The new symbol for the Indian currency

Thanks to Nitisha Pande who was the first one because of whom I came to know that a new symbol for the Indian currency was going to be announced. On Thursday, 15 July 2010, a new symbol for the Indian rupee' was announced.

As soon as I woke up that morning, I brushed my teeth and opened the front door and saw the Hindu news paper. I took it in hand to see the headlines "Rupee joins elite club". It read "With a blend of the Devanagari ‘Ra' and Roman ‘R' as its unique symbol, the Indian currency will be joining the elite club of the US dollar, the European euro, the British pound sterling and the Japanese yen to mark its presence in the global arena." The article I saw on Nitisha's blog had brought in me the excitement to know what is going to be the decision. But now what is puzzling me is, in the finalists list, the symbol that has been announced was not to be found! Was this a sudden entry?

One thing that I wanted was that it should be printed in the notes and/or in the coins. It would, I guess look unique and also make all of us, mainly D. Udaya Kumar (the Bombay IIT post-graduate who created the symbol) and his family and all our upcoming generations.

Let's now hear a bit about Uday Kumar, who was, I guess just a common man till a few days ago ...but now someone who is known all over India for his contribution to make us feel proud of our nation. We are developing. We are all doing our best to stand equal in eminence with all the other 'developed' countries.

As I was browsing for a few articles on Uday Kumar, I found one on www.economictimes.indiatimes.com

Take a look at the article:

Dharmalingam Udaya Kumar was booked to fly to Guwahati on Thursday morning. On Friday he was to start his new job as assistant professor in the department of design at the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati. He was leaving the IIT Mumbai campus where he spent five years earning a PhD in industrial design—the first doctorate to be awarded in the discipline in India. The calls started pouring in early Thursday morning. He had won a nationwide contest run by the government to design a symbol for the Indian rupee. A symbol he designed, incorporating elements of Devanagari and Roman scripts, had been chosen to represent India’s growing economy and its currency. It would be incorporated in Unicode, computer keyboards will have a dedicated key for the symbol and it will come to be seen and recognised around the world. A designer gets to create a currency symbol just once in a nation’s life. For a man used to painstaking and solitary pursuit of meaning in symbols, typefaces and ancient Tamil manuscripts, the attention must have been unsettling. He didn’t take his flight. In the evening, cars came to haul him off to television studios. He would go to Guwahati the next day. Born in Chennai on 10 October, 1978, Kumar’s family hails from Thanjavur. The magnificent temples there must have had something to do with his decision to study architecture, which he pursued at Anna University in Chennai. Subsequently, he did his masters in architecture from IIT, Mumbai. When the industrial design centre in the campus started offering a PhD, Udaya Kumar enrolled, and started work on the evolution of the Tamil script,which dates back to 2nd century AD. “I want to continue work on Tamil typography. I find our symbols have a very heavy western influence. I will do more work on Indian scripts,” he told ET. For the design, he took inspiration from the symbols of such currencies as Korea’s won, UK’s pound sterling, euro, lira, peso and others. “Thus it has a harmonious identity as far as international currency symbols are concerned and at the same time it has the Indian uniqueness,” he said about his winning design. Among the international currencies, he likes the Yen symbol as it best reflects the country. The 31-year-old bachelor worked as a senior designer for two years with specialty magazine publisher Infomedia. _______________________________ One message I would like to pass on to every Indian ...every proud Indian who is reading this article of mine is that what he did was very little, but very big. He just drew a letter in the Devanagari script, and drew a line in between and said that this could be the new symbol for the Indian rupee, and also added that this middle line represented the national flag. Why did he do this? Because he loved our country? He wanted to do something for India? Or did he just try for luck to look for popularity? Whatever it be, by doing something small, he has done something great for all of us - for all the people who lived before us, for us, and for our future generations. Basically, for all Indians. He has made all of us feel that we are not 'low' or 'less in dignity' in any way. So, what I am basically trying to say is that even if you want to do a small thing, think over it twice or thrice. Think of various ways, as to how to make it a better work and how to prove better results, and also as to how to benefit more people. I guess that is exactly what he did and is now famous all over the country, has done something great for whole of India, has chosen something that is used or liked by most of us (the Devanagari script). Let us, from now start being a better citizen of the country and the world. From now, let us discuss on how to make India a better country ...for as we all very well know, there are so many drawbacks such as poverty, lack of cleanliness, backward thoughts, etc. Let us all together try our best to rub of all this so that we can even more proudly call ourselves as Indians. Jai Ho, Udaya Kumar Jai Ho, India and finally, Jaihind ____________________________________________________________________ PS: source for the picture: Hindu News paper