Shailaja Lakshminarasimhan displaying her father Kadambi Rangamani’s first portray of Lord Venkateswara in Indian ink, at her Lakshmipuram residence in Kuppam.
| Picture Credit score: A.D. Rangarajan
A murals transcends time, and so does the artist, who lives on perpetually in his creation. Artists take to totally different genres and take a look at myriad colors to deliver to life their topics of creation. However Kadambi Rangamani was a category aside, for he used the comb and palette solely to color the picture of Lord Venkateswara and His consort Goddess Padmavati, until his final breath.
Hailing from a center class household, Rangamani had initially tried odd jobs at Malleswaram in Bengaluru within the late fifties. Later, he needed to soldier on as he entered wedlock with T.V. Mythili, a distant relative of former Governor-Basic C. Rajagopalachari, of Lakshmipuram village in Kuppam.
It was in 1963 he had taken a vow to attract 10,000 portraits of the ‘divine couple’. Many had then expressed scepticism over the quantity, ridiculed him for his ‘wild estimate’ and prophesied that his vow would fall flat.
Undaunted, Rangamani began his first solo portrait of Lord Venkateswara utilizing Indian ink, and when it drew laurels, continued to color extra. After distributing just a few portray to the poor devotees, he began charging for the ink and sheet later.
To make sure longer life, he began drawing on exhausting board sheets utilizing oil paints. With black paint offering the background, a number of hues have been used to raise the picture of Lord Venkateswara, as seen within the sanctum sanctorum at Tirumala.
Desiring to slash the price range for sustaining his wafer-thin earnings supply, Rangamani traced again his roots and migrated to Chittoor city, the place he continued portray as his occupation, even after crossing the ten,000-figure, and until his demise within the yr 2000.
“After taking tub, my father used to carry out puja earlier than beginning portray. After completion, he used to carry out ‘sahasranama archana’ to the picture earlier than giving it away,” his elder daughter Shailaja Lakshminarasimhan informed The Hindu.
Rangamani’s cherished first portray in Indian ink nonetheless dots the wall at her Kuppam residence.
What began as a type of obeisance changed into a full-fledged occupation for Rangamani, and ‘Venkateswara artwork’ quickly grew to become his surname. So as to not lose observe of the depend, he depicted the quantity on the backside of the portrait, until he touched the ten,000-mark.
One such large portray dots the wall of Raghava Theatre in Chittoor, belonging to former TDP MP NP. Jhansi Lakshmi, which was formally inaugurated by none aside from former Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao throughout his go to within the late eighties.
“NTR expressed awe on the mammoth measurement and high quality of the portray, and enquired about Rangamani,” remembers the late MP’s husband N.P. Veeraraghavulu Naidu. One other such large picture might be seen at Pratap Theatre in Tirupati.
Apparently, Rangamani’s father Okay. Rajagopala Ayyangar had served because the Correspondent for The Hindu in Chittoor. His grandfather. Diwan Bahadur Okay. Rangachari, had presided over the botanical part of the Indian Science Congress in Bangalore in 1917.
A number of of his work have been gifted away to celebrities, movie personalities and classical musicians, which might be seen adorning the partitions and ‘puja rooms’ throughout Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as we speak.
