K Eswar Kumar finds joy in printing miniature books

Books as small as 1mm long. Point size of less than two. Sounds like something out of the Lilliputians’ library? They are right here in Chennai, and have been created by K Eswar Kumar, who does screen printing and designing at his home in Thiruvanmiyur. The 37-year-old has been making miniature books since 2000, and has recently brought out a copy of the BhagavadGita that measures 12mm x 10mm.

Record work

In 2002, Kumar received a Limca Record for the smallest

Tirukkural book that measured 1.9cm x 1.5cm; the English version measured 1.8cm x 1.4cm. He was awarded another Limca Record in 2006 for the smallest screen-printed book, a 16-page one of animal pictures, measuring 1mm x 1mm. “I worked for over 15 months on my first book,” explains Kumar. “It took me two years to finish my latest miniature book on the

Gita .”

It’s hard work — he does everything, right from cutting to binding the minuscule pages, by hand; he uses the manual screen printing technique. “Many years ago, I think it was in 1999, I saw a news item about a miniature Quran and wanted to try something similar,” says Kumar. Among the most difficult steps in the process of printing a miniature book, is getting the tiny letters printed in Tamil without smudges and with clarity. “There need to be gaps between the whirls and curves of each letter,” he explains.

Also an antiques collector, Kumar has been into screen printing since he was 15 years old. Ask him why he spends hours cutting and binding tiny pieces of paper and he says, “I enjoy doing this. I’ve always wanted to do something that will speak for me long after I’m gone and miniatures are my way of doing so.”

Small is beautiful

* Kumar’s recent work based on the Bhagavad Gita consists of three versions, measuring 18mm x 15mm, 15mm x 12mm, and 12mm x 10mm, with 172 pages each.

* He has brought out two books on Gandhi’s life history; one measures 1cm x 1cm and has 85 pages, and the other measures 5mm x 5 mm and has 144 pages.

* He hopes to display his works in a museum in future.

Small wonder