Coimbatore :
Photographs of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru are a dime a dozen but those of Chenpakaraman Pillai, Thillaiaadai Valliammal, Tiruppur Kumaran and Vanchinathan are hard to come by. And that’s what inspired Surulynaathan A K A to pick up a pencil after 29 years to sketch portraits of 19 such lesser known freedom fighters to be displayed this Independence Day.
The last time Surulynaathan drew anything was a picture of his son, who died six months after birth. “We were in Salem on a vacation after Anand Mohan was born. It all started with fever and in few days I lost him,” he says. “There was no picture of Anand taken after his birth. So, the last time I sat to draw was in 1985.”
A retired bank manager, Suruly always loved drawing. “I started drawing when I was about nine years old. I drew my friends, my parents, relatives, anybody and everybody I knew,” says the 62-year-old.
When Universal Brotherhood Association and other organisations were looking for a person to sketch portraits of freedom fighters, and a friend introduced him to the organizers. The sketches will be on display at the inner circle of Race Course on August 14 and 15.
“It is easy to get pictures of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Subash Chandra Bose, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Annadurai and others. But we could not find pictures of some freedom fighters,” he explains. “So, I found that the organizers of the gallery were looking for an artist and I volunteered to help them,” he says. According to the artist, some of the freedom fighters lived in a period when there were no cameras.
He sat down to sketch 19 portraits in 18 days. “The most difficult was to draw Tirupur Kumaran. The reference picture I had did not have any clear features or lines. I took five hours to finish it, almost twice the time that I took to sketch the others,” says Suruly. The artist, who is visiting faculty at Bharathiar University, spent about three hours on each portrait.
Suruly took his time in searching for the right pictures from books, internet and library records. “I had to make sure the picture that I choose reflected the freedom fighter’s personality. I did not mind if I had to sit late in the night and complete the portraits,” says Suruly who began his work on July 25.
The artist’s work will travel to Chennai for a display on Republic Day in 2015 and then to Delhi for the 69th Independence Day. In between, the portraits will be displayed at various schools and colleges until August 2015. The organisers are planning to open a patriotic gallery in the city where the portraits will be displayed permanently.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / TNN / August 14th, 2014