Madhan Karky

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

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 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.

Karky has had a passion for photography since childhood and possesses a large collection of pictures he had captured from his young age. He learnt the nuances of the art through YouTube. He particularly specializes in capturing candid moments of random emotions, and indicates children as his favorite subjects. He also cites travelling as a major passion, making three recreational trips every year to places he's never been before outside India, within India and within Tamil Nadu. He has travelled to all 7 continents including a trip to Antarctica in 2018. Other recreational activities of his include cooking, coding in Java and badminton. He has done a lot of research not only on lyrics, but also on other topics in Tamil and publishing papers.

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.

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.

Madhan Karky Vairamuthu is an Indian lyricist, screenwriter, research associate, software engineer, and entrepreneur. A holder of a doctorate in computer science from the University of Queensland, Karky began his professional career as an assistant professor at the College of Engineering, Guindy, and soon after ventured into the Tamil film industry, working as a lyricist and dialogue writer. He resigned from his teaching profession in early 2013 and began working full-time in the film industry, while also launching the Karky Research Foundation (KaReFo), an educational research organization which primarily focuses on language computing and language literacy. He also founded the Mellinam Education, which develops educational games and story books designed to propagate learning among children, and DooPaaDoo, an online music platform which promotes independent music and serves a distributor for film soundtracks.

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.

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 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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.