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153-456: Andha Naal ( pronounced [an̪da naːɭ] transl.  That Day ) is a 1954 Indian Tamil -language mystery - thriller film, produced by A. V. Meiyappan and directed by S. Balachander . It is the first film noir in Tamil cinema , and the first Tamil film to be made without songs, dance, or stunt sequences. Set in the milieu of World War II , the story is about the killing of

306-488: A converter , which has the same fitting as the pen's cartridge and has a filling mechanism and a reservoir attached to it. This enables a pen to fill either from cartridges or from a bottle of ink. The most common type of converters are piston-style, but many other varieties may be found today. Piston-style converters generally have a transparent round tubular ink reservoir. Fountain pen inks feature differing surface tensions that can cause an ink to adhere or "stick" against

459-468: A lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached. Most Tamil affixes are suffixes . Tamil suffixes can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person , number , mood , tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination , which can lead to long words with many suffixes, which would require several words or

612-480: A stress relieving point , preventing the nib from cracking longitudinally from the end of the slit as a result of repeated flexing during use. The nib narrows to a point where the ink is transferred to the paper. Extremely broad calligraphy pens may have several slits in the nib to increase ink flow and help distribute it evenly across the point, but such designs are more commonly found on dip pens. Nibs divided into three 'tines' are commonly known as music nibs. This

765-484: A , as with other Indic scripts . This inherent vowel is removed by adding a tittle called a puḷḷi , to the consonantal sign. For example, ன is ṉa (with the inherent a ) and ன் is ṉ (without a vowel). Many Indic scripts have a similar sign, generically called virama , but the Tamil script is somewhat different in that it nearly always uses a visible puḷḷi to indicate a 'dead consonant' (a consonant without

918-759: A 2001 survey, there were 1,863 newspapers published in Tamil, of which 353 were dailies. Tamil is the primary language of the majority of the people residing in Tamil Nadu , Puducherry , (in India) and in the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . The language is spoken among small minority groups in other states of India which include Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Kerala , Maharashtra , Gujarat , Delhi , Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India and in certain regions of Sri Lanka such as Colombo and

1071-449: A Tamil saying " Kolaiyum Seival patthini " (a wife may even kill her own husband) as a clue to the identity of the culprit. Usha is depicted as a virtuous wife and a patriot who loves her country. When she discovers that her husband has betrayed India, she decides to kill him. The jury of the 2nd National Film Awards described Naidu as a "conscientious" officer, and Sivanandam as a "brilliant, eccentric but not so serious" man. " Andha Naal

1224-402: A cinema of renaissance is Andha Naal ". The writer also appreciated Maruti Rao's cinematography and Meiyappan's courageous effort, and asked fans to support such a film if they "really want Tamil cinema to progress". The Indian Express praised the script by Seetharaman, the performances of Ganesan, Pandari Bai and Sambandam, the absence of songs and dance sequences, and concluded that the film

1377-512: A decade earlier. A capillary filling system was introduced by Parker in the Parker 61 in 1956. There were no moving parts: the ink reservoir within the barrel was open at the upper end, but contained a tightly rolled length of slotted, flexible plastic. To fill, the barrel was unscrewed, the exposed open end of the reservoir was placed in ink and the interstices of the plastic sheet and slots initiated capillary action , drawing up and retaining

1530-519: A family of around 26 languages native to the Indian subcontinent . It is also classified as being part of a Tamil language family that, alongside Tamil proper, includes the languages of about 35 ethno-linguistic groups such as the Irula and Yerukula languages (see SIL Ethnologue ). The closest major relative of Tamil is Malayalam ; the two began diverging around the 9th century CE. Although many of

1683-506: A few modern manufacturers (especially Conway Stewart , Montblanc , Graf von Faber-Castell , and Visconti ) now depict the fountain pen as a collectible item or a status symbol , rather than an everyday writing tool. However, fountain pens continue to have a growing following among many who view them as superior writing instruments due to their relative smoothness and versatility. Retailers continue to sell fountain pens and inks for casual and calligraphic use. Recently, fountain pens have made

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1836-425: A film festival, was inspired by it and wrote a play in the same narrative style, but the script was rejected by All India Radio ; Meiyappan later agreed to produce it as the film that would later be titled Andha Naal under AVM Productions . The screenplay was written by Javar Seetharaman , who also played a prominent role as an investigative officer in the film. The cinematography was handled by S. Maruti Rao , and

1989-672: A film without song sequences. The film was later re-released after winning the Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film in Tamil at the 2nd National Film Awards (1955), and became a box-office success. Moser Baer and AP International have released the film on home video. In addition to its National Film Award win, the film won a Best Film Award from the Madras Filmfans' Association in 1955. Contemporary critics lauded Meiyappan and Balachander for

2142-406: A fountain pen nib receives such an overflow it will result in ink blobbing or dripping also known as burping. A pen with a misconfigured feed might fail to deposit any ink whatsoever. Some fountain pens use a fiber wick underneath the nib. They often have a plastic part that looks like a feed that is only used to hold the fiber wick in place and does not assist with ink flow. The mechanism of action

2295-522: A fountain pen was issued in May 1809 to Frederick Fölsch, with a patent covering (among other things) an improved fountain pen feed issued to Joseph Bramah in September 1809. John Scheffer's patent of 1819 was the first design to see commercial success, with a number of surviving examples of his "Penographic" known. Another noteworthy pioneer design was John Jacob Parker's, patented in 1832 – a self-filler with

2448-450: A hard, wear-resistant alloy that typically includes metals from the platinum group. These metals share qualities of extreme hardness and corrosion resistance. The tipping material is often called "iridium", but few if any nib manufacturers have used tipping alloys containing iridium since the mid-1950s. The metals osmium, rhenium , ruthenium, and tungsten are used instead, generally as an alloy, produced as tiny pellets which are welded onto

2601-412: A knob at the end of the barrel is unscrewed and the attached plunger is drawn out to its full length. The nib is immersed in ink, the plunger is pushed in, compressing and then releasing the ink sac by means of air pressure. The nib is kept in the ink for approximately 10 seconds to allow the reservoir to fill. This mechanism is very closely modeled after a similar pneumatic filler introduced by Chilton over

2754-449: A leaky fountain pen to collect her fingerprints. That evening, he and Naidu meet all the suspects at Rajan's house. Sivanandam carries out an exercise in which the suspects—including Usha—must pretend he is Rajan and shoot him using revolvers loaded with fake bullets. Chinnaiya, Pattabi and Hema shoot him as instructed, but Usha fails to do so and bursts into tears. Sivanandam then demands to have Pattabi and Hema arrested, until Usha reveals

2907-432: A long time to come back, the two hear a moment's silence followed by a gunshot, run into Rajan's room and Sivanandam screams, "Usha!". Director S. Balachander watched Akira Kurosawa 's Rashomon (1950) at a film festival, was inspired by it, and wrote a play in the same narrative style, but the script was rejected by All India Radio . He later approached A. V. Meiyappan , the founder of AVM Productions , and narrated

3060-466: A metal pen "to carry ink". Noted Maryland historian Hester Dorsey Richardson (1862–1933) documented a reference to "three silver fountain pens, worth 15 shillings" in England during the reign of Charles II , c. 1649–1685. By the early 18th century such pens were already commonly known as "fountain pens". Hester Dorsey Richardson also found a 1734 notation made by Robert Morris the elder in the ledger of

