Day 6 of 10 - Every art-work has a story to tell...

Portrait of Prime Minister of India - Indira Gandhi
Ballpoint Pen on Paper (8" x 10")     

It was only two years I went to this college for my Intermediate (+2) with Maths, Physics, Chemistry as core subjects, English and Sanskrit as language subjects. There was another subject that no school or college was offering, but I was enrolling myself into it wherever I went, Art. ;)

Back to 1985...

Andhra Loyola Collge, Vijayawada

A beautiful campus just beneath Gunadala Mary Matha hills, with greenery everywhere, the best college buildings with best class rooms, best labs, playgrounds, library and best hostels with single rooms for every hostler who could get admission. Getting admission in the college was hard, believe me, getting admission into hostel was even harder, at least for me. Even colleges in USA as on today do not have this kind of dormitory rooms for undergraduate students. The oval shaped 3-story hostel buildings had all kinds of facilities, with center gardens, best dining halls with the best Andhra meals and breakfast. You name anything required for a college student, Andhra Loyola College provided the best of it in there.

With best lecturers, in fact, many of them were the authors of prescribed English medium text books of Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Zoology, the college offered the best campus experience for the students. Of course, it was expensive to afford for middle class families. But my Mom supported me with her little salary she was making by working as a clerk in Girls High School, Kavali. More than half of her salary was going just for my monthly hostel bill.

Along with all the best academics and facilities, the discipline there was also the best. All Christian Fathers were in the management with some in teaching as well. No Christian Father or Brother would speak Telugu in there. Half of the students were coming in from Hindi and English speaking families. Getting in there coming from one of the two best schools in the state, the pressure to get perfect scores in Maths, Physics and Chemistry was there always on three of us from our school who made into the college. Coming from 10 years of Telugu medium into English medium was an added pressure. One can easily imagine the pressure on a 15 year old kid in there ;)

My new friend easing off all that pressure - Ballpoint Pen

My Art has memories in Andhra Loyola College campus. My drawings got matured with my age, the accuracy of lines, and their sharpness improved a lot as I kept doing it in my Gogineni hostel room number 34 (first year) and 210 (second year).

I took one step further in drawing, moving up from pencil to work with my new friend - Ballpoint pen. Drawing with Ballpoint pen was more challenging for the obvious fact that nothing could be erased. So, I had to be more accurate with every line of details. I started to get better at it attempt after attempt.

Smt. Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi, Prime Minister of India

The drawing I share today was done a couple of months after Prime Minister of India, Smt. Indira Gandhi got assassinated. I was in the hostel when it happened. Vijayawada went on a high alert as the city had considerable number of Sikhs living in. We had one Sikh student in our hostel and he was safely put in an unknown place for few days by our college management. The situation was that bad.

After that unfortunate incident Indira Gandhi's picture was on every India's magazine cover page for few months. I did this when came home in Kavali for Sankranthi vacation. "News Week" weekly magazine's cover page was my reference. While I recollect my memories of this Art work, I must also recollect a memory that is very hard to detach from this portrait in my mind.

Teared into pieces

I was very happy with the outcome of this portrait. First time I experimented with two colors of ballpoint pens. For Artists it is very hard to repeat the same art work once done up to self-satisfaction. But, I did repeat this portrait of Indira Gandhi, the very next day. The reason to do again, my uncle Praja (Prabhakar Jaladanki) was so impressed looking at it and asked me to give it away to "Pendem Soda Factory" shop owner who owned a family business in Kavali and was a strong follower of Nehru's family. He said, if I give it away to him he would frame and hang it in his shop, and my Art work would get exposure to the whole town of people. I was actually very thrilled by that idea, imagining myArt work would become talk-of-the-town. But, I did not want to give it away. So, I started a new one, bigger, better, and on a better paper.

I finished outline with pencil and started doing ballpoint pen work. It was coming out 100% more better than this. It was halfway done and was on my way to finish. Then my brother came home, along with him came one of his friends. He was a guy who would say he could do anything under the Sun. After few minutes of chatting with them, I stepped inside into another room to grab something. I came back in 2 minutes and was shocked to see what my half-finished Art work went through. నాకు ఏడుపొక్కటే తక్కువ. He finished the remaining lower half of the face in that 2 minutes while I was away from it, and showed me saying- "ఏం గిరీ ఎట్టేశా చూడు, నీ అంత టైం పట్టదులే నాకు బొమ్మెయటానికి". I went into a sudden depression looking at it, several hours of my hard but joyful efforts went in vain. It took few days for me recover from that.

Then I never bothered myself to make another attempt. I did not even want to be talk-of-the-town. That short-lived little dream in myself to become talk-of-the-town simply vanished. Later, with tears in my eyes, I had torn the paper into pieces. My special new friend, the Ballpoint pen was lying down as it did not know how to speak up or express its own feelings.

"...because every picture has a story to tell."

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