www.mellinam.com/iPaatti/Home.html

nandini & I were brainstorming for our mellinam's pre-school program.
we ended up with a cute little design.
we wanted to have our own syllabus with new stories, new songs, new games....
she asked me to write songs for new generation kids.

the main idea was to introduce Tamil to kids as a 'cool' language.
not to torture them with heavy diction and complex messages.

we sorted out 35 songs under 10 topics.
home, family, time, season, science, technology, history, geography, sports & entertainment.

rizwan composed music for all 35 songs.
he gave quite a variety. we have some rap, hip-hop, folk and more....

From May 2009

we had over 15 different voices for these songs.
'where is the party' fame mukesh has done a couple of tracks.
rizwan also got a few little ones to sing some numbers.

rizwan reworked on most of the songs after nandini tested the songs with kids around the world.
she received feedback from kids' parents in US, Aus and also from many parents & teachers in and around Chennai.

saravana kumar, a freelance graphic artist, is working on the illustrations.
a few samples of his work are on our site.

and yeah... we wanted to name this project something cool and new.


the following were few of our options :

என் குட்டி ஐபாடு : not sounding right for a book & cd.
தொப்பக் குட்டியும் ராக்காச்சி பாட்டியும் : too old
ஙேஙே பாப்பா முதல் ராக்காச்சி பாட்டி வரை : no coolness factor

we then thought in lines of iPod & iPhone.... iPaatti
that sounded trendy and catchy.

so iபாட்டி.

why version 1.0?
we are planning a series of iPaattis.
version 2.0 will have stories.

iPaatti is almost 6 months old now.
Planning to launch her in a month's time.

hope she will rock.
atleast a few cradles.