3213-607: A number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to before 500 BCE, the oldest attestation of the language. Old Tamil is the period of the Tamil language spanning the 3rd century BCE to the 8th century CE. The earliest records in Old Tamil are short inscriptions from 300 BCE to 700 CE. These inscriptions are written in a variant of the Brahmi script called Tamil-Brahmi . The earliest long text in Old Tamil

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3366-671: A number of skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns dating from at least 696 BCE in Adichanallur . Some of these urns contained writing in Tamil Brahmi script, and some contained skeletons of Tamil origin. Between 2017 and 2018, 5,820 artifacts have been found in Keezhadi . These were sent to Beta Analytic in Miami , Florida , for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating. One sample containing Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions

3519-518: A number of sound changes, in particular, a tendency to lower high vowels in initial and medial positions, and the disappearance of vowels between plosives and between a plosive and rhotic. Contact with European languages affected written and spoken Tamil. Changes in written Tamil include the use of European-style punctuation and the use of consonant clusters that were not permitted in Middle Tamil. The syntax of written Tamil has also changed, with

3672-544: A pen that would not stain his hands or clothes, and was provided with a pen that held ink in a reservoir, allowing it to be held upside-down without leaking. There is compelling evidence that a working fountain pen was constructed and used during the Renaissance by artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci . Leonardo's journals contain drawings with cross-sections of what appears to be a reservoir pen that works by both gravity and capillary action. Historians also took note of

3825-401: A radio engineer Rajan ( Sivaji Ganesan ). The suspects are Rajan's wife Usha ( Pandari Bai ), the neighbour Chinnaiya Pillai ( P. D. Sambandam ), Rajan's brother Pattabi ( T. K. Balachandran ), Rajan's sister-in-law Hema (Menaka), and Rajan's mistress Ambujam (K. Sooryakala). Each one's account of the incident points to a new suspect. Balachander watched Akira Kurosawa 's Rashomon (1950) at

3978-484: A radio engineer and communications researcher, is found shot dead by his own handgun in his house in Madras after his neighbour, Chinnaiya Pillai, having heard the gunshot, informs the police. Purushothaman Naidu, a local police inspector, arrives at Rajan's house and starts investigating the death. Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D.) Officer Sivanandam joins Naidu to help with the investigation. Naidu suggests that

4131-413: A resurgence, with some retailers, such as Goulet Pens , saying it is because of renewed consumer interest in analog products. This has led to a new wave of casual use fountain pens and custom ink manufacturers, who utilize online stores to easily sell fountain pens to a wider audience. The feed of a fountain pen is the component that connects the nib of the pen with its ink reservoir. It not only allows

4284-401: A rigid metal pressure bar, with the crescent portion protruding from the pen through a slot and the pressure bar inside the barrel. A second component, a C-shaped hard rubber lock ring, is located between the crescent and the barrel. In normal use the ring blocks the crescent from being depressed. To fill the pen, the ring is turned until the gap in the ring is aligned with the crescent, allowing

4437-471: A screw mechanism draws a piston up the barrel, sucking in ink. Pens with this mechanism remain very popular today. Some of the earlier models had to dedicate as much as half of the pen length to the mechanism. The advent of telescoping pistons has improved this; the Touchdown Filler was introduced by Sheaffer in 1949. It was advertised as an "Exclusive Pneumatic Down-stroke Filler." To fill it,

4590-513: A screw-operated piston. The Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru received a French patent on May 25, 1827, for the invention of a fountain pen with a barrel made from a large swan quill. In 1828, Josiah Mason improved a cheap and efficient slip-in nib in Birmingham , England, which could be added to a fountain pen and in 1830, with the invention of a new machine, William Joseph Gillott , William Mitchell, and James Stephen Perry devised

4743-659: A sentence in English. To give an example, the word pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go" and consists of the following morphemes : போக pōka go முடி muṭi accomplish Fountain pen According to Qadi al-Nu'man al-Tamimi ( d.  974 ) in his Kitab al-Majalis wa 'l-musayarat , the Fatimid caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah in Arab Egypt demanded

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4896-647: A small number speak the language. In Reunion where the Tamil language was forbidden to be learnt and used in public space by France it is now being relearnt by students and adults. Tamil is also spoken by migrants from Sri Lanka and India in Canada , the United States , the United Arab Emirates , the United Kingdom , South Africa , and Australia . Tamil is the official language of

5049-610: A subject of study in schools in the French overseas department of Réunion . In addition, with the creation in October 2004 of a legal status for classical languages by the Government of India and following a political campaign supported by several Tamil associations, Tamil became the first legally recognised Classical language of India. The recognition was announced by the contemporaneous President of India , Abdul Kalam , who

5202-478: A valve in the blind end of the pen, which mates with a specially designed ink bottle. Thus docked, ink is then squeezed into the pen barrel (which, lacking any mechanism other than the valve itself, has nearly the capacity of an eyedropper-fill pen of the same size). This system had been implemented only in their "Level" line, which was discontinued in 2006. Most pens today use either a piston filler, squeeze-bar filler or cartridge. Many pens are also compatible with

5355-463: A variety of dialects that are all collectively known as Brahmin Tamil . These dialects tend to have softer consonants (with consonant deletion also common). These dialects also tend to have many Sanskrit loanwords. Tamil in Sri Lanka incorporates loan words from Portuguese , Dutch , and English. In addition to its dialects, Tamil exhibits different forms: a classical literary style modelled on

5508-438: A vowel). In other Indic scripts, it is generally preferred to use a ligature or a half form to write a syllable or a cluster containing a dead consonant, although writing it with a visible virama is also possible. The Tamil script does not differentiate voiced and unvoiced plosives . Instead, plosives are articulated with voice depending on their position in a word, in accordance with the rules of Tamil phonology . In addition to

5661-568: A way to mass manufacture robust, cheap steel pen nibs ( Perry & Co. ). This boosted the Birmingham pen trade and by the 1850s, more than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen were employed in the industry. Many new manufacturing techniques were perfected, enabling the city's factories to mass-produce their pens cheaply and efficiently. These were sold worldwide to many who previously could not afford to write, thus encouraging

5814-502: A wire acting as a valve. Stylographic pens are now used mostly for drafting and technical drawing but were very popular in the decade beginning in 1875. In the 1880s the era of the mass-produced fountain pen finally began. The dominant American producers in this pioneer era were Waterman , of New York City , and Wirt, based in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania . Waterman soon outstripped Wirt, along with many companies that sprang up to fill

5967-769: Is Rajan's wife Usha, who is unable to speak because of her grief. Sivanandam and Naidu feel embarrassed and are reluctant to question her further. They begin interrogating Chinnaiya, who proposes that the killer is probably Pattabi, Rajan's younger brother, and recalls a confrontation between them: Pattabi asked for his share of the family property but Rajan refused his request, feeling that he and his wife would squander it. Chinnaiya concludes that this may have prompted Pattabi to kill Rajan. When Sivanandam and Naidu interrogate Pattabi, who feels remorse for Rajan's death, he admits that he did not treat his brother well nor understand his good intentions. He recounts an incident in which his wife Hema fought with Rajan because he refused to apportion

