Let Out the Creative Beast

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: on encouraging your creative beast to evolve with a chunk of nice little slides, of course creatively.

Let Out the Creative Beast

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சென்னை புத்தக கண்காட்சி - 2010

புத்தக கண்காட்சி இனிதே முடிவடைந்தது. வழக்கம் போலவே மிதமாக சூடு பிடிக்க தொடங்கிய புத்தக திருவிழா கடைசி மூன்று நாட்கள் முச்சு முட்டும் அளவு கூட்டத்தை வாரி குவித்தது. ஒரு பதிப்பக ஊழியருடன் சாவகாசமாக உரையாடுகையில் கிடைத்த தகவலின்படி ஒவ்வொரு கடைக்கும் 4௦,௦௦௦ ரூபாய் வாடகையாக வசூலிக்கபட்டுள்ளது. முதலில் இது சற்றே மிகையாக தோன்றினாலும், இறுதியில் பன்னிரண்டு நாட்களில் ஏழு கோடி ரூபாய் அளவுக்கு வியாபாரம் கலை கட்டி உள்ளது கேள்வி பட்டு மிகைத்து தான் போனேன்.

இம்முறையும் என்னுடைய ஆர்வம் மருத்துவம், கவிதை, சிறுகதை, வரலாறு மற்றும் பொருளாதாரம் பக்கமே சுழன்று கொண்டு இருந்தது. நல்லவேளையாக இவ்வருடம் சுயமேம்பாட்டு புத்தகங்கள் இச்சுழலில் இருந்து விடுபட்டுக் கொண்டு விட்டது, ஒருவேளை மேம்படுத்திக் கொண்டுவிட்டனோ என்னவோ ;). புதினம், நாவல் படிப்பவர்கள் இப்பொழுதும் என்னுடைய பிரம்மிப்புக்கு உட்பட்டவர்களாகவே இருக்கிறார்கள். பொன்னியின் செல்வன், சிவகாமியின் சபதம் என நண்பர்கள் சிபாரிசு செய்யும்போது தலையை ஆட்டினாலும் உள்ளுக்குள் ஏனோ வாங்க வேண்டும் என்ற அந்த உந்துதல் வரவே இல்லை.

வழக்கத்திற்கு மாறாக இம்முறை தமிழ் ஆர்வம் பொத்துக்கிட்டு வந்தது அதிசயமாக இருக்கிறது. நான் வாங்கிய புத்தகங்களில் பெரும்பாலானவை தமிழ் புத்தகங்கள். தமிழ் புத்தகங்களை முழு ஈடுபாட்டுடன் படித்திடும்போது கிடைத்திடும் ஒருவித சுவையான அனுபவம் பெரும்பாலான ஆங்கில புத்தகங்களில் எனக்கு கிடைப்பதில்லை. ஆழ்ந்து நோக்குகையில், நான் ஆங்கில புத்தகங்கள் படிப்பது என்னுடைய புலமையை வளர்ப்பதர்க்கேவன்றி வேறில்லை, சொல்லப்போனால் அதை ஒரு தொழிற் தேவையாகத்தான் நான் செய்தேனே தவிர மகிழ்ச்சியுற படித்ததே இல்லை என்றே தோன்றுகிறது (மொழி வல்லமையின்மை கூட ஒரு காரணமாக இருக்கலாம்), இவ்வலையூட்டமே கூட நான் என் ஆங்கில புலமையை வளர்த்துக்  கொள்வதர்காகவே ஆரம்பிக்கப்பட்டதுதான். ஆங்கில புத்தகங்கள் மீதான என்னுடைய மோகம் காலப்போக்கில் நலிந்து விட்டதற்கான காரணத்தை உற்று நோக்குகையில் வலையூட்டங்களின்பால் இப்புலமையை வளர்க்க பெரிதும் வழிவகை யுண்டென்பதால் தான் இச்சிறு மாற்றம் என்பதை உணரமுடிகிறது.

