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 Name S. VAIDYANATHAN
Qualification M.A. (Economics)
German (8 Semesters)
Experience 22 years -
12 years in Advertising
Agencies. Since 1994,
Creative Consultant. Media worked for TV, Radio, Print, Outdoor, Multimedia, Web
Portfolio includes Campaign work for a
Wide range of products:
Adhesives to Herbal
Powders to Jewellery
To Pickle and Pizza
To Saris and Soft toys
To Tourism and Yellow Pages
Communication portfolio TV Commercials
Radio Spots
Annual Reports
Product Brochures
Direct Mailers
Press Ad Campaigns
Multimedia Presentations
Websites
Areas of expertise
1) Corporate Communication and Brand-Building
2) Language
3) Organization and Leadership
1) Corporate Communication and Brand-Building
Effective, sustained corporate communication and brand-building efforts need to have a solid foundation in research and strategy.
Occupying a critical and integral role in the Creative Department of several advertising agencies, I have been involved in scores of media campaigns. This involvement is vital, and by stages leads, to the final shape of the campaigns. During the development of every campaign, I have studied research findings on key parameters, and represented the Creative Department in discussions among key personnel in Marketing, Brand Management, Account Management and Media. With the combined inputs of these key people leading to the formulation of the Advertising Strategy, it is my responsibility to translate that strategy into a creative advertising campaign, suitably adapted to media such as TV, Radio, Press and Outdoor, and guaranteed to accomplish the goals set out in the Advertising Strategy.
My experience as a key Creative person has helped me
a. Amass a wealth of information in various fields,
b. Interact with decision-makers from different portfolios, and
c. Make a significant contribution in corporate image-building and brand-building.
2) Language
My language-skill is multi-dimensional; it is a blend of a capacity to analyse a mass of information, jumbled or arranged, a capacity to be deep, comprehensive and exhaustive in my analysis, a capacity to understand and assimilate the whole, and a capacity to capture the essential. And, perfect grammar and orthography complement my ability in language, and guide me in achieving precision and clarity in the articulation and documentation of any form of communication: An idea, scenario, synopsis, strategy, or a report.
My experience as a writer in and a practitioner of the English language has helped me develop myself as a
a) Communicator who is truthful, committed, and responsible to his audience as well as to the organization he represents,
b) Trainer who has the knack and the patience to impart skills necessary to the writing of advertising copy or any other business documentation, and
c) Teacher who believes in instilling enthusiasm and confidence in his students and guiding them towards knowledge through a joyous self-discovery.
3) Organization and Leadership
I have always enjoyed using my organizing skills and, whenever the opportunity presented itself, have donned the role of the leader with excitement and readiness.
While in my professional career I have been involved in Press Meets and Product Launches, and even in informal dos and celebrations (where I have regaled my audiences with my reportedly mellifluous voice), I have also organized the launch of a rock music band of my friends and, to mention a particularly challenging project, have undertaken a Bicycle Tour of Europe, with a friend. This tour demanded hectic, wide-ranging preparations for about a year and culminated in a 9-month-long journey across 13 countries. Dedicated to World Peace and Understanding, the tour took us close to thousands of people in the cities and small towns and villages of Europe, and enabled us to mutually share many things about India and their respective countries. We pulled it off on an incredible budget of $350 on each, lived 270 days each full of excitement, desperation, anxiety, discovery and fulfilment, and had a fantastic media coverage right through, with over 45 newspapers interviewing us.
My experience in organizing and taking the lead in various events has helped me hone my skills in project management and taught me to
a) Adopt the right approach by clearly setting down
the goals,
b) Achieve milestones for steady progress, by
meticulous planning, and
c) Realize the goals, by effectively bringing together
different talents for optimum exploitation.
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MY ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- I have undertaken a Bicycle Tour of Europe, with a friend. This tour demanded hectic, wide-ranging preparations for about a year and culminated in a 9-month-long journey across 13 countries. Dedicated to World Peace and Understanding, the tour took us close to thousands of people in the cities and small towns and villages of Europe, and enabled us to mutually share many things about India and their respective countries. We pulled it off on an incredible budget of $350 on each, lived 270 days each full of excitement, desperation, anxiety, discovery and fulfilment, and had a fantastic media coverage right through, with over 45 newspapers interviewing us.
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MY FAVORITE LINKS:
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MY RESIDENCE INFO:
City: Chennai
State/Country: India
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BOOKS PUBLISHED:
Here is a biography of Charles Dickens, submitted for publication.
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. His happiest childhood years were spent in Chatham (during 1817-22), a place that figures frequently in his fiction. From 1822, he lived in London, until he moved, in 1860, to a country house, Gad’s Hill, near Chatham.
