Whether chosen or imposed, a break from routine is an opportunity for growth — that is a lockdown pill life coaches must be ramming down a billion throats now. However, when this realisation dawns on someone without any expert’s intervention, the process of upskilling or whatever one chooses to call it, is bound to be more exciting, and the results probably more impressive.
Since the lockdown began, T.S. Narayanaswamy has been working on his sketching skills on a daily basis, and producing works that he posts on Facebook.
“After the lockdown, you were getting mad. How long can you watch Netflix movies? Earlier, I would sketch sporadically. Once a week, and then, there would be a lull for three weeks,” begins Narayanaswamy, who is founder-director, Unicard Group.
With business moving at a slow canter, for the last two months, he had been wearing an artist’s cap, spending three to four hours on his craft, testing artistic waters he had earlier felt diffident to dip his toes in. “Before the lockdown, I had done only black-and-white sketches, and now I have been trying colour sketching too. Overall, since the lockdown began, I have done over 50 sketches. Everyone needs an audience, and so I post my sketches on Facebook,” he explains, adding that on FB, there are more people watching what you do than acknowledging with a like or a comment, and that is good enough.
It was as if he had opened a vault in his mind that had been kept shut since the early 1990s when he dove headlong into the world of business.
Now, Narayanaswamy is the nephew of cartoonist-playwright-travelogue writer T.S. Sridhar alias Bharanitharan alias Marina, who passed away in January 2020, aged 94. Writer R.K. Narayan and cartoonist R.K. Laxman are first cousins to Narayanaswamy’s father.
With these influences, working both directly and indirectly, it seems natural that he took to cartooning. He was mentored by his uncle Sridhar, who retired as joint-editor of Ananda Vikatan .
“My uncle asked me to pursue studies, and get a professional qualification ,” says Narayanaswamy.
Are all the sketches about lockdown realities?
“There are both topical (usually, lockdown) and general sketches. Every sketch goes out with a snippet, in the form of a comment. So, it is like a blog,” details Narayanaswamy, adding that it doesn't always have to be straight-faced. “It can be light-hearted stuff, an anecdote from the past.”
To give an idea, even during the lockdown period, sketches include one on Columbus and another on R.K. Narayan on days that provide a reason to remember them in a special way.
“Every fourth sketch I do is of Mahaperiyava.”
There are obviously many sketches touching upon lockdown themes, but there is no pattern to be seen, either thematically or technique-wise.
So, there is a portraiture of thespian Sivaji Ganesan, and with a comment that even if he were to act wearing a mask, his eyes would be sufficient to emote life into a scene; and on Family Day, it is about how lockdown had given a surfeit of closeness; in an adaptation of Gopulu’s style, there is a wistful longing for the pre-social distancing era.
He points out he has been attempting adaptations of works by masters from the past, including Ravi Varma and Gopulu, with deference.
Elucidating on the methods and tools used, Narayanaswamy says, “I sketch directy on iPad. It is not digital sketching. It is free hand. Instead of paper and pencil, I use a notepad. Only around four years ago was I presented with an iPad. This gives me the freedom to sketch anywhere; I can do it at the airport lounge.”
