When reputed cartoonist Sridhar Comaravalli invited me to his house last Sunday I changed my schedule without thinking further. Senior watercolor landscape specialist and multi faceted personality Dr. Vijay Kakde was to give a small demo at Sridhar’s house. I knew Dr Vijay was in town but never expected him to be so generous and kind enough to show his skills in front of us. That evening I dropped in there with my wife Bhavana and those few hours turned out to be some of the most memorable hours of our lives.
Just as we were entering, I could hear the strains of the Carnatic Veena music coming from inside but never expected noted Cartoonist and Illustrator of the city Dinesh Francis to take music lessons from Veena expert Vidushi Venkatalakshmi Sridhar. As the other artists slowly joined us, I got a chance to meet some of our city’s wonderful artists like Ramesh Jhawar, Shyamala Ramanand, Venkatesh Rao, Dhruba Mazumder and his wife Cipriana Stan, Ranjani Ramesh and her son Nikhil who all came to see Dr Vijay in action.
It all started with a Veena demo from Vidushi Venkatalakshmi. Who would expect a better start for the evening than this?! After the music session was over it was the Master’s turn to show his skill practiced since the last 40 years .Everyone was ready with their phones and open eyes to record the demo. Dr Vijay began his work in great style even though he missed his regular “gear” as he was away from his home. He observed “I want to keep my paintings very simple. I don’t like to have too many details”. As I observed, for a painting illiterate like myself, it seemed like a couple of strokes of colors with some mixing of colours that I could not comprehend For a minute I was distracted by my own thoughts of light and shadow while making some quick portraits of the legendary Painter. When I got my attention back to his work he was saying” this painting needs to be looked from little far. Let me keep it on that chair”. There it is! A finished street painting with enough details to make it a master piece of art!
At the age of 77, Dr Vijay Kakde’s energy and zeal for art is very inspiring. He says “Books inspire us but do not teach us art”- a great quote for the current generation. He believes that to develop their style artists should focus on doing very few things and not try everything. Really an interesting timeless thought because it applies to any form of art.
Indeed it was tough to leave that atmosphere but I had so many other things at hand for the evening. I felt very blessed for all the interactions I had with Dr Vijay Kakde and it was a real pleasure to meet some of the wonderful artists of my city and become friends with. Not to forget Shri Sridhar’s hospitality and his idea of bringing all together in one platform, an aspect that is missing in the current age. And as I was about to click the group photo, we were all surprised when Smt.Jayashri Kakde came out from the Dining Hall! Surely I will visit Sridhar’s house just for the wonderful coffee we had that evening!
Thank you, Dinesh Maneer
Here are the links that you can see the works of the artists
Dr Vijaya Kakde – flickr– blog
Sridhar Comarvalli-fb
Dinesh Fransis -fb
Ranjani Ramesh –fb
Shyamala Ramanand-fb
Venkatesh Rao-fb
Dhruba Mazumder-fb
Some other portraits I made on the evening
Here is the gallery of all the activity
Nicely narrated … 🙂