Madhan Karky

He grew up in Chennai and was educated at the Loyala Matriculation School in Kodambakkam. By his own admission, he was not a good student, excelling primarily only in Tamil and English. During his time in high school, he gained an interest in computer science[1] He got admission in College of Engineering, Guindy which is affiliated with the Anna University. He began his undergraduate education in the field of Computer engineering in the year 1997.

While in CEG, as part of his final year project, Karky developed a program called the Tamil Voice Engine, under the supervision of Professor T.V. Geetha. The goal of the project was construction of a text to speech engine for the Tamil language. The research paper on the project was officially selected at the Tamil Internet Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.[5]

Other projects during his tenure include the Name Generator, which was part of his course on Creativity, Innovation and New Product Development (the objective being to generate random names that are pronounceable with respect to Indian phonetics) and Compiler Design, for which a high level programming language was conceived, with the goal of proper specification and interpretation of lexical rules and grammar rules.

For Chennai Kavigal, he created a Spell Checker for a Tamil Word Processor. The project involved a lot of Natural Language Processing elements, based on a root dictionary built as a part of the morphological analyzer for the Tamil Language. The endgame being determining the correctness of words.

Following the completion of his bachelor's degree in 2001, Karky began his master's degree at the University of Queensland in the year 2003. In that particular stint, he developed a project based on the theory of computation and strong mathematics (under the supervision of Dr. George Havas). It aimed at analyzing an existing algorithm of reducing any kind of matrix format to a standard format called 'Hermite Normal form', which is a unit upper triangular matrix.

Some of his other projects during this course include the Disciplined Software Process Project (whose objective was to introduce and practice the software development process for individuals called Personal Software Process), the On-Line Art Store Website (which involved the creation of a website that trades paintings through the Internet) and the Text Based Voice Chat (for which a Proxy Voice Chat system was designed and developed in Visual Basic that incorporated the predominant computing aspects).

In addition to his academics, Karky also served as Academic tutor at the university. He conducted class room tutorials and laboratory sessions on subjects such as Relational Database Systems and Programming Languages.

As part of his PhD program on information technology, he developed a Java-based simulation platform called SENSE (Simulated Environment of Networked Sensor Experiments), to test different heuristics. This project was done under the guidance of Dr. Maria Orlowska and Dr. Shazia Sadiq. His thesis is titled "Design considerations for query dissemination in wireless sensor networks".[6]

Upon his return to India following the completion of his post-graduation, Karky returned to CEG Anna University in December 2007. He was a Senior Research Fellow for the next six months, managing research projects as well as multiple student projects at an undergrad and postgrad levels. In addition to those, he handled courses and labs for students who pursued their master's degrees. He also served as a Project Scientist between July 2008 and July 2009, managing projects of research groups as well as ME & MBA students.

Starting from August 2009, he began his role as an Assistant Professor. He lectured Computer Science students who were pursuing their Bachelors and master's degrees as well as coordinated the Tamil Computing Lab at the University. He also served as counsellor for NRI and foreign national students, as well as the Staff treasurer of Computer Science Engineering Association. Some of the subjects he taught include Advanced Databases, Ethics for Engineers, Principles of Programming Languages, Environmental Science and Tamil Computing (for PhD students).

Karky's been married to Nandini Eswaramoorthy, a fellow alum at Anna University, since June 22, 2008. Nandini Karky now works in the Tamil film industry as a subtitler for feature films and documentaries. They have a son named Haiku Karky, who was born in 2009.

During his teaching stint at Anna University, Karky also began his career in the Tamil film industry with the science-fiction film Enthiran (2010), the magnum opus of director Shankar. Karky had approached the director in 2008 with some of the songs he had written, and was brought him on board to help with the dialogues of the film, especially assisting with technical terminology. He stated that there were three sets of dialogues written for almost every scene of the film; one by Shankar, one by Karky, and the other by the late Sujatha Rangarajan, a frequent collaborator with the director who had died during the early stages of the film's pre-production. Shankar would go through all the three drafts and implement those that fit best. The climax was the only portion that didn't have multiple hands, as it was written solely by Karky.

In addition to the dialogue, Karky wrote 2 songs for the film, as well: "Irumbile oru Irudhaiyam" (the first song of his career, which was partially crooned by A.R. Rahman) and "Boom Boom Robo Da". However, Kanden Kadhalai (2009), in which he had written the song "Ododi Poren" (composed by Vidyasagar), became his first release. For his work on Enthiran, Karky was named Best Find of the Year at the 2011 Vijay Awards.

Following his work on Enthiran, Karky became one of the most sought after lyricists in the Tamil film industry, having multiple collaborations with A.R. Rahman, Harris Jayaraj, D. Imman, M.M. Keeravani, Yuvan Shankar Raja, S. Thaman, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Anirudh Ravichander and Sam CS. In addition to his native Tamil, he is known for penning songs in multiple languages; some of which include "Asku Laska" from Nanban (which features 16 different languages), "The Rise of Damo" from 7aum Arivu (written in Mandarin) and "Continua" from Nootrenbadhu (in Portuguese). His work is also characterized by infusing uncommon Tamil words that aren't normally used in everyday lexicon, as part of lyrics (like "Kuviyamillaa Kaatchi Paezhai" from Ko[7] and "Panikoozh" from I). He also wrote the first palindrome song in Tamil cinema for the film Vinodhan. As of the end of 2018, he has over six hundred songs to his credit.

