After watching the Nagarjuna-starrer Gitanjali , Mayor Banda Karthika Reddy wasn't just gushing about the romantic pair and the onscreen chemistry of the lead pair. At that time, like all girls her age, Karthika too, was fascinated by the skirt worn by the heroine. But instead of dashing off to a shop to purchase a similar skirt, she decided to put her skills together and make one for herself. Black was her choice of colour for the fabric and the patterns on them were made by colourful fabric paints. “That was the time I was learning to do fabric paints. My friends loved the skirt so much that they couldn't stop admiring it. That was the first skirt but definitely not the last one. After that I made many such skirts and gifted it to my friends,” says Karthika Reddy as she proudly shows samples from ‘those days.'
One has seen Karthika Reddy efficiently conducting official meetings in her position as the Mayor with élan. But what is less known about her is the artist in her. A painter, and craftswoman, her speciality lies in ‘making best out of the waste', she informs.
Relaxing at her home, Karthika obliges us and displays a few samples of her works. The latch work shows two bunny rabbits exchanging flowers. “This is very time consuming and I took the pattern from a cross stitch design book. Usually latch work is done on hessian cloth but I used a contrast canvas cloth to do the design. It took me several months to complete,” says Karthika, as she fondly holds it in her hands.
Another work she likes to show is that of a teddy bear. The teddy bear is done by un-twirling wool and tying them to pom-poms of various sizes and pasting them on a contrast background frame. The teddy has two black buttons for eyes and a round patch of red for the nose. “I am left with just a few things of what I made,” she says as she pulls out a couple of cloth piece in white from a bag which came from her mother's house. “My mother sent whatever she found easily. I had done lot of fabric paint designs on bed sheets, bedcovers and cushion covers. I don't remember where I had kept them though,” laughs Karthika. “But most of the things that I made are gifted away to friends and cousins,” she adds. Showing an example of what she does best with waste, Karthika shows a glass painting on a frame. “This was an old wall-clock which became dysfunctional. Instead of throwing it away I decided to make use of the frame and glass and this is what I made,” says Karthika. Of the other things which she likes recreating are are painting on tiles, pot paintings and drawing pictures of Goddess Durga. “Durga resembles power and beauty and I love drawing her pictures,” she says.
But Karthika says she hardly finds time to dabble in her hobby anymore, “work keeps me busy but I would love to go back to painting and doing craft work.