எல்லாம் சரி, எதற்காக திடீர் என்று தமிழில் ஒரு வலைப்பதிவு என்று உங்களுக்கு தோன்றி இருக்கலாம். ஆங்கில புலமையை வளர்க்க அரும்பாடு பட்டுக்கொண்டிருக்கும் இவ்வேளையில் தமிழ் புலமையை எந்தளவு இழந்திருக்கிறோம் என்று அறிந்துக்கொள்ள எழுதப்பட்ட ஒரு சிறிய சுயபரிசோதனை தான் இவ்வலைப்பதிவு. என்னுடைய எழுத்துக்களில் யதார்த்தத்தை மீறிய ஒரு நாடகத்தன்மை (பழைய திரைப்படங்களில் வரும் வசனம் போல) இழையோடுவதை நான் இக்கட்டுரையை வரைகையிலேயே உணர முடிகிறது, ஆனால் தவிர்க்கத் தான் இயலவில்லை :).

Wikipedia - Needs You

"Wikipedia is there when you need it — now it needs you." is the banner i happen to see when i'm searching for some information over wikipedia. Very less among us only aware that it is a non-profit organization. Their attitude to play within the spirit might bring them to be a beggypedia.

In internet age, its not at all a thing to make revenue when you are so popular. "Content is god" and just allowing target ads will flood in revenue. But still keeping the spirit is an appreciable one. Hence obviously there is no second thought for me other than to contribute for this. 

Actually i don't have an idea to put a blog like this, which indeed looks alike a self proclaim for just being one among the million contributors. But their thanking mail had a request to spread the word by forwarding it. As i don't want to spam my contacts, i made this blog post.

You can find my name with comment in the contributors list over here :
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:ContributionHistory?offset=1258828462#284921

Find the mail snippet below.


Dear Vivekanandan,

Thank you for your gift of USD 10.00 to the Wikimedia Foundation, received on November 21, 2009.


Your donation celebrates everything Wikipedia stands for: the power of information, freedom, sharing,earning and discovery.Thank you so much for helping keep Wikipedia freely available for its 330 million readers around the world.


Many people love Wikipedia, but surprisingly few know it's run by a non-profit. Please help us spread the word, by forwarding this e-mail to a few of your friends.

If you have questions about your donation, please send a message to donateatwikimediadotorg. To learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation, visit our blog at http://blog.wikimedia.org/ or our website at http://wikimediafoundation.org/. Or, follow us at http://twitter.com/wikimedia, http://identi.ca//wikimedia, or

http://bit.ly/wikiFacebook.


And again, thank you.  I'm really, really happy to have your help.


Sincerely Yours,
Sue Gardner
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation


This letter can serve as a record for tax purposes.

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable corporation with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status in the United States. No goods or services were provided, in whole or in part, for this contribution. Tax-exempt number: 20-0049703

My Take on Fake - A real fake dream

Recently the word "fake" created tremors in the online-office market. Its not the first time i'm hearing the word creating verbal buzz. Even during the recent IPL matches, a blogger claims himself as a "Fake IPL Player" and gets a good traffic. And the recent finds are "Fake Office" from Zoho & "Fake Search" from google.

And wondered how marketing with a negative term kindles people interest and thereby the effective handler to popularity.

I slept with this one thing in mind, popularity., popular.., pop.., and fall asleep.

As soon i slept, i got a dream wherein i'm a VP from Mightysoft, the most established software corporation in the world.And the product that i'm working on is dragging to get released but the small players in the same market doing well and going steady. As usual media starts predicting our declining indices by comparing with those emerging ones and keeps pestering for our response.

And its my time to address the media. I'm on a urge to prepare a content which should yield some trust among shareholders. It seems impossible to use the same old way of promising to fail in keeping it. So we took a different route now, attacking all of our competitors with negative terms thereby taking advantage by creating distrust on them.

Fake has a proven track record but using it again might look alike a faking thing, hence we dropped that word.

After a prolonging iteration we have come up with the best of worst word, and it is "porn". And we thought of calling our competitors as "porn office", don't apply your sense to look at the meaning as it doesn't needs one(while slinging the mud one should not worry of getting dirty). Our highlevel committee too agreed upon the word "porn" and trusts it has the proven potential to keep our stock index always inclined. But my boss isn't pleased with our suggestion as the word already owns a multi-billion$ market and afraid that it might become an attractive element in favor of them.

Our first attempt in pleasing our boss becomes disastrous and i looked for an impressive word again.

Banging my head for a while and i never thought finding a catchy negative term will be this much tougher. But I always rely on my thinking tank which keeps overflowing to sink me with ideas. wow got it, bankruptcy.. debt.., sink.., ship.., and the word is "titanic".