6120-599: Is [neutralised] by a chaste Tamil woman, the virtuous wife". Director Chimbu Deven acknowledged Andha Naal as an influence on his 2014 film Oru Kanniyum Moonu Kalavaanikalum . Andha Naal was screened in the "Tamil Retrospective Section" of the 14th International Film Festival of India in 1991. In 2008, Randor Guy praised it for "being the first Tamil film which had no dance, song or stunt sequence and for [Balachander]'s impressive direction and fine performances by Sivaji Ganesan and Pandari Bai". In March 2012, film historian Mohan Raman told The Times of India that, being

6273-584: Is a Dravidian language natively spoken by the Tamil people of South Asia . It is one of the two longest-surviving classical languages in India , along with Sanskrit , attested since c. 300 BCE. The language belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian language family and shares close ties with Malayalam and Kannada . Despite external influences, Tamil has retained a sense of linguistic purism, especially in formal and literary contexts. Tamil

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6426-457: Is based on the dialect of Jaffna . After Tamil Brahmi fell out of use, Tamil was written using a script called vaṭṭeḻuttu amongst others such as Grantha and Pallava . The current Tamil script consists of 12 vowels , 18 consonants and one special character, the āytam . The vowels and consonants combine to form 216 compound characters, giving a total of 247 characters (12 + 18 + 1 + (12 × 18)). All consonants have an inherent vowel

6579-406: Is because their line, which can be varied from broad to fine, is suited for writing musical scores. Although the most common nibs end in a round point of various sizes (extra fine, fine, medium, broad), various other nib shapes are available. Examples of this are double broad, music, oblique, reverse oblique, stub, italic, and 360-degree nibs. Broader nibs are used for less precise emphasis, with

6732-401: Is deemed unlikely by Southworth due to the contemporary use of the compound 'centamiḻ', which means refined speech in the earliest literature. The Tamil Lexicon of University of Madras defines the word "Tamil" as "sweetness". S. V. Subramanian suggests the meaning "sweet sound", from tam – "sweet" and il – "sound". Tamil belongs to the southern branch of the Dravidian languages ,

6885-563: Is extensively described in the oldest known grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam . Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th-century grammar Naṉṉūl which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam , with some modifications. Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu , col , poruḷ , yāppu , aṇi . Of these, the last two are mostly applied in poetry. Tamil words consist of

7038-474: Is for the higher classes of audience and they loved it. But it failed to elicit the interest of the average masses who just go to see a film with all the usual trappings. Yet it was a film that exceeded expectations in all respects." —Producer A. V. Meiyappan, on the film's reception Andha Naal received a "U" (universal) certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification after 14 cuts . It

7191-511: Is found in Tholkappiyam , which is dated as early as late 2nd century BCE. The Hathigumpha inscription , inscribed around a similar time period (150 BCE), by Kharavela , the Jain king of Kalinga , also refers to a Tamira Samghatta ( Tamil confederacy ) The Samavayanga Sutra dated to the 3rd century BCE contains a reference to a Tamil script named 'Damili'. Southworth suggests that

7344-405: Is generally taken to have been completed by the 8th century, was characterised by a number of phonological and grammatical changes. In phonological terms, the most important shifts were the virtual disappearance of the aytam (ஃ), an old phoneme, the coalescence of the alveolar and dental nasals, and the transformation of the alveolar plosive into a rhotic . In grammar, the most important change

7497-409: Is generally used in formal writing and speech. For instance, it is the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. In recent times, however, koṭuntamiḻ has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of centamiḻ . Most contemporary cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio, for example,

7650-410: Is in koṭuntamiḻ , and many politicians use it to bring themselves closer to their audience. The increasing use of koṭuntamiḻ in modern times has led to the emergence of unofficial 'standard' spoken dialects. In India, the 'standard' koṭuntamiḻ , rather than on any one dialect, but has been significantly influenced by the dialects of Thanjavur and Madurai . In Sri Lanka, the standard

7803-478: Is like a felt pen, just with a fountain pen nib on top of it. The fiber feeds offer plenty of ink flow and can stay wet for extended periods. Cleaning fiber feed pens can require longer soaking in water. The modern fountain pen nib is a direct descendant of the iridium-tipped gold dip pen nibs of the 19th century. The earliest attempts at adding a hard and long-wearing tipping material to a gold nib utilized materials such as ruby. A more successful approach exploited

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7956-771: Is not always consistently applied. ISO 15919 is an international standard for the transliteration of Tamil and other Indic scripts into Latin characters. It uses diacritics to map the much larger set of Brahmic consonants and vowels to Latin script , and thus the alphabets of various languages, including English. Apart from the usual numerals, Tamil has numerals for 10, 100 and 1000. Symbols for day, month, year, debit, credit, as above, rupee, and numeral are present as well. Tamil also uses several historical fractional signs. /f/ , /z/ , /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ are only found in loanwords and may be considered marginal phonemes, though they are traditionally not seen as fully phonemic. Tamil has two diphthongs : /aɪ̯/ ஐ and /aʊ̯/ ஔ ,

8109-592: Is predominantly spoken in Tamil Nadu , India, and the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka . It has significant speaking populations in Malaysia , Singapore , and among diaspora communities . Tamil has been recognized as a classical language by the Indian government and holds official status in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Singapore. The earliest extant Tamil literary works and their commentaries celebrate

8262-711: Is regarded by many critics as Balachander's best. Encouraged by its critical success, Balachander went on to direct and act in several more films of the same genre: Avana Ivan (1962), Bommai (1964) and Nadu Iravil (1970). Andha Naal inspired several later whodunit films: including Puthiya Paravai (1964), Kalangarai Vilakkam (1965), Sigappu Rojakkal (1978), Moodu Pani (1980) and Pulan Visaranai (1990), and several songless Tamil films such as Unnaipol Oruvan (1965), Kudisai (1979), Veedu (1988) and Uchi Veyil (1990). Researcher and ethnographer Preeti Mudliar compared Ratha Kanneer (1954) to Andha Naal because in both films "the sin of foreignness

8415-409: Is the Tolkāppiyam , an early work on Tamil grammar and poetics, whose oldest layers could be as old as the late 2nd century BCE. Many literary works in Old Tamil have also survived. These include a corpus of 2,381 poems collectively known as Sangam literature . These poems are usually dated to between the 1st century BCE and 5th century CE. The evolution of Old Tamil into Middle Tamil , which

8568-508: Is the nib's shape, with longer tines offering more flexibility than short tines, while greater curvature increases stiffness. Contrary to common belief, material alone does not determine a nib's flexibility. Gold alloys of greater purity (18K, or 750/1000 gold) will on average be softer and less springy than alloys of lower purity (14K, or 585/1000 gold), but whatever the alloy its resilience can be altered considerably in manufacture by means of controlled work-hardening. Fountain pens dating from

8721-793: Is used as one of the languages of education in Malaysia , along with English, Malay and Mandarin. A large community of Pakistani Tamils speakers exists in Karachi , Pakistan , which includes Tamil-speaking Hindus as well as Christians and Muslims – including some Tamil-speaking Muslim refugees from Sri Lanka. There are about 100 Tamil Hindu families in Madrasi Para colony in Karachi. They speak impeccable Tamil along with Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi. Many in Réunion , Guyana , Fiji , Suriname , and Trinidad and Tobago have Tamil origins, but only