Background and Early Life
His origins were middle class. One grandfather had been a domestic servant, and the other a fraud. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was well paid, but his reckless and extravagant ways often caused his family embarrassment or ruin. In 1824 when the family became extremely poor, Charles was removed from school and put to work in a blacking (shoe-dye) factory. His father was imprisoned for debt. Ashamed, Charles lived alone in a lodging house in North London.
Early influences on his character and art
Though he deeply hated this descent into the working class, Charles began to gain knowledge of their life and hardships which showed his sympathetic and understanding portrayal of them in his writings. Also, images of the prison and of the lost, oppressed or confused child frequently occur in many novels. This period had a great influence on his character and art, including his difficulty as a man and writer, in understanding women. This may be traced to his bitter hatred towards his mother who had been, he felt, blind to his suffering. When his father was released from prison and the family finances improved, he could, thanks to father, return to school, while his mother wanted him to work.
Entry into journalism
His schooling, however, was uneventful and ended when he was fifteen. He became a clerk in a solicitor’s firm, then a shorthand reporter in the law courts (thus acquiring a knowledge of the legal world effectively employed in his novels), and finally like others in his family, a parliamentary and newspaper reporter. During these years, Charles developed an enduring affection for journalism and contempt both for the law and the parliament. His working at the Morning Chronicle shaped his political views. In his personal life, he suffered yet another blow when he met with rejection as suitor to Maria Beadnell. This incident and its impact on him are mirrored in David Copperfield and Little Dorrit.
Beginning of literary career
His fondness for the theatre almost made him a professional actor in 1832. In 1833, he contributed stories and essays to newspapers and magazines, which were reprinted as sketches by “Boz”(February 1836). Soon after, the first instalment of Pickwick Papers appeared. Within a few months, Pickwick was the rage, making Dickens the most popular author of the year.
During 1836, Dickens began editing a monthly magazine, Bentley’s Miscellany, in which he serialized Oliver Twist (1837-39). In April 1836, he was married to Catherine, eldest daughter of a Scottish journalist, George Hogarth.
Enjoying his serialization effort, Dickens repeated the Pickwick pattern of 20 monthly parts in Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9), and followed it with shorter weekly instalments for The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) and Barnaby Rudge (1941).
Needing a break from his intensive writing, Dickens went to America and travelled extensively for five months. As a literary celebrity, ha was welcomed with honour and respect. A sharp critic of British institutions, he had high expectations from “the republic of my imagination”. His disappointment and his protest against the absence of copyright protection appear in America Notes (1842) and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44).
First novels – A display of comedy, pathos and social commentary
Pickwick started as high-spirited farce and contained comic butts and traditional jokes. Clearly, it owed much to the contemporary theatre, the 18th century English novelists, and a few foreign classics, particularly Don Quixote. Pickwick was significant in that it contained many aspects and ingredients the combination of which could be seen in all his later fiction: satirical commentary or condemnatory attack on social evils; topical references; exhaustive knowledge of London, (his favourite fictional locale); pathos; a touch of the gruesome; the down-to-earth joys of Christmas; benevolence and geniality. With a blend of all these engaging features, Dickens displayed great power of character creation, an ear for characteristic dialogue, and a flowing narrative style. Pickwick, an amazingly imaginative first novel, written within the constraints a serial publication not only won him instant acclaim and spawned a new tradition in popular fiction, but is regarded to this day as the best-known novels in the world.
Oliver Twist and others
In Oliver Twist, one could see Dickens’s supreme self- confidence and artistry. Though to an extent a comedy, Oliver Twist is essentially concerned with social and moral evil as seen in the workhouse and the criminal world. The continuing popularity of his fiction is due to its easy adaptability into stage versions. There were times when 30 London theatres simultaneously were involved in adaptations of his latest work, thereby giving even non-readers the chance to get acquainted with his works.
Nicholas Nickleby and The Old Curiosity Shop followed. Dickens’s satirical presentation and condemnation of the Yorkshire schools, highlighting the plight and misery of the lost and oppressed child was a vivid and powerful picture of cruelty and sorrow.
Barnaby Rudge and The Tale of Two Cities represented major triumphs as literary novels.
In Martin Chuzzlewit Dickens tried “to resist the temptation of the current Monthly Number, and to keep a steady eye upon the general purpose and design” (1844 Preface). His next novel, Dombey and Son (1846-48) fulfilled that promise.
Christmas Books – A celebration of the Christmas spirit in a new genre
A new literary genre was born with A Christmas Carol, the first of Dickens’s Christmas books. He was so fond of Christmas that he wanted the Christmas spirit to prevail throughout the year.
“Dickens dead?” exclaimed a London costermonger’s girl in 1870. Then will Father Christmas die too?” An eloquent illustration of his love for Christmas, and also of the mythological status of the writer and his work!
The Carol became part of the general consciousness. Thackeray, in a review called it “a national benefit, and to every man and woman who read it a personal kindness”.