Some of Karky's most popular songs include "Irumbile oru Irudhaiyam" (Enthiran), "Enamo Edho" (Ko), "Nee Koorinal" (Nootrenbadhu), "Asku Laska" (Nanban), "Google Google" (Thuppakki), "Elay Keechaan" (Kadal), "Osakka" (Vanakkam Chennai), "Selfie Pulla" (Kaththi), "Pookkalae Sattru Oyivedungal" (I), "Mei Nigara" (24), "Azhagiye" (Kaatru Veliyidai), "Endhira Logathu Sundariye" (2.0) and "Kurumba" (Tik Tik Tik).

On the heels of the success with Enthiran, Karky once again collaborated as a dialogue writer with director Shankar for Nanban. An adaptation of the Hindi blockbuster 3 Idiots, he infused a twang to the dialogue that aimed to showcase college life in a different manner. He also collaborated as a technical advisor with Shankar with 2.0 (the sequel to Enthiran).

Karky's also known for his successful collaboration with Telugu director S.S. Rajamouli, on his two-part magnum opus Baahubali; the second part being the most profitable South Indian film of all time, and the upcoming RRR. His other notable projects as a dialogue writer include Gokul's Idharkuthane Aasaipattai Balakumara, Venkat Prabhu's Massu Engira Masilamani,[8] and Nag Ashwin's Mahanati (a biopic of legendary South Indian film actress Savitri).

For the Baahubali series, Karky created a language called "Kiliki", which was spoken by the Kalakeya tribe in the film. The genesis of the language was laid during his time in Australia, where he also worked part-time as a babysitter and created a language called "Click" for the purpose of inventing a new language along with kids. When approached by director Rajamouli to have a language which sounded fear-inducing, he pitched to create a language of his own. Using "Click" as a base, he added about 750 words and 40 grammar rules, and named the language "Kiliki". Verbal clicks such as 'tch' and 'tsk' are used as tense and plural markers in the language. Phonetic reversals were also heavily used for opposite words ('min' for "I", 'nim' for "you").[9] The language doesn't have words that stand-in for remorse, as the characters who speak it in the film do not exude that quality.

In his first decade as a lyricist and dialogue writer, Karky has been part of some of the biggest blockbusters in modern Indian cinema such as Enthiran (2010), Ko (2011), Naan Ee (2012), Thuppakki (2012), Kaththi (2014), I (2015), Bajirao Mastani (2015), the Baahubali series (2015; 2017), Nadigaiyar Thilagam (2018), Padmaavat (2018) and 2.0 (2018).

After resigning from his teaching position at Anna University in January 2013, Karky along with his wife Nandini Karky founded KaReFo, the Karky Research Foundation, a non-profit educational research organization which focuses on language computing and language literacy. He serves as the Research Head for the organization.

The projects developed by KaReFo include "Chol" (an online Tamil-English-Tamil dictionary), "Piripori" (a morphological analyser and compound word splitter for Tamil), "Olingoa" (a transliteration tool), "Paeri" (a name generator that produces around 9 crore male/female names based on Tamil phonetics), "Emoni" (a rhyme finder tool), "Kural" (a Thirukural portal), "eN" (a number to text converter), "Paadal" (a Tamil lyric portal to research and browse song lyrics) and "Aadugalam" (a portal for word games).

For the work done by the organization on "Piripori", Karky was felicitated with the Chief Minister award for Computing in February 2019.[10]

In November 2008, Karky founded the Mellinam Education and serves as its Director. The organization specializes in content creation for children's educational tools such as books and games, which aims to introduce the Tamil language and incite interest in children to explore science and innovations in Tamil literature.

Their products are branded under the name "iPaatti" and they include song books, stories, word games and sentence games for children. Some of the projects in development include toys and electronic games.

In April 2016, Karky launched DooPaaDoo, an online music platform, along with his friend Kauntheya, to promote independent and non-film music. His intention to create a song bank containing music not created exclusively for films, which could be presented to producers and directors who had the option to pick the ones they feel suited with their projects. In addition to serving as a label for independent music, DooPaaDoo serves a distributor for soundtracks to Tamil films.

The first song released in the platform was composed by M.S. Viswanathan. Over 60 top composers from the Tamil film industry were roped in to provide content for the platform, which aimed to release one song every day.

Karky also served as radio jockey for the show Big DooPaaDoo on the radio station Big FM 92.7, which aired on Saturdays between 6 and 9 PM.

In addition to serving as the director for the DooPaaDoo, Karky has personally penned several songs for the platform, collaborating with prominent and independent figures in the music industry such as Srinivas, Karthik, Anil Srinivasan, Rizwan, Karthikeya Murthy, Vijay Prakash, Andrea Jeremiah, Aj Alimirzaq, and director Gautham Vasudev Menon (who also directed three music videos for songs written by Karky, which featured actors Tovino Thomas, Dhivyadharshini, Aishwarya Rajesh and Atharvaa). Some of the prominent indie songs written by Karky include "Ulaviravu", "Koova", "Bodhai Kodhai", "Yaavum Inidhe", "Edho Oar Araiyil", "Kaadhal Thozhi" and "Periyar Kuthu".

Karky also served as co-anchor with pianist Anil Srinivasan on the musical reality talk show Sundays with Anil and Karky, which aired on Zee Tamil HD for 13 episodes between December 2017 and April 2018. The program featured celebrity guests both from within the music field as well as other segments of the entertainment industry, and showcase composition and performance of music. Some of the prominent guests in the show's run include composers Sean Roldan, G.V. Prakash Kumar and Srinivas; directors Venkat Prabhu, Vasanth, Gautham Menon and Rajiv Menon; actors Siddharth, RJ Balaji and Kushboo; and singers Karthik, Andrea Jeremiah, Gana Bala and Saindhavi.