8874-511: The 2nd National Film Awards in 1955. Despite being a commercial failure at the time of its original release, it has acquired cult status over the years and is regarded as an important film in Tamil cinema. In 2013, Andha Naal was included in News18 's list of the "100 Greatest Indian Films of All Time". On the night of 11 October 1943, during World War II , Japanese forces bomb the Indian city of Madras (now Chennai ). The next morning, Rajan,

9027-465: The Pandiyan Kings for the organization of long-termed Tamil Sangams , which researched, developed and made amendments in Tamil language. Even though the name of the language which was developed by these Tamil Sangams is mentioned as Tamil, the period when the name "Tamil" came to be applied to the language is unclear, as is the precise etymology of the name. The earliest attested use of the name

9180-599: The University of Madras , was one of the earliest dictionaries published in Indian languages. A strong strain of linguistic purism emerged in the early 20th century, culminating in the Pure Tamil Movement which called for removal of all Sanskritic elements from Tamil. It received some support from Dravidian parties . This led to the replacement of a significant number of Sanskrit loanwords by Tamil equivalents, though many others remain. According to

9333-421: The experimental film . While Ganesan's role as an antihero won him critical acclaim, many critics felt that Pandari Bai's role as the patriotic wife overshadowed his performance. Many contemporary critics expected the film to be a trendsetter, but it failed to inspire many thematically similar films in Tamil. Several years later, Balachander's wife Shanta recalled that he was not affected by the film's failure as he

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9486-589: The "best film" produced by Meiyappan. He noted that it "proved that a song-and-danceless film could also be a hit." In July 2007 when S. R. Ashok Kumar of The Hindu asked eight Tamil film directors for a list of their all-time favourite Tamil films, three of them— K. Balachander , Mani Ratnam and Ameer —named Andha Naal . Malaysian author Devika Bai, writing for the New Straits Times , described Andha Naal as Balachander's magnum opus , and Balachander as "Tamil cinema's Father of Film Noir". The film

9639-491: The 11th century, retain many features of the Vaishnava paribasai , a special form of Tamil developed in the 9th and 10th centuries that reflect Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Several castes have their own sociolects which most members of that caste traditionally used regardless of where they come from. It is often possible to identify a person's caste by their speech. For example, Tamil Brahmins tend to speak

9792-481: The Indian state of Haryana , purportedly as a rebuff to Punjab , though there was no attested Tamil-speaking population in the state, and was later replaced by Punjabi , in 2010. In Malaysia, 543 primary education government schools are available fully in Tamil as the medium of instruction . The establishment of Tamil-medium schools has been in process in Myanmar to provide education completely in Tamil language by

9945-474: The Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the 22 languages under schedule 8 of the constitution of India . It is one of the official languages of the union territories of Puducherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tamil is also one of the official languages of Singapore . Tamil is one of the official and national languages of Sri Lanka, along with Sinhala . It was once given nominal official status in

10098-619: The Parker Jack-Knife Safety and the Swan Safety Screw-Cap). In Europe, the German office supplies company Gunther Wagner, founded in 1838, introduced their Pelikan in 1929, the first modern screw piston-filling fountain pen. This was based upon the acquisition of patents for solid-ink fountain pens from the factory of Slavoljub Penkala from Croatia (patented 1907, in mass production since 1911), and

10251-590: The Tamil language, Kannada still preserves a lot from its roots. As part of the southern family of Indian languages and situated relatively close to the northern parts of India, Kannada also shares some Sanskrit words, similar to Malayalam. Many of the formerly used words in Tamil have been preserved with little change in Kannada. This shows a relative parallel to Tamil, even as Tamil has undergone some changes in modern ways of speaking. According to Hindu legend, Tamil or in personification form Tamil Thāi (Mother Tamil)

10404-696: The Tamils who settled there 200 years ago. Tamil language is available as a course in some local school boards and major universities in Canada and the month of January has been declared "Tamil Heritage Month" by the Parliament of Canada . Tamil enjoys a special status of protection under Article 6(b), Chapter 1 of the Constitution of South Africa and is taught as a subject in schools in KwaZulu-Natal province. Recently, it has been rolled out as

10557-463: The Waterman C/F in 1953 that brought cartridge filling to the attention of the international market. Modern plastic cartridges can contain small ridges on the inside to promote free movement of the contained ink and ink/air exchange during writing. Often cartridges are closed with a small ball that gets pressed into the cartridge during insertion into the pen. This ball also aids free movement of

10710-442: The ancient language ( sankattamiḻ ), a modern literary and formal style ( centamiḻ ), and a modern colloquial form ( koṭuntamiḻ ). These styles shade into each other, forming a stylistic continuum. For example, it is possible to write centamiḻ with a vocabulary drawn from caṅkattamiḻ , or to use forms associated with one of the other variants while speaking koṭuntamiḻ . In modern times, centamiḻ

10863-404: The background score was composed by AVM's own music troupe, Saraswathy Stores Orchestra. The film was shorter than most contemporaneous Tamil films. It was the only film directed by Balachander for AVM. Andha Naal was released on 13 April 1954, on the eve of Puthandu (Tamil New Year). It was critically acclaimed and was awarded a Certificate of Merit for Second Best Feature Film in Tamil at

11016-453: The ballpoint pens most modern writers are experienced with. Despite being rigid and firm, the idea that steel nibs write "horribly" is a misconception. More flexible nibs can be easily damaged if excessive pressure is applied to them. Ideally, a fountain pen's nib glides across the paper using the ink as a lubricant, and writing requires no pressure. Good quality nibs that have been used appropriately are long lasting, often lasting longer than

11169-465: The barrel, through which one blew to compress the sac). In 1908 Walter A. Sheaffer received a patent for an improved lever-filling pen. Introduced in 1912, Sheaffer's pens sold in rapidly increasing numbers and by 1920 Sheaffer had become one of the largest fountain pen makers in the United States. Parker introduced the button filler, which had a button hidden beneath a blind cap on the end of

11322-482: The barrel; when pressed, it acted on a pressure bar inside to depress the ink sac. One of the most complex filling mechanisms was introduced in 1952 with the Sheaffer Snorkel. The Snorkel had an axial tube below the nib that could be extended, allowing the pen to be filled from a bottle without needing to immerse the nib or to wipe it off after filling. With the advent of the modern plastic ink cartridge in

11475-414: The benefit of a greater level of ink shading, a property wherein ink pools in parts of a stroke to cause variations in color or sheen – where dyes in ink crystallize on a page instead of absorbing into the paper, which leads to a different color being seen on less absorbent paper due to thin film interference. Finer nibs (e.g. extra fine and fine) may be used for intricate corrections and alterations, at

11628-452: The chamber has a section wider than the rest, and when the plunger passes this point, the difference in air pressure in the area behind the plunger and the area ahead of it is suddenly evened out and ink rushes in behind the plunger to fill the chamber. Converters are also available in several different types such as piston, plunger, squeeze and push button in rare cases. The first commercially successful ink cartridge system for fountain pens

11781-402: The crescent to be depressed, thus compressing the sac. Many other variations on the basic sac and pressure bar mechanism were introduced in the first decades of the 20th century, such as the coin-filler (with a slot on the barrel, allowing the pressure bar to be depressed by use of a coin), the matchstick-filler (with a round hole, for a matchstick) and the blow-filler (with a hole at the end of

