I remember myself collecting the pictures on the match boxes, various types of them and making an album out of it. This happened during my primary school days. Baby, Jumbo, Two Cats, and wow…Cheetah fighter!!… that was my favorite. Sometimes I collected the pictures of deities and made an album out of it too.
I think this habit has got something to do with my fascination in later years. During my high school days, I was fascinated by the name boards, which the shopkeepers displayed on their shops. I used to travel by bus, a ride of about 30 minutes to attend my school in Krishnagiri. Once the bus enters the town limits, it naturally slowed down, courtesy of narrow roads, parked vehicles, pedestrians, and of course the omnipresent cattle..
Once inside the bus, whether I was seated or not, because of the convenient height, I can have a real close-up look at these fascinating name boards.
( any way this business of being seated or standing inside the bus really didn’t matter becos, I was a tiny little boy those days, involved in few fights, usually with the most heavily built boys in my class. I will end up crying in anger; few of my shirt buttons would have been lost in the process).
Especially when seated in a window seat, its fun time and it’s me and the name boards.
At one point of time, I remember, I had memorized most of the name boards in Old Sub jail road and Salem Main road (Krishnagiri) in their respective orders!!
They could be seen in various shapes and sizes-square, rectangular, even circular sometimes. Few of them will bear only the names; few will have names amidst the picture and vice versa.
And one can see an astonishing varieties of images-deities, infant, child, boy, girl and celebrities.
Aahaa! Aishwarya with a veil on most photo studios and Silk Smitha obviously will be holding in her hand, a wine glass, filled with country liquor.
Rajinikanth, Kamalhaasan on hairstylist’s saloons, (these days I guess it will be Ajith, Vijay or Dhanush, Simbu or it could be all of them together)…
Later these celebrities, especially Aishwarya with a green Short Sari (the term Dhavani is more appropriate) got herself transferred and prominently displayed on the rear glasses of the privately owned buses fitted with blasting digital audio systems. One can add Nayanthara, Sneha, and Trisha as late entrants in this category.
Those days the name boards were mostly hand written with paint, few embossed metal boards (white in blue) could be spotted though.
Each locality had its own share of popular nameboard artists. I rank Mr. R.Chandrasekar from Kaveripatnam, a small town near my native village in Krishnagiri Dist as one of the best of his kind.
Chandrasekar was excellent in his portrayals of human figures, be it with modern or classical looks. He was good with the fonts too.
He did his painting works in a small shelter, located in the basement of a house, where my friend Senthil's family lived in the first floor. I met him there once, with few of my amateur line drawings, but being a gentleman he complemented me with good words. This happened more than 6 years ago and I never pursued seriously, this art of portraits/caricature is another matter.
Possibly the kind words of Chandrasekar doused the fire out of the budding artist’s belly!!!
One can see a myriad of synthetic printed banners, bill boards these days, looming large over the city’s landscape, spilling over to the towns and some villages too.
This banner culture reaches its peak during the elections, be it for the local council, the legislative assembly or the parliament.
These days there is not much scope for these name board artists, largely because of this deluge of synthetic stuffs.
One has to indulge in mural paintings on the roadside, depicting the proclaiming political avatars or else in painting the house walls along the National Highways with advertisements of textiles and jeweler’s showrooms.
These endangered species need to adapt and evolve through the changing times to survive in this modern world.
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