RAMESWARAM
A painting of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam playing veena steals the limelight in an array of paintings and portraits of Kalam being installed at the newly built memorial at Pei Karumbu near here, set for opening on July 27 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Costumed in silk dhoti and sky blue full sleeves with white shawl around his neck, Kalam seems to be enjoying playing the ancient musical instrument. This is one of the 95 paintings of Kalam by eminent artist A.P. Sreethar.
Not many knew that Kalam learnt playing veena when he was with the DRDO during 1985-95, and he used to play veena whenever he felt relaxed, recalled his grand nephew A.P.J.M.J. Shiek Saleem.
After he took up the painting task in May, Mr. Saleem handed him over a staggering 8,000 pictures of Kalam and the picture of Kalam playing veena was the most impressive of all, said Mr. Sreethar.
He and his team portrayed Kalam’s life, right from childhood, in the paintings, Mr. Sreethar told The Hindu in an informal chat at the memorial on Sunday.
The most challenging was the painting of 50 different faces of Kalam in one frame. It was altogether a different painting – a ‘vintage view’, said Mr. Sreethar. He portrayed Kalam in the eyes of eminent European painters. “It was my imagination of Kalam painted by the painters of the calibre of Rembrandt, Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci,” he said.
The acrylic paintings were done on Hahnemuhle canvas imported from Germany and using Winsor and Newton colours, he said. As the memorial was located in the highly corrosive strip in the island, the paintings were framed, using Korean synthetic museum frames, he said.
Mr. Sreethar and his team had also come out with two life size silicon statues of Kalam in Presidential suit – in standing and sitting postures. The statues had been developed on the lines of wax statues in Madame Tussauds in London. Costume designers and hair stylists used original stuff to make it real, he said.
The DRDO has also made ready more than 500 portraits of Kalam in the size of 16 x 13 inches to be installed inside the memorial. DRDO officials, led by N.V.S. Subramaniam, Chief Engineer, and including P.K. Gupta, Additional Chief Engineer, B.K. Singh and Brijesh Kumar, Deputy Chief Engineers, supervised the work.