11934-689: The culture associated with the Neolithic complexes of South India, but it has also been related to the Harappan civilization . Scholars categorise the attested history of the language into three periods: Old Tamil (300 BCE–700 CE), Middle Tamil (700–1600) and Modern Tamil (1600–present). About of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India in India are in Tamil Nadu. Of them, most are in Tamil, with only about 5 percent in other languages. In 2004,

12087-404: The development of education and literacy. In 1848, American inventor Azel Storrs Lyman patented a pen with "a combined holder and nib". In 1849 Scottish inventor Robert William Thomson invented the refillable fountain pen. From the 1850s, there was a steadily accelerating stream of fountain pen patents and pens in production. However, it was only after three key inventions were in place that

12240-952: The dialect of Madurai , and iṅkaṭe in some northern dialects. Even now, in the Coimbatore area, it is common to hear " akkaṭṭa " meaning "that place". Although Tamil dialects do not differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words and grammatical forms that are not in everyday use in India, and use many other words slightly differently. Tamil dialects include Central Tamil dialect , Kongu Tamil , Madras Bashai , Madurai Tamil , Nellai Tamil , Kumari Tamil in India ; Batticaloa Tamil dialect , Jaffna Tamil dialect , Negombo Tamil dialect in Sri Lanka; and Malaysian Tamil in Malaysia. Sankethi dialect in Karnataka has been heavily influenced by Kannada . The dialect of

12393-399: The differences between Tamil and Malayalam demonstrate a pre-historic divergence of the western dialect, the process of separation into a distinct language, Malayalam, was not completed until sometime in the 13th or 14th century. Additionally Kannada is also relatively close to the Tamil language and shares the format of the formal ancient Tamil language. While there are some variations from

12546-567: The discovery of the platinum group of metals, including ruthenium , osmium , and iridium . From the mid-1830s gold dip pen nibs tipped with iridium were produced in rapidly increasing quantities, first in England and soon thereafter in the United States. The first mass-produced fountain pens used gold nibs sourced from established makers of gold dip pen nibs, some of the most prominent being Mabie Todd, Fairchild, and Aikin Lambert. Today, nibs are usually made of stainless steel or gold , with

12699-647: The district of Palakkad in Kerala has many Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam's syntax, and has a distinctive Malayalam accent. Similarly, Tamil spoken in Kanyakumari District has more unique words and phonetic style than Tamil spoken at other parts of Tamil Nadu. The words and phonetics are so different that a person from Kanyakumari district is easily identifiable by their spoken Tamil. Hebbar and Mandyam dialects, spoken by groups of Tamil Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in

12852-473: The dropper-filler provide ample compensation for its inconveniences. After the eyedropper-filler era came the first generation of mass-produced self-fillers, almost all using a rubber sac to hold the ink. The sac was compressed and then released by various mechanisms to fill the pen. The Conklin crescent filler, introduced c. 1901, was one of the first mass-produced self-filling pen designs. The crescent-filling system employs an arch-shaped crescent attached to

13005-453: The earliest fountain pens were mostly filled by eyedropper ("dropper" was the term used at the time). This could be messy, spurring development of so-called "self-filling" pens equipped with internal filling mechanisms. Though self-fillers had largely displaced dropper-fillers by the 1920s, they never went out of production, and there has been a revival of interest in recent years. For some, the simplicity, reliability, and large ink capacity of

13158-403: The early 1950s most of these filling systems were phased out. Screw-mechanism piston-fillers were made as early as the 1820s, but the mechanism's modern popularity begins with the original Pelikan of 1929, based upon a patent that was initially licensed to a Croatian company Moster-Penkala by inventor Theodore Kovacs. The basic idea is simple and intuitive: turn a knob at the end of the pen and

13311-411: The expense of shading and sheen. Oblique, reverse oblique, stub, and italic nibs may be used for calligraphic purposes or for general handwritten compositions. The line width of a particular nib may vary based on its country of origin; Japanese nibs are often thinner in general. Flexibility is a function of several factors. One is the nib material's resilience; another is its thickness. Finally there

13464-468: The expenses of Robert Morris the younger , who was at the time in Philadelphia , for "one fountain pen". Perhaps the best-known reference, however, is that of Nicholas Bion (1652–1733), whose illustrated description of a "plume sans fin" was published in 1709 in his treatise published in English in 1723 as "The Construction and Principal Uses of Mathematical Instruments". The earliest datable pen of

13617-422: The fact that the handwriting in the inventor's surviving journals is of a consistent contrast throughout, rather than exhibiting the characteristic fading pattern typical of a quill pen caused by expending and re-dipping. While no physical item survives, several working models were reconstructed in 2011 by artist Amerigo Bombara that have since been put on display in museums dedicated to Leonardo. The fountain pen

13770-415: The film in instrumental form: "Yeh Zindagi Usi Ki Hai" from Anarkali (1953) and "Chup Chup Khade Ho" from Bari Behen (1949). No credit for the story is given in the introductory credits. Andha Naal ' s photography was markedly different from most early Tamil films. Rao used the " painting with light " technique, which captures the actors' shadows to convey their "mood and character". Its final cut

13923-480: The film was inspired by Rashomon , Randor Guy notes that this notion is erroneous, that Andha Naal was actually adapted from the 1950 British film The Woman in Question directed by Anthony Asquith , and that there was only a "thematic resemblance" between Andha Naal and Rashomon . Film journalist Jason P. Vest describes the three films as following a nonlinear narrative by presenting diverging accounts of

14076-463: The film with Sivaji Ganesan . When Balachander refused Meiyappan ordered the production controller Vasu Menon to settle Balachander's salary dues and to bring the reels to be burnt before him. Balachander was shocked on hearing this and obliged to Meiyappan's wish. Since Meiyappan had introduced Ganesan in Parasakthi (1952), he was very keen to have him play the lead role. Initially, Balachander

14229-446: The film. A reluctant Ganesan agreed to this, believing the project would take a long time to complete. But to his dismay, Balachander completed the shoot in 17 days. The screenplay was written by Javar Seetharaman , who also appeared in the film as a C.I.D. officer, and provided the voiceover in the opening sequence before Rajan is shot. It was Seetharaman's first collaboration with AVM Productions as an actor and screenwriter. Pandari Bai

14382-468: The first film noir in Tamil cinema, it was "among the significant black and white films of yore", along with Mayabazar (1957) and Uthama Puthiran (1940). In a 2013 interview with the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan , Malayalam filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan listed Andha Naal as one of his earliest favourites in Tamil cinema. In April 2013, Andha Naal was included in News18 's list of "100 greatest Indian films of all time". In mid-April 2014, it

14535-401: The first half of the 20th century are more likely to have flexible nibs, suited to the favored handwriting styles of the period (e.g. Copperplate script and Spencerian script ). By the 1940s, writing preferences had shifted towards stiffer nibs that could withstand the greater pressure required for writing through carbon paper to create duplicate documents. Furthermore, competition between

14688-630: The flow of ink while writing had been regulated, the next problems to be solved were the creation of a simple, convenient self-filler and the problem of leakage. Self-fillers began to gain in popularity around the turn of the century; the most successful of these was probably the Conklin crescent-filler, followed by A. A. Waterman's twist-filler. The tipping point, however, was the runaway success of Walter A. Sheaffer's lever-filler, introduced in 1912, paralleled by Parker's roughly contemporary button-filler. Meanwhile, many inventors turned their attention to

