20th February 2018
Seven summers ago on a windy afternoon when I first walked down Ponnambala Vathiyar street,Mylapore a cool breeze played in my mind. The scintillating view of 'Kapaleeshwarar' temple Gopuram that I saw left me baffled and Little did I know that this was going to be an eye opener for my one and only book I'd been wanting to make for myself and about Madras, the city I have lived in all my life.Three years from then with all my imagination seemingly at the tip of my pen one fine night I inked this street scene as I thought. Nothing has ever been so magical in my head till date.
"Kailaye Mayilai Kapali"
I have been studying this street since the year 2010 and quietly observing all the changing times, through different lighting and different seasons. I have understood that except for the Gopuram remaining as it is, everything else around it has been evolving.
This is my first ever drawing I made for my book with the help of a Reynolds Gel racer pen, took me nearly two months to complete.
Inset of Ponnambala Vathiyar Street May 2013
To me every time I have walked into this street something or the other formed well in my picture completing my perspective. I think it is the beauty of the street for typically having formed alongside the Outer wall of the temple that makes it unique in the eye particularly from where i stand. I knew that if I stuck to the scale of the gopuram and placed it well on my picture everything else was in place.
