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One of the most famous of such artists lived in our town. His name was Kondiaraju.

Sometimes in the evenings some schoolmates and I went to watch him at work. He sat on the floor, keeping the canvas board leaning against the wall, and dabbing paint on it. He kept producing the same kind of figures again and again.

There were a couple of young helpers in his studio to whom he taught drawing after the day’s work was done.

Watching all this I too wanted to learn how to draw. I asked one of the assistants, and he said the artist never taught anyone not working for him. So I went and got a recommendation letter from a big shot of the town and presented the letter to the artist. He read the letter, shrugged his shoulders and said “You buy a drawing notebook and bring it tomorrow.”

The next day I went to the studio with a drawing notebook. The artist made a few fast strokes to produce an ornamental design. “You draw this and bring it tomorrow”. So I went home and did a passable imitation of the design. When I took it to him the next day, he said “Not bad at all”. And then he asked me to come the next day. And the next day he said, “Come tomorrow”. This was the refrain I kept hearing every day — “Come tomorrow”.

After several days of being put off thus, I gave up. That is what the artist wanted perhaps.

Later in Madras Christian College, we started an art club. We arranged for some artists from the Madras School of Art to come and guide us. We invited the famous artist, K.C.S.Panikker to inaugurate the art club. In his speech he asked, “Are there any artists among you?” No one answered. Then Mr.Panikker unerringly pointed at three different persons in the gathering and said, “You must be artists”, and he was right. The three that he had pointed at were good at drawing. One wondered how he had correctly pointed at these three in the midst of a large group.

Among the artists who came to help us were Mr.Santhanaraj, Mr.Hariharan and two others. Santhanaraj kept making lightning sketches. He drew my portrait too. One of the other two artists was from the Andamans. He was terribly nervous about facing an audience.

When the time came for him to take a class, he stood up, and then lost his nerve. He withdrew in a hurry. Some of us went and told him that there was no need to speak or explain. He just had to do some drawing, at which he was very good.

So again he stood up, but nervousness overcame him. “I is unalright” he kept saying. “I is unalright”. So we collected the drawing notebooks of the members gathered there and passed them on to him one at a time. He did a different drawing in each notebook, and that was that.

One artist whom I admired a lot was Gopulu, who illustrated many serials in the ‘Ananda Vikatan’ like Srimaan Sudersanam, Mister Vedanthan, Thillana Mohanambal and many others. When I got a chance to meet him I talked volubly about his various drawings.

He was impressed by the way I had studied his work. After a pleasant chat I asked him to do a sketch for me.

He drew two semi-circles and wrote underneath: “From one baldie to another” and signed it. This rough drawing became a prized possession.

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