14841-409: The form described by Bion is inscribed 1702, while other examples bear French hallmarks as late as the early 19th century. Progress in developing a reliable pen was slow until the mid-19th century because of an imperfect understanding of the role that air pressure plays in the operation of pens. Furthermore, most inks were highly corrosive and full of sedimentary inclusions. The first English patent for

14994-469: The fountain pen became a widely popular writing instrument. Those were the iridium -tipped gold nib, hard rubber , and free-flowing ink. The first fountain pens making use of all these key ingredients appeared in the 1850s. In the 1870s Duncan MacKinnon, a Canadian living in New York City, and Alonzo T. Cross of Providence, Rhode Island, created stylographic pens with a hollow, tubular nib and

15147-699: The hill country . Tamil or dialects of it were used widely in the state of Kerala as the major language of administration, literature and common usage until the 12th century CE. Tamil was also used widely in inscriptions found in southern Andhra Pradesh districts of Chittoor and Nellore until the 12th century CE. Tamil was used for inscriptions from the 10th through 14th centuries in southern Karnataka districts such as Kolar , Mysore , Mandya and Bengaluru . There are currently sizeable Tamil-speaking populations descended from colonial-era migrants in Malaysia , Singapore , Philippines , Mauritius , South Africa , Indonesia, Thailand, Burma , and Vietnam . Tamil

15300-493: The ink reservoir through the channels of the feed, though some modern authorities believe this is a misconception and such venting is unnecessary. Some fountain pens come without a breather hole such as the Camlin Trinity, Monami Olika, Pelikan Pelikano, and Platinum Preppy. The breather hole's other main function is to provide an endpoint to the nib slit and an indexing point for slit cutting. The breather hole also acts as

15453-432: The ink to flow to the nib (in what is often described as a "controlled leak") but also regulates the amount of air flowing backwards up to the reservoir to replace this lost ink. The feed uses a series of narrow channels or "fissures" that run down its lower edge. As ink flows down these fissures, air is simultaneously allowed to flow upwards into the reservoir in an even exchange of volumes. The feed allows ink to flow when

15606-474: The ink will chemically promote free movement of the contained ink and ink/air exchange during writing. However, ink might react adversely to adding a surfactant. Vacuum fillers, such as those used by Pilot in the Custom 823, utilize air pressure to fill the ink chamber. In this case, while the nib is submerged in ink, a plunger is pushed down the empty chamber to create a vacuum in the space behind it. The end of

15759-414: The ink. The outside of the reservoir was coated with Teflon , a repellent compound that released excess ink as it was withdrawn. Ink was transferred through a further capillary tube to the nib. No method of flushing the device was offered, and because of problems from clogging with dried and hardened ink, production was eventually stopped. Around the year 2000, Pelikan introduced a filling system involving

15912-515: The inside of the reservoir. Common solutions for this problem are adding a small (rust-proof) ink agitating object like a 316L or 904L stainless steel or zirconium dioxide bearing ball , spring or hollow tube in the tubular reservoir to mechanically promote free movement of the contained ink and ink/air exchange during writing. Adding a very small amount of surfactant such as Triton X-100 used in Kodak Photo-Flo 200 wetting agent to

16065-432: The introduction of new aspectual auxiliaries and more complex sentence structures, and with the emergence of a more rigid word order that resembles the syntactic argument structure of English. In 1578, Portuguese Christian missionaries published a Tamil prayer book in old Tamil script named Thambiran Vanakkam , thus making Tamil the first Indian language to be printed and published. The Tamil Lexicon , published by

16218-462: The killer could be a thief who killed Rajan for the money found at the crime scene. However, Sivanandam is unconvinced by Naidu's theory because the amount of money at the scene matches the withdrawal entry in the bank passbook found in the same room. Rajan was about to leave Madras in anticipation of the bombings. The two policemen question five people in and around Rajan's house, most of whom are his family members or friends. The first to be questioned

16371-461: The latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items. Tamil employs agglutinative grammar, where suffixes are used to mark noun class , number , and case , verb tense and other grammatical categories. Tamil's standard metalinguistic terminology and scholarly vocabulary is itself Tamil, as opposed to the Sanskrit that is standard for most Indo-Aryan languages . Much of Tamil grammar

16524-404: The lifetime of the original owner. Many vintage pens with decades-old nibs can still be used today. Other styles of fountain pen nibs include hooded (e.g. Parker 51 , Parker 61, 2007 Parker 100, Lamy 2000, and Hero 329), inlaid (e.g. Sheaffer Targa or Sheaffer P.F.M) or integral Nib (Parker T-1, Falcon, and Pilot Myu 701), . Users are often cautioned not to lend or borrow fountain pens as

16677-402: The main theme of Andha Naal is patriotism; for him the film suggests that if a country does not appreciate its talented young men's efforts, they could turn against the nation. Regarding the more personal undertones, Ganesan said that the film tells how unemployment and desolation can lead young people to become traitors. Rajan becomes a traitor by selling Indian secrets to Japan because his idea

16830-465: The major pen brands such as Parker and Waterman, and the introduction of lifetime guarantees, meant that flexible nibs could no longer be supported profitably. In countries where this rivalry was not present to the same degree, such as the UK and Germany, flexible nibs are more common. Nowadays, stiff nibs are the norm as people exchange between fountain pens and other writing modes. These more closely emulate

16983-656: The masses. By the 1960s, refinements in ballpoint pen production gradually ensured its dominance over the fountain pen for casual use. Although cartridge-filler fountain pens are still in common use in France, Italy, Germany, Austria, India, and the United Kingdom, and are widely used by young students in most private schools in England, at least one private school in Scotland, and public elementary schools in Germany,

17136-569: The master or the creator had seen it." Filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur also believes that the film requires restoration on a "priority basis". A 30-minute play adaptation of the film was staged in April 2016, directed by Balachander's son Raman. Another play adaptation, also directed by him, was staged the following year, on 13 April. Tamil language Sri Lanka Singapore Malaysia Canada and United States Tamil ( தமிழ் , Tamiḻ , pronounced [t̪amiɻ] )

17289-580: The most notable models, such as the Parker Duofold and Vacumatic , Sheaffer's Lifetime Balance series, and the Pelikan 100. During the 1940s and 1950s, fountain pens retained their dominance: early ballpoint pens were expensive, were prone to leaks and had irregular inkflow, while the fountain pen continued to benefit from the combination of mass production and craftsmanship. (Bíró's patent, and other early patents on ball-point pens often used

17442-412: The most popular gold alloys being 14 carat (58⅓%) and 18 carat (75%). Titanium is a less common metal used for making nibs. Gold is considered the optimum metal for its flexibility and its resistance to corrosion , although gold's corrosion resistance is less of an issue than in the past because of better stainless steel alloys and less corrosive inks. Palladium alloys have been used occasionally in

17595-423: The name comes from tam-miḻ > tam-iḻ "self-speak", or "our own speech". Kamil Zvelebil suggests an etymology of tam-iḻ , with tam meaning "self" or "one's self", and " -iḻ " having the connotation of "unfolding sound". Alternatively, he suggests a derivation of tamiḻ < tam-iḻ < * tav-iḻ < * tak-iḻ , meaning in origin "the proper process (of speaking)". However, this

