Kamaraj

Kamaraj was born on 15th July 1903.

More interested in the freedom struggle than in his studies, Kamaraj spent his time listening to the speeches of freedom fighters. S. Satyamurti was his idol and inspiration. Kamaraj spent most of his early twenties behind bars for his participation in the freedom struggle.

After being released, he continued serving the people by joining politics and eventually became the CM of TN. Serving as the CM for 3 consecutive terms, Kamaraj single-handedly transformed the face of TN forever.

He started the mid-day meal scheme, as part of which, free food was provided to children in schools. This was done to encourage the students to study by eliminating their need to work to earn their food.

He built dams and promoted the industrialization of TN through several other measures.

Simple and straightforward, he was a true statesman. Despite being uneducated, he was immensely wise and much more practical than many of his educated peers. Always ready to help out and always accessible, he redefined leadership. As fate would have it, he eventually lost the Chief Ministership and TN has been limping on ever since. Yes. Limping on. Many might quote statistical facts to prove otherwise. Granted, TN is one of the most developed and industrialized states in India. My take is that, TN has achieved only a fraction of its potential. Under the leadership of an able leader like Kamaraj, TN would have achieved all this in a much quicker time frame.

A lifelong bachelor, despite the fond wishes of his mother and a teetotaller, Kamaraj dedicated his entire life to the growth of TN, which he fondly referred to as "Nam Naadu", meaning our country.

An excellent film has been made about this great leader by Ramana Communications. I strongly recommend this movie to anyone interested to know more about Kamaraj. Kamaraj's family maintains a blog, which contains some rare pictures of Kamaraj.

A dedicated son. A true leader. A great statesman. An unparalleled Kingmaker.

Best of all, Karmaveerar par excellence.

On behalf of his innumerable fans and followers, I take this humble opportunity to thank him for his efforts to improve TN, particularly his mid-day meal schemes and other education related welfare schemes. Thank You Sir.

Periyar

Thanthai Periyar was born in Erode. A rationalist par excellence, he spent the better part of his life in his efforts to root out superstitious and irrational beliefs. An atheist, he staunchly opposed belief in God.

Born in a well-to-do family, he managed his family business. His increasingly unorthodox views led to frequent misgivings with his parents, especially his religiously devout mother. He embarked on a trip to Varanasi, which would change the course of his life.

The incident at Varanasi, where he had to eat the rejected food is too well-known to be recounted here. Rest as they is history.

On returning to Tamil Nadu, he became the District Collector of Erode. As the father figure of Erode, he implemented many welfare schemes and fought the vested interests in favour of the common man.

Soon, he started gaining fame for his efforts and met Mahatma Gandhi on many occasions.

He visited Russia and other countries and he gained invaluable knowledge of life outside Tamil Nadu and India, that would prove decisive in molding his beliefs. He extolled the so-called backward sections of the society to shun their identities, which he believed had been unjustly imposed on them to stall their progress and deny them any access to knowledge of any kind. Periyar encouraged them to move to other countries, where they will be accepted on par with other members of the society, without any prejudice or bias, that were widely prevalent in those times in India.

He encouraged Kamaraj to take up the leadership of TN as the CM. Kamaraj publicly acknowledged Periyar as his leading beacon. Kamaraj during his 3 term tenure as the CM, single-handedly transformed the face of TN forever. More on Kamaraj here.

Periyar lived out his entire life, fighting the social evils. When the inevitable end came at the age of 95, Periyar had done more for the oppressed people in TN than any other individual had ever done.

For more on Periyar, please visit this site.

Emotional Design - Why we love or hate everyday things by Donald A. Norman

This book by Donald Norman does a great job at analyzing the effect of design on our day-to-day life.

My personal favorite sections of the book deal with movies and video games. I wanted to include a separate blog entry about movies. Since Norman is a way better writer than me, I am happy to point the readers to his book :)

Importance of Body Language

People do not always tell what is in their minds. It is upto us to find out what is exactly in their minds. The intention here is not to pry into others' minds, but to ensure that we are not being lied to.

When people lie, they inadvertently show that fact through certain body language gestures that are called as "deception signals". These include rubbing the eyes, looking away and a few other discernable signals.

I will list out a few other very common body language signals.

Crossed arms and / or legs show negative / defensive attitude. If such a gesture is displayed by someone in a meeting or presentation, that means the presenter is not getting his point across successfully. He / she needs to find out the reason and address it immediately. One of the simplest ways to break this attitude-barrier is to give a pen or something to the concerned person to hold, which makes them uncross their arms and consequentially, their attitude.

Similarly, the direction in which the legs point to is indicative of the mind too.

For more tips and pointers, please refer to the book here.