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dks07

'Oh! I am sad that it is the last day of the training' said Sunita while leaving for the third day of the Kerala Murals Workshop held recently at Dakshina Chitra. Normally this happens on a minimum 3 day workshop where people get know the others better than an 1-2 day workshop, or when the participant numbers is minimum and most importantly when the people in the workshop share the same passion & feel strongly towards the art. We had an eclectic mixture of people from all walks of life - housewife / IT professionals / Students / Chennai settled foreigner and a couple of NRIs who shared the same levels of intrest. In this post rather than writing about technicalities of Kerala Murals, let me write about how I came across these Kerala murals for the first time.

Page 1

In the year 2001 I went to Trivandrum & visited Padmanabhaswamy Temple for the first time, I noticed the different styled paintings on the shrine's outer wall. At that time I was clueless about that painting but could appreciate the different style. Later when I visited the other temples like Chottanikkara & Thodupuzha I noticed the similiar styled paintings and realised that it has something to do with Kerala. Later on 2004 when I visited Madurai, I saw the cloister around the Lotus Pond being repainted with the style of painting I had seen in Kerala.

dks01
Our classroom at the workshop... Standing middle is our teacher - Vasuki Ma'm

dks02
Sunita is actually posing to paint... Ha! ha! This is actually her painting but this shot at the start of the day, she poses as if she is painting

dks03
This is Mr. Ian... I told him that he is an Indian in UK body. It is really nice to see somebody who likes India even more than Indians do...