17748-435: The new and growing fountain pen market. Waterman remained the market leader until the early 1920s. At this time, fountain pens were almost all filled by unscrewing a portion of the hollow barrel or holder and inserting the ink by means of a dropper – a slow and messy procedure. Pens also tended to leak inside their caps and at the joint where the barrel opened for filling. Now that the materials' problems had been overcome and

17901-482: The news of the pregnancy with a reckless attitude, Hema suggests that Ambujam could have killed him. When questioned, Ambujam accuses Chinnaiya of murdering Rajan, saying Chinnaiya was her foster father and wanted her to stay away from Rajan after the three met during a picnic. As their relationship continued, Chinnaiya became frustrated and wanted to end the affair. Sivanandam interrogates Usha, who tells him how she and Rajan fell in love. Sivanandam tricks Usha into using

18054-423: The nib "wears in" at an angle unique to each individual person. A different user is likely to find that a worn-in nib does not write satisfactorily in their hand and, furthermore, creates a second wear surface, ruining the nib for the original user. This, however, is not a point of concern in pens with modern, durable tipping material, as these pens take many years to develop any significant wear. The reservoirs of

18207-417: The nib's tip prior to cutting the nib slit and grinding the tip into its final shape. Untipped steel and titanium points will wear more rapidly due to abrasion by the paper. The nib usually has a tapering or parallel slit cut down its centre, to convey the ink down the nib by capillary action , as well as a "breather hole" of varying shape. The breather hole's intended function is to allow air exchange with

18360-537: The old aspect and time markers. The Nannūl remains the standard normative grammar for modern literary Tamil, which therefore continues to be based on Middle Tamil of the 13th century rather than on Modern Tamil. Colloquial spoken Tamil, in contrast, shows a number of changes. The negative conjugation of verbs, for example, has fallen out of use in Modern Tamil – instead, negation is expressed either morphologically or syntactically. Modern spoken Tamil also shows

18513-409: The other crew members. V. C. Gopalaratnam, the president of the association, praised Meiyappan for his "pioneering spirit" in producing a film without songs or dances. The Tamil magazine Gundoosi said that, for fans who were wondering whether there would be a day when a shorter film without songs and dance would be produced that had a narrative beyond the traditional love story, "That Day has come. Such

18666-433: The past, usually as a money-saving alternative to white gold. As long as palladium remains more valuable than gold, however, it is unlikely to see much use for nib manufacture. Further gold plating provides favorable wettability , which is the ability of a solid surface to reduce the surface tension of a liquid in contact with it such that it spreads over the surface. Gold and most steel and titanium nibs are tipped with

18819-500: The patent of the Hungarian Theodor Kovacs for the modern piston filler by 1925. The decades that followed saw many technological innovations in the manufacture of fountain pens. Celluloid gradually replaced hard rubber , which enabled production in a much wider range of colors and designs. At the same time, manufacturers experimented with new filling systems. The inter-war period saw the introduction of some of

18972-420: The pen is being put to paper but ensures ink does not flow when the pen is not in use. The feed makes use of capillary action; this is noticeable when a pen is refilled with a brightly coloured ink. The ink is taken up and into the feed by way of capillary action (and is often visible in clear demonstrator pens), but is not dispensed onto the paper until the nib makes contact. How the feed is shaped may determine

19125-501: The problem of leakage. Some of the earliest solutions to this problem came in the form of a "safety" pen with a retractable point that allowed the ink reservoir to be corked like a bottle. Horton, Moore, and Caw's were the earliest makers of such pens, all starting in the 1890s. In 1898, George Safford Parker released the Parker Jointless , so named because its barrel was single-piece with no section joint to leak and stain

19278-424: The property. Pattabi says Hema could have killed Rajan for the money as she loses her sanity when overpowered by anger. Sivanandam leaves Naidu to interrogate Hema. She is initially impudent and refuses to give a statement about the crime, but she later agrees when Sivanandam threatens to arrest her husband. She reveals Rajan's extramarital affair with Ambujam, a dancer who is pregnant with his child. As Rajan treated

19431-451: The radio engineer Rajan was initially given to S. V. Sahasranamam , who was dismissed after a few days of shooting because Balachander and Meiyappan were not satisfied with his performance and felt he looked "too old" to play the role. The makers then engaged newcomer N. Viswanathan , a Tamilian professor from Calcutta (now Kolkata ). When the production was halfway through, Meiyappan was dissatisfied with his performance and wanted to reshoot

19584-483: The reviewer criticised AVM for not publicising the film as a thriller; he asserted that had the film been publicised in such manner, the fans would not have been horrified by the absence of songs in the film. The reviewer's verdict was "Success of art; failure of narrative". The same month, a meeting was organised by the Film Fans Association in Madras to congratulate Meiyappan, Balachander, the actors and

19737-474: The same incident. Film historian Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai notes that Andha Naal is unrelated to Rashomon except for its whodunit plot, where the killing is explored using various angles, and also notes that, unlike Rashomon , Andha Naal ends with the mystery being solved. In the opinion of B. Vijayakumar of The Hindu , Andha Naal is the first film noir made in South India. According to Ganesan,

19890-470: The standard characters, six characters taken from the Grantha script , which was used in the Tamil region to write Sanskrit, are sometimes used to represent sounds not native to Tamil, that is, words adopted from Sanskrit, Prakrit , and other languages. The traditional system prescribed by classical grammars for writing loan-words, which involves respelling them in accordance with Tamil phonology, remains, but

20043-470: The story for him. Although Meiyappan agreed to produce it as the film that would later be titled Andha Naal , he was unconvinced with Balachander's idea of making it without songs or stunts; however, he agreed to finance the project because he liked the story and trusted Balachander's talent. Andha Naal thus became the first Tamil film that did not have any songs or dance sequences, and was the only film directed by Balachander for AVM Productions. The role of

20196-750: The success of Thirumbi Paar (1953), which featured Ganesan as an antihero , encouraged him to play a similar role in Andha Naal . According to film historian Randor Guy , Rajan was one of the earliest antihero roles in Tamil cinema. Ganesan initially demanded a sum of ₹ 40,000 (equivalent to ₹ 4.0 million or US$ 48,000 in 2023) for the film, which Meiyappan could not afford to pay. He offered to pay him ₹ 25,000 (equivalent to ₹ 2.5 million or US$ 30,000 in 2023), which Ganesan declined. Balachander, however, convinced Ganesan that Meiyappan would pay him ₹ 1,000 (equivalent to ₹ 100,000 or US$ 1,200 in 2023) for every day they shot

20349-659: The term "ball-point fountain pen," because at the time the ball-point pen was considered a type of fountain pen; that is, a pen that held ink in an enclosed reservoir.) This period saw the launch of innovative models such as the Parker 51 , the Aurora 88, the Sheaffer Snorkel, and the Eversharp Skyline, while the Esterbrook J series of lever-fill models with interchangeable steel nibs offered inexpensive reliability to

20502-440: The trigger accidentally, killing him, and then cried at his boots later, holding them. Sivanandam and Naidu ask Usha for the papers Rajan used to hatch the bombing plan. After she goes to Rajan's room to fetch them, Sivanandam tells Naidu that Usha's fingerprints which he collected and the ones on Rajan's boots matched, which led him to suspect her, and her failure to shoot during the exercise confirmed his suspicion. When Usha takes

