This saturday i was reluctantly accompanying my wife and child to an event organised by the Annalaxmi group in singapore - it was called Dance of India, Taste of India ( dance was good, taste - meaning the food was pedestrian - curd rice was like glue and vada was like paper weight)...but wait, i spotted in the distance some lovely pen and ink sketches of ganesha - immaculate art - somewhat like this ( i am kicking myself for leaving my camera behind that day)
i sped to the stall - and below the sketch was a small signature - Padmavasan. Oh oh - i was overjoyed ( the price was sgd 350 !!!) - and the card next to it said, the artist was present there to do spot sketches ( profiles) for sgd 20. Having never had the good fortune of meeting him before i frantically looked around for help, asked the next stall person - and he pointed to a small very innocuous looking man just standing around - clad in a simple kurtha. I couldnt b've my eyes, there he was - the artist himself and no one was even noticing him. ( sad)
i went up to him, introduced myself ( ofcourse ponniyin selvan .........kalki.....silpi) and he warmed up. we spent about 45 min chatting away.
He talked of his interaction with the great man silpi - the divine gift of his - apparently sketching for PS was so difficult for Silpi, because quite often Kalki would have the script ready last minute close to midnight - and he would call silpi over phone and give him the story for him to sketch and bring next day.
He also talked of Silpi's mindblowing talent - pointing out that once when he was sketching the natraja ( dhakshina meru vitankar) in tanjore - he sketched the front profile ( running out of paper - he took another piece and pasted in the bottom to complete) . and he went on to sketch the back head portion alone - ofcourse the two sketches were in different sizes - but most amazing was the fact that mr padmavasan later - for a book, tried to resize both the sketches to the same size - and when he placed the front on the back - they fit like a glove...such a gift.
He talked of silpi sketching the garudan in srirangam - in almost 8-9 different angles - almost like a photographer snapping his favorite model.
He also talked of his current projects for tiruvanamalai etc.
Hope he calls me tdy , tmmrw, so i can get more sweet memories of the master artist and his able pupil
Hi VJ, thanks for the interesting story!! We had a relative of Silpi (brother's grandson I think) on this list, he even sent me couple of rare pictures, scanned of course but incredible. There is also a blog dedicated to him where there are lots of stories. He is truly an artistic genuis.
Annalaxmi brings me some memories also, the founder Swami Shantanand ( a rather controversial figure but good speaker/singer) was my father's spiritual guru for a while, when we lived in Kovai. There is also a branch in Kovai to this day.
I have the dakshina meru vitankar you are talking about. I will post it in silpi series. And when I think about dakshina meru vitankar, I am invariably thinking about Dr. Kudavoil and his exposition of vitankar. That was another marvelous exposition.
Garuda of srirangam ??? Man - I have'nt seen this drawing at all.