The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : His ticket to meet the President?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 20, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

His ticket to meet the President?

J. Malarvizhi

College student makes collage of Kalam with bus tickets

TICKETS TO FAME: K. Ramesh, a fine arts student, with his collage of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam made with 1,300 bus tickets.

CHENNAI: Journeys and dreams are the stuff that K. Ramesh's collage of the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, is made of. Commuters on MTC buses will recognise familiar colours — blue-green Rs. 2, yellow Rs. 3 and grimy pink Rs. 4 tickets, among others — in the collage of this third-year fine arts student from the Government College of Fine Arts here.

He laboured 90 hours for five days over a specially prepared 4 feet by 3 feet piece of cardboard with 1300 tickets to create his `ticket collage' showing the bust of the President with a map of India in the background. The lines of numbers along the edges of tickets, the round `seals' of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation on them, have all been put to use, adding detail and contour to the collage.

``When I first expressed my desire to meet the President, I was in class six in a village in Thiruvannamalai. My teacher made so much fun of me, I resolved that I would make my dream come true somehow,'' he reminisces. After moving to Chennai, he works at night to fund his education. Meanwhile, he collected all the bus tickets he bought over a seven-year period from 1999. He feels that a `ticket collage' can help him realise the dream of meeting the President.

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