More Christmas books, essays and stories followed. Together, the Christmas books symbolise a celebration of the Christmas spirit.
Middle years – Dickens, the dedicated journalist and editor
Dickens’s journalistic aspirations found fulfilment in Household Words
(1850-59) and its successor, All The Year Round (1859-88). Dickens wrote fiction, poetry and essays on a wide range of topics. These weekly assortments achieved very large circulation, some of the Christmas issues touching 300,000.
Dickens contributed some serials- Child’s History of England (1851-53), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860-61)- and essays, some of which were collected in Reprinted Pieces (1858) and The Uncommercial Traveller (1861,later amplified). In 1850-52 and during the Crimean War, he wrote on current political and social affairs. His poetry was unremarkable and disappointing, lacking in perception.
Dickens was industrious and skilful as editor and journalist, and taking responsibility for all the opinions expressed, he selected and amended contributions.
It is to be said that Dickens’s dedication to journalism and editorial work is unique, and unrivalled by any English author of comparable calibre and eminence.
Later Novels – Focus on the general purpose and design
The novels of these years, Bleak House (1852-53), Hard Times (1834), and Little Dorrit (1853-57), were much darker than his earlier ones.
Dickens presented a sombre picture of contemporary society. Although these novels were described as fictionalised propaganda about short-lived issues, the artistry and credibility with which Dickens weaved topical matters and actual people together speaks volumes of his creative imagination. Historical resemblances are overshadowed by the compelling power of his fiction.
In these novels, he sounds politically forlorn, and emotionally sadder than before. The satire is severe, the humour lacking in cheer, and the happy endings more subdued. Technically, the later novels are better woven, plots more closely wedded to themes, and the themes are dealt with through riveting imagery. While characterization takes second place to ‘the general purpose and design’, the characters Dickens presents in these later novels are more complex. Juvenile leads are also well defined, a departure from the earlier lazy effort. Dickens grows more concerned with ‘the great final secret of all life’ – a phrase from Little Dorrit, where the spiritual side of his work is most evident.
Personal unhappiness
Dickens’ confidence in the future began to decline. The Crimean War diverted attention from the poverty and hunger at home. He had no longer any political faith or hope, nor any alternative to offer. This sorry state of affairs was compounded by unhappy events in his personal life. From his correspondence, we come to know of his marital unhappiness. By 1986, he is writing, ‘I find the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one’. He perpetually spoke of an ‘unsettled feeling’.
From May 1958, Catherine Dickens lived apart from him. A painful scandal that ensued caused him some damage in a social sense, yet his popularity with the public remained undiminished. In his self-justifying letters, he sought to attribute to his wife many negative qualities, while conveniently omitting to mention Ellen Ternan, an actress 27 years his junior, his passion for whom had precipitated the separation. He and Ellen had performed together in a play, The Frozen Deep. Though the affair was hushed up, there was enough emerging evidence to suppose that the relationship lasted until his death.
Public Readings – Dickens’ intimacy with his public
When Dickens began to give public readings from his works, he referred to this enterprise as ‘that particular relation (personally affectionate and like no other man’s) which subsists between me and the public.’ This intimacy with his public acted as a stimulus to his imagination, and also perhaps compensated for the love he could not find at home. He turned paid reader in April 1858, drawing upon his histrionic talents, and found the experience delightful and also profitable. This activity proved to be engaging and energetic diversion from his marital discontent.
Initially, he read from his Christmas books, but later added parts of his novels and magazine Christmas stories to his repertoire. The readings were, in essence, a rich variety of pathos and comedy. He gave seasons of readings in London, and undertook tours through the provinces and (in 1867-68) the United States. In all, he gave 471 performances, which took a lot of his strength and, in the end, left him exhausted. This pursuit is a unique characteristic of Dickens, matched by no other author for its energy and duration. Mark Twain, the only one who comes close, acknowledged Dickens as the pioneer.
Last years and final novels
Despite his failing health, Dickens continued to write with his characteristic imagination and zest. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-61), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-65) are quite unlike his earlier novels, and contain many new elements, but exciting and compact nevertheless. Edwin Drood (1870) remained unfinished.
Friends found Dickens personally vastly changed. ‘I sometimes think …,’ wrote one, ‘I must have known two individuals bearing the same name, at various periods of my own life.’ However, he still retained his geniality and heartiness. J.T. Fields, his American publisher, called him ‘the cheerfullest man of his age’.
In his last years, Dickens was indeed a sad man, although his fame remained intact. His social circle had shrunk, as many old friends had practically disappeared from his life. His sons caused him much worry and disappointment. Yet, he still loved his country home, Gad’s Hill.
After the strenuous American tour, his health deteriorated further. He began another novel, and gave a short farewell season of readings in London. His famous words, ‘From these garish lights I vanish now for evermore …’, are repeated on his funeral card. He died on June 9, 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
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