1 Minute at a painting camp at Fort Kochi

 

Sunday, the 5th February.  Mahatma Gandhi Beach,Fort Kochi. It is 10 O'Clock, morn. The Chinese nets have framed the towering container terminal cranes in the distance. The mangroves in the middle have turned sooty, with the frequent lorry trails to the construction sites in the island emitting high whiffs of earthen coloured dusty smog into the remaining green of the sturdy plants. Somehow, I felt distressed but less compared to the men who were getting less and less surprised with the form and number of fishes found in the net lifted out of water every 10 minutes.

There were some more sturdy, crafty men (no women) of the like of one in the foreground. The lean pleasant faced  twosome on the left of this chap were selling fresh cucumber-pineapple mix dusted with a dash of salt and red chilly powder  and this challenger gobbled up two plates in exactly 60 seconds in tune with the fresh Limca branding earned.

 

 

  

 

 

1 MINUTE CARICATURES at FORT KOCHI

18/12/2011, Sunday : 1 MINUTE CARICATURES of three famous people in Fort Kochi area in Kerala were done at the Art gallery owned by my artist friend Dinesh Shenoy whose and talented young sculptor Sathish's works were on display there.

1. NP Ramaswamy, the AIR A-Graded vocalist. The man whom I had listened to for scores of hours during my school-college days through the All India Radio. He was taller than I expected.

2. K.N. Sathyapalan, former Secretary, Kerala Lalitha Kala Academy. Now in the thick of controversy surrounding the Kochi- Muziris Biennale, where names of artists Bose Krishnamachary and Riaz Komu, bureaucrat Dr.V.Venu and former minister M.A. Baby are doing the rounds.

3. Desmond Rebeiro, the freebird, vinoba bhave-lookalike artist with matted hair, who owns a neat one room art gallery in one of the main streets in Fort Kochi, where he sleeps in the night in a hammock ! He should be one of the most prolific and hard selling artists in Fort Kochi area !

 

Writer KN Shaji, once a pioneer of little magazines (Samkramanam et al)

helps Desmond to steady the paper

Mattanchery revisited !

It was after a long gap that I had to visit Mattanchery, yesterday evening, a dead city full of llingering old smells of spices and small time tea shops. A small function had been arranged to felicitate the team behind Kerala's first Konkani film. I took Dinesh Shenoy, my recent friend and a local, too along to the function. Dinesh, my opposite in girth is a killer in painting heritage buildings in sepia on canvas, each of which he finishes in exactly six days. Anand Kamath, an immensely caricaturable face and my friend, was the force behind this konkani idea. He was game enough to my suggestion of a 1 minute caricature-gift to each of the team members. In no time, A4 size paper was hailed for from the shop opposite and I drew out a slew of black markers in anticipation of the imminent soft kill to happen on paper.

The 15 caricatures I drew are here. Please have a tour :)

Dinesh Shenoy the artist of Me in Sepia (below)