Ratnayyan started his modelling career much late, in his fifties, after the first wrinkles appeared on his face. But, for almost three decades, he reigned supreme in the Government Fine Arts College in Thiruvananthapuram, as one of the favourites with the students of the sculpture and painting department, for their life studies. Until, his passing away on Thursday, at the age of 80.
Students’ tribute
A walk inside the campus here, one can catch life-size sculptures and paintings of him, sitting in various poses and radiating myriad expressions. On Friday, the students paid him the final tributes by garlanding each of those sculptures.
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According to A.S. Sajith, former Principal of the College, Ratnayyan and his brother Chellappan came to the college as models in the late 1980s, when Mr. Sajith himself was a student here.
“The two brothers used to run a tea shop near Edappazhinji. After they ran into losses, Chellappan was the first one to come to the college, as a model. Before long, Ratnayyan also started accompanying him. Chellappan was more outgoing, but Ratnayyan too struck a warm relationship with the students. Even at that age, they already had the facial features of old age, which made them perfect subjects for life studies,” says Mr. Sajith.
Ratnayyan used to live with his daughter Ajitha at Perukaavu, near Thirumala. He used to visit the college frequently, whenever the students needed a model for their works.
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“He went for the last time about two weeks back. He had been down with breathing trouble and other issues since then, but still he would talk about going to the college. The college has been his life for the past many years,” says his daughter Ajitha.
Last of the lot
Mr. Sajith says that Ratnayyan was the last in a generation of models, who maintained close relations with the artist groups of the 1980s and 90s.
“Now, not many models taken this up as a profession. We have been asking the government for an increase in their remuneration. In the 1980s, they started with ₹20 per day, and now they get just ₹350. But, it seems, the officials see these life studies as old methods, which are not needed in the present times,” he says.