Ticktock Tamil
Venba Angadi’s clocks bring into vogue the oncepopular format Madurai photographer SR Sai Sanjay Prasath bags a prize at the Mela Moments contest, by the Union Ministry of Culture and Lalit Kala Akademi
utomobile engineer N Bhoopathi Raja is smitten by Tamil. He is constantly thinking of ways to showcase the beauty of the language to the world, and his wife’s business enterprise Venba Angadi is his tool. What started as a venture to source and sell unique gifts, has transformed into a store that focusses on products featuring Tamil letters and numerals.
His latest addition, is the Tamil numerals wall clock.
“I worked on this idea for 10 years before it became a reality,” says the Coimbatorebased 40yearold, speaking about the clock. It features Tamil numerals from zero to nine, and comes in wooden and plastic variations. Bhoopathi wants to popularise the usage of Tamil numerals. “Other languages such as Marathi and Kannada use their own numerals; these are used even in Government buses in the respective states,” he points out, adding that this was the case in Tamil Nadu till the ‘90s.
“Once personal computers came in, we switched to HinduArabic numerals since it was easier to enter into the system, and people found Tamil numerals confusing,” says Bhoopathi. He recalls the Tamil Internet Conference held in Chennai in February 1999. “It was after this conference that the layout for a Tamil keyboard was brought in, and numerals were included,” he adds.
Venba
AAngadi’s clock is an ode to these numerals, that Bhoopathi says, have remained the same for the last 100 years.
“I hope the clock encourages children to learn Tamil numerals,” says Bhoopathi, who is father to two girls aged nine and five. Bhoopathi has employed the format that is now available on mobile phone operating systems. “This will make it easier for people to understand it,” he says, adding that he makes it a point to use Tamil numerals on his iPhone. “I bought my phone in 2013 and by default, it had Tamil numerals. I use them the way everyone else uses
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HinduArabic numerals. To do so, all one has to do is change their phone’s language settings to Tamil.”
Bhoopathi is now working on a clock that features the Tamil uyirezhuthu. “This will make it easier for parents to teach children the Tamil alphabet,” he says.
Venba Angadi was started in 2016, with the venture’s other popular product; a Tamil calendar that Bhoopathi distributes for free at Government schools in Tamil Nadu.
They also have the Thiruvalluvarthemed diary, Thiruvalluvar stickers and pins, customised Tamil name boards, and bamboo products with Tamil inscriptions.
Bhoopathi’s love for Tamil was instilled by his mother, who, he says, was a voracious reader. He adds: “Tamil is the language I think in. Everything that I do is in the hope that my daughters grow up with the same love for the language.”
For details, visit venbaangadi.com. hen S,R Sai Sanjay Prasath quit his corporate job in Qatar to return to his hometown Madurai after the pandemic in 2021, little did he know that his experiments with photography would fetch him a national award.
From 11,000 shortlisted entries to the Mela Moments photography contest organised by the Union Ministry of Culture and the Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi, two of Sanjay’s photographs were awarded the third prize and displayed as part of a larger exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi this past fortnight.
The prize winning photos selected under the theme,
The Third Element, are from the annual Dasara Festival held at Kulasekarapattinam. It shows a man dressed as goddess Kali in the red glow of a flame against the backdrop of the blue sky. “The third element is about complementary colours, the moment and the composition,” says Sanjay who took the photograph during one of his many trips last year.
The local Dasara festival is associated with a folklore about residents invoking a goddess to save themselves from a demon. Men dress like the goddess at this festival. Sanjay says he went to document it for his personal
Wcollection.
His other prize winning photo was taken in front of the temple where another man dressed as the goddess was standing next to him.
“There were 300 photographers around to capture the captivating moments that day. I usually step away and patiently allow others to click first. It helps me to work on my perspective with a totally different angle,” says Sanjay. In a crowd it is a challenge to get the right angle and proper lighting, he adds.
Sanjay took many photos of the event with his Sony A 73 camera and on a friend’s suggestion sent five for the competition in January this year.
Colours of India
The Mela Moment contest, aimed at highlighting the country’s vibrant cultural heritage under Azadi Ka
Amrit Mahotsav, attracted 300,000 participants from all over the country. Three prizes were given under five different themes and 60 best photographs were showcased at the NGMA exhibition, which concluded on March
14.
“It was my happiest moment,” says Sanjay, who, invested in an expensive camera to explore the landscape in and around Madurai. He says he started off as a wedding photographer after returning to India; but the bright colours of travel and culture turned out to be his calling.
Last year, the 34yearold went across Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and returned with some gorgeous frames of Theyyam, Pulikali and the Dasara. They have now inspired him to focus on faith and religious festivities. “It is going to be my new project of passion,” he says.