Now we preferred to attack with the word "titanic office". Unlike previous attempts there are reasons here to pick this word, titanic literally will create a visual of "sinking ship" in the customers mind. Thereby we can create panic among people which might resist them using their products. And there is one more added advantage to it. If they intend to create a funny movie out of my word. Then this strategic word "titanic" may pull more money out of their pocket as part of production expenses and thereby to debt. Moreover, even if they managed to produce one, James Cameroon himself will come all the way to join me to call it as a "Fake Titanic" movie.

Oh no, i woke up.

Ok readers, i just want to surrender to your brilliance, agree i didn't sleep and its not actually a dream, so you can claim it as a "fake dream". But calling something as "fake dream" does means more of like a real one, but its not real. Now its neither real nor dream and proves to be fake by all means, what you say? can we call it as a "real fake dream" (seems i'm going mad with poor jokes) ;)

Veeraasaamy - Awesome is an understatement :)

Happen to watch Veeraasaamy on KTV yesterday, though its a 2nd time but a treat to watch. We might have seen many films but few films only be mind blowing and make us to think about it for the next few days. And very few films only be in the talk for next few years to come. This is one such film. :)

And just got reminded me of the way we saw this film 2 years back(@Kamala Theater) followed by my review. Here it goes...

As i wrote it 2yr back, i have changed the text color to give a flashback touch.

Rating ***** (Must Watch)

We are 16 Guys from AdventNet..,
Who dont know what is called fear..,
And willing to take up any challenges in life..,
This time we went for the amazing entertainer "Veeraasaamy" at vadapalani Kamala Theatre.

We are proud to admit that nothing other than the hero-attraction pulls us to watch this film. And we all in a similar mindset and known that anything can happen inside the theater, but that should not stop our whole hearted support to our hero. Unlike what we thought, the balcony was crowded with youth gangs and a really big joint family. Seeing this much crowd for the night show was a surprising thing for us.

And the entire crowd explodes like anything to hail their most awaited introduction scene of our hero "Veerasaamy". They just reacting as if they very well understood the intention for the inclusion of this scene. And it takes few minutes for the crowd to keep-off the energy generated by the V.T.R's introduction scene. After this, it was clearly understood that everyone here has the same intention in watching this film.

We were really enjoyed our existence in this world, during the abundant fight, song and emotional scenes of this film. And the intention of the crowd sounds like that they are blessed with the mouth just to shout and whistle for this one film. We identified some middle-aged ladies were dancing when our hero dances during the songs, that is the power of our hero, he ripples the confidence everywhere around the crowd and makes everyone to dance. To say a few about the film, "If you can resist the comedy scenes in the movie, you can enjoy the full length comedy hidden in the film".

Crews saluting our hero before entering into the hall.

There is a saying in tamil "இடுக்கண் வருங்கால் நகுக" - Be lighthearted when you are disheartened. And we have mastered this art while watching this film. :)

TR keeps on surprising, found a wikipedia link for Veeraasaamy : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veerasamy

Though TR's public life becomes more of comical but he continously impressive in his personal life. It was a record among the heroes that even for on-screen romance he never touched a woman, but successfully released films with romantic quotient. Here is a link forwarded by one of my friend(Thiyagu in comments) tells a little about his personal value : http://msams.blogspot.com/2009/10/t.html

My Experience with Chickenpox

After 15 days of rest due to chicken pox i have returned to office last Monday. To my knowledge, its the second time i'm taking off for a long time in my entire career.

Chicken pox affects due to the virus Varicella which can be spread through respiratory droplets and fluids from the blisters. So it is a must for you to be isolated so as not to spread the disease.It will be more complicated if you are active when infected.

I came to realize about it 2 days after i got infected. Our dermatologist suggests Zorivax(antiviral), DoloCold (paracetamol) and xyzal(anti allegergy, to avoid itching). She also added that with respect to chickenpox drugs are only to resist further complication and not for curing.

Blisters

You will get more blisters on the head and back than arms or legs. Every blister will last for 3-6 days based on the size. You feel itchy all over. Actually i was afraid of the spots that it about to left as i'm looking out for a bride and cant resist to ask the same to the doctor too(Avan avan kashtam avan avanukku :) ). But luckily it swipes off most of the dots on my face :).

At first, blisters starts to appear sparsely, then all of a sudden it increases massively in head and face, then spreads on to back. Head and face cures in a week but those on my back worries much, it keeps generating one after another for more than 10 days.