20655-407: The truth. Rajan was a radio engineer who wanted to sell radios to the poor at an affordable price. Unable to get any support from the government, he went to Japan where his work was appreciated. He then became a spy selling India's military secrets to Japan. Usha learnt about this and tried unsuccessfully to reform him. She could not stop him and attempted to shoot him. She changed her mind but pulled

20808-453: The wetness and flow of a particular pen. For this reason, feed material alone and its surface roughness may have a significant effect on the way two pens of the same nib size write. Pen feeds are crucial to preventing ink from dripping or leaking. Feeds often feature finned structures intended for buffering fountain pen ink. Buffering is the capacity to catch and temporarily hold an overflow of ink, caused by conditions other than writing. When

20961-526: The word for "here"— iṅku in Centamil (the classic variety)—has evolved into iṅkū in the Kongu dialect of Coimbatore , inga in the dialects of Thanjavur and Palakkad , and iṅkai in some dialects of Sri Lanka . Old Tamil's iṅkaṇ (where kaṇ means place) is the source of iṅkane in the dialect of Tirunelveli , Old Tamil iṅkiṭṭu is the source of iṅkuṭṭu in

21114-413: The writer's fingers. The nib and feed assembly fit into the barrel's end like a cork stopper. In 1908, Waterman began marketing a popular safety pen of its own. For pens with non-retractable nibs, the adoption of screw-on caps with inner caps that sealed around the nib by bearing against the front of the section effectively solved the leakage problem (such pens were also marketed as "safety pens", as with

21267-400: Was "delighted that he pulled it off", with critics praising the performances of Ganesan, Pandari Bai and the other actors. A contemporary review from the Tamil monthly magazine Kalaimanram praised AVM for novelty and called Andha Naal a daring venture. The Tamil weekly Kumudam (dated 1 May 1954) praised Meiyappan for recognising "young talents" like Balachander and Seetharaman. However,

21420-535: Was "remarkable for some fine and original ideas in photography". The film has been described by French film historian Yves Thoraval as a revolution in Tamil cinema for the absence of songs and dances. Though largely ignored at the time of its original release, it has since attained cult status in Tamil cinema. In addition to becoming a trendsetter for Tamil films without songs, it set a benchmark in Tamil cinema for noir-style lighting with some of its dramatic sequences. In 2001, journalist S. Muthiah called Andha Naal

21573-534: Was a Tamilian himself, in a joint sitting of both houses of the Indian Parliament on 6 June 2004. The socio-linguistic situation of Tamil is characterised by diglossia : there are two separate registers varying by socioeconomic status , a high register and a low one. Tamil dialects are primarily differentiated from each other by the fact that they have undergone different phonological changes and sound shifts in evolving from Old Tamil. For example,

21726-479: Was available in Europe in the 17th century and is shown by contemporary references. In Deliciae Physico-Mathematicae (a 1636 magazine), German inventor Daniel Schwenter described a pen made from two quills . One quill served as a reservoir for ink inside the other quill. The ink was sealed inside the quill with cork . Ink was squeezed through a small hole to the writing point. In 1663 Samuel Pepys referred to

21879-600: Was claimed to be dated to around 580 BCE. John Guy states that Tamil was the lingua franca for early maritime traders from India. Tamil language inscriptions written in Brahmi script have been discovered in Sri Lanka and on trade goods in Thailand and Egypt. In November 2007, an excavation at Quseir-al-Qadim revealed Egyptian pottery dating back to first century BCE with ancient Tamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are

22032-540: Was created by Lord Shiva . Murugan , revered as the Tamil God, along with sage Agastya , brought it to the people. Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, ultimately descends from the Proto-Dravidian language , which was most likely spoken around the third millennium BCE, possibly in the region around the lower Godavari river basin. The material evidence suggests that the speakers of Proto-Dravidian were of

22185-407: Was hesitant to approach Ganesan because he was unsure whether he would agree to play a negative role. In his autobiography , Ganesan said the film was almost completed before he was approached. He agreed to be part of the film because he found the story interesting and thought that portraying a variety of characters would interest the audience. In 2009, film historian Film News Anandan suggested that

22338-606: Was patented in 1890 by the Eagle Pencil Company, using glass cartridges. In the 1920s the John Hancock pen featured cartridges made from thin copper tubing. From the 1930s on, Waterman sold pens in France that used glass cartridges. Cartridge-filling pens only became truly popular in the 1950s, however, with the advent of plastic cartridges. The first was the Italian LUS Atomica in 1952, but it was

22491-607: Was rejected by the Indian government. According to Guy, Andha Naal reuses the thematic line of the 1946 Tamil film Chitra : "a person sending secret messages to the enemy through radio". Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai compared Pandari Bai's "ideologically driven" character Usha in the film to her character in Parasakthi , but in the former, "it is the idea of the Indian nation that she pledges her allegiance to." The Times of India compared Andha Naal to Citizen Kane (1941) for its similar lighting and camera angles. The film uses

22644-451: Was released on 13 April 1954 on the eve of Puthandu (Tamil New Year). The film received critical acclaim upon release, but failed commercially as the audiences were disappointed over the absence of songs. In theatres, they were disappointed after the first scene when Ganesan's character is shot dead, and many even walked out. Theatre owners had to persuade them to watch the entire film. After its commercial failure, Meiyappan never again made

22797-563: Was screened at the Russian Cultural Centre, Chennai, to mark its diamond jubilee anniversary. In March 2015, the Film Heritage Foundation announced that it would be restoring Andha Naal along with a few other Indian films from 1931 to 1965 as a part of its restoration projects being carried out in India and abroad. The Foundation said it would not colourise any of the films as they should be "the way

22950-459: Was selected to play Rajan's wife, while P. D. Sambandam , T. K. Balachandran , S. Menaka and K. Sooryakala formed the rest of the main cast. V. Srinivasan—who later became popularly known as Muktha Srinivasan —assisted Balachander with the film. Cinematography was handled by S. Maruti Rao , and editing was done by S. Surya. The background score was recorded by Saraswathy Stores Orchestra, AVM Productions' music troupe. Two Hindi songs are used in

23103-509: Was shorter than most contemporaneous Tamil films. Regarded as the first film noir in Tamil cinema, Andha Naal is set in World War II , during the bombing of the Indian city of Madras by Japanese forces in 1943. The story of the blind men and an elephant is referenced in the narrative, when Sivanandam notes how each suspect's account of Rajan's death contradicts those of the others. Though various sources, including Ganesan, have said

23256-504: Was the lingua franca for early maritime traders, with inscriptions found in places like Sri Lanka , Thailand , and Egypt . The language has a well-documented history with literary works like Sangam literature , consisting of over 2,000 poems. Tamil script evolved from Tamil Brahmi, and later, the vatteluttu script was used until the current script was standardized. The language has a distinct grammatical structure, with agglutinative morphology that allows for complex word formations. Tamil

23409-451: Was the emergence of the present tense. The present tense evolved out of the verb kil ( கில் ), meaning "to be possible" or "to befall". In Old Tamil, this verb was used as an aspect marker to indicate that an action was micro-durative, non-sustained or non-lasting, usually in combination with a time marker such as ṉ ( ன் ). In Middle Tamil, this usage evolved into a present tense marker – kiṉṟa ( கின்ற ) – which combined

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