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The Chennai Book Fair, which concluded recently, seemed to largely concentrate on children's books. Good sign for the future when people are worried if computers would drive children away from books?

Sridhar of Aries Books International, who had put up a stall at the fair, reflected this idea and said he did roaring business after giving 50 per cent off on children's books.

The focus was certainly children, but it was not only on books. The stalls must have sold as many children's CDs as books. Back to square one?

But one great difference in this was that people were buying a lot of Tamil CDs for the children. This would give a big boost to the language and ensure that Tamil will be alive and well even in the computer era.

In olden days, 'Aathi Chudi' (Tamil parables written by Avvaiyar) was communicated to the people through dramas and plays but today computer revolution has made a greater change in society and you can now get it in CD form.

'Aathi Chudi' will be very useful for the future generation because it contains pearls of wisdom and it is only right that it should be in the new methodology of learning.

Softview Visual Communication released the 'Aathi Chudi' multimedia CD at the book fair. M Anto Peter, chief executive officer of the company, said it was a great joy to release the CD, costing Rs 100, as children could learn a lot of values from this wonderful Tamil work.

Nanjil Kumaran, IPS, director, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Tamil Nadu, said, "Today, many people do not realise the importance of 'Aathi Chudi'. Children learn alphabets in English but forget to learn Tamil. There is also a digital gap in our society... The CD on 'Aathi Chudi' will help the younger ones know more about our values and provokes them to learn Tamil."

As everyone expected, 'Aathi Chudi' became a hit at the fair as the children are getting attracted more and more towards the newer methods of learning Tamil. It has been a successful method to teach the language with a different perspective.

Balaji, who created a multimedia Tamil CD for 'TekAthlon System India Pvt Ltd' to teach children, said with the software Flash and Director, it takes around three to six months for the completion of the CD package.

He said they were able to sell nearly 700 of this CD at the book fair (the 27th one in Chennai), and added that looking at the demand, his company was planning to bring out CDs on 'Silappathikaram' with the help of businessman Nalli Kuppuswamy.

The CD that teaches Tamil consists of rhymes, lessons, exercises and stories and comes with a price tag of Rs 225. It is also available as audio cassettes for Rs 40 and audio CDs for Rs 75.

That is surely not too much to pay to learn wordly wisdom and also our mother tongue, is it?

K Vishnu Kumar & Jude Rosario