Goddess and Varicella

In ancient Tamilnadu, there is a popular false-belief that Chicken pox is relative to a goddess. There are some conflicting theories with this belief too, somebody thinks it as auspicious and some thinks it as a reflection of one's sin. And it will be decided based on the time of coincidence at which it occurs with respect to your behaviour :).

So, whoever affected by me in the recent past can justify it to be part of my sin and those benefited(anybody out there) can claim it as auspicious. :)


Role of Neem

In India, Neem plays a crucial role in treating Chickenpox. Neem is also considered as an auspicious tree to hindus of tamilnadu. In villages it is very likely to find a neem tree with bottom decorated by turmeric (background) and orderly positioned Kumkum as mark of godly respect.(designers exists everywhere :) )

My parents formed a neem bed for me to sleep, i resist initially but they persuade me with its chemical properties against virus, not interested to dig deep into it hence agreed with them. Also they form a Neem and turmeric mixed paste and applied all over my body. With greenish tint all over my body, i looked very much like "The Hulk" for more than a week.

Disadvantages

Due to lack of physical activity its unavoidable that you will become plumpy if you dont maintain a proper diet. I gained 7kg in a span of 3 weeks. Thats the nature of my body, hope now you all know why i'm giving more priority to workout. (My mom's kitchen expertise is the main culprit.)

The worst thing is, the Neem tree nearby to our home sacrifices all its leaves to get a bald look as part of the treatment.

Advantages

During the infection, you get a chance to find the most ugliest of you in the mirror.
Rest for 2 weeks and can spend the whole time with your loved ones as you are restricted to go out.
I have utilized to read enough books during this time. Having noticed the recent Anna Centenary celebrations in my native(kanchi), i preferred political topic(in tamil), mostly about Periyar, Anna, Jayalalitha, Karunanidhi & Ambedkar.

Along with i also got a chance to read the "UI Design & Analysis" book which belongs to my sister. (Surprised to find that it is part of the engineering syllabus and happy that current stream is very much in sync with the industry standards. During my course we nearly studied the history of computers :) .)

Social Networking via mobile

During the isolation my mobile Nokia E63(smart mobile) helped me to contact with my friends and colleagues via Twitter and Facebook & Zoho Mobile(to mail my peers @ zoho). Some of my tweet references are below.

http://twitter.com/vivekanandan/status/4493483454
http://twitter.com/vivekanandan/status/4599009919

It indeed helped me to lookout for some mobile based applications and widgets. Thanks to Opera Mini & widgets. The interesting part is you can find more widgets for Twitter & Facebook in any emerging technology which has the potential to social network. So there is nothing to surprise about their growth i think.

The best part of chickenpox is, you get a strong immunity against this virus and will not get infected for next 10 years cycle.

Pokkisham - Review

Watched the movie "Pokkisham" during my recent visit to Trichy.

"Pokkisham" is more of a art movie, naturally lacking entertainment quotient. Cheran took a simple theme this time, to showcase the impact of letters(hand written) which carries love has more value than that of the digital messages that we transact these days.

The movie is little slow with more dialogue, you certainly need more patience to sit and listen.Photographic value in this movie is damn excellent and i am very much admired to it. Every frame is caught with ingenious photographic sense. I would like to see this movie again for this one thing.



Padma priya played the heroine role "Nadheera". She surely deserved respect for her acting skill(except the climax). The character(a traditional muslim girl) she wore projects her little more beautiful.

Cheran should look for a better actor for his movies. Seems like he is wasting his directorial efforts because of the actor in him. Now a days, it becomes unavoidable to get bored on looking at him. Should have to learn some more expressions rather always being gloomy.

Regarding Direction, surely Cheran's effort for trying his guts on a different subject like this is very much appreciable. I feel it will be more interesting if it has been better executed. Editor's carelessness might have contributed a lengthy second half which tests the viewers patience.

To me this film is watchable but i agree there is not much entertainment quotient ( i'm one of the odd who said this film as watchable among a bunch whom seen along with me, probably photography adds value to me). If you are expecting for laughter/giggle from this movie, i definitely say you wont even stay till the completion of the first half. :)

The film started with a son trying to search for more info about his father's life who is no more. It was a interesting feel to search and know how your loved one lived well before you born, i tried the same with my grandfather 10 years before. He who used to archive all letters. There is more surprise on reading all those and wondered when i get to know a lot of things about him(which needs a lengthy blog).