It is generally an accepted fact that the Indian State of Kerala has produced one of the finest bunch of Kar2n-Krazy guys a.k.a. kar2nists in the Country. Some of the best ‘pencil wielders’ , dead or living, came from this land of Parasuraman…From kar2nist Shanker down …
Kerala has even an Academy for Kar2nists now, named ‘Kerala Cartoon Academy ‘ ( hereinafter called KCA 🙂 run by the kar2nists, for the kar2nists and bla..bla…bla … you get the drift? ).
In recent times , I for one , in my ‘envious’ position as a ‘tail-ender’ of this ‘community’, have been watching this institution growing from strength to strength during the last year or so. It is now more visible than it was during the past few years, thanks to the many initiatives taken by the it’s ‘sarathys’ and the contributions from its talented members. Camps, exhibitions, contests, TV Interviews, books… the routes taken to reach that stage of visibility have been many and what more, quite effective. And the latter brings me to my story of today….
KCA had recently ventured upon an unconventional unheard of initiative of inviting kar2ns on Lord Ganapathy’s local rep , the ubiquitous elephant of Kerala , from kar2nists of the Planet Earth as a whole. And their kar2ns were later compiled into a book which was released in a glittering function in Kochi last week by … hold your breath there… Oh! Me God! …an Elephant , an elephant of all things !
A Book Release , I understand , is a function where you need three constituents – one, a VIP to give the book , two, an Important personality to accept the book and ,three, last but not the least , the book itself, of course 😉 Apparently any new book is declared as ‘published’ by handing over a copy of the same by the aforesaid ‘ VIP ’ to the aforesaid ‘important personality’ with a lot of fanfare . But as mentioned earlier, our aforementioned ‘VIP’ was no less than a two-tonner Elephant ( pure guesswork, I didn’t carry any scales with me , so give or take a few kilos there ! ) and the aforementioned ‘ important personality’ … a shivering, scared-to-death 5 year old ( who wouldn’t? ) !
The kar2n book on ELEPHANTS , titled ‘Anavara’ was compiled , I am told, jointly by the Kerala Cartoon Academy and the DC Books . It was then formally released by a temple pachyderm ‘RUDRAN’ – maybe a Guinness Record, that! – at the DC Books International Book Festival held at Ernakulam Marine Drive on 1st January 2010 . A young visitor to the Festival venue, Master Neeraj Babu, received the first ‘ANAVARA’ from Rudran, albeit, feeling a little shaky in the legs ;-). RUDRAN of course was quite at home with the crowd, and was seen smacking his lips and rolling his eyes in enjoyment after ‘down-sizing’ a 20kg ( again guesswork!) Banana Bunch which would have taken you and me a good 30 days to finish off.
As for me, I prayed like hell that RUDRAN remained in his state of bliss and didn’t loose his cool ( well known in the Kerala Elephant circles ! ) till I left the venue with some copies of the book and my life .
Incidentally this ‘tail-ender’ was also lucky to have captured some of those historical moments in a video for the Posterity 😉
Wana watch some short clips from it ?
Please go to the YouTube home page and type TheKar2nist ( case sensitive) in the search box
And for my customary kar2n ? Click here too …>…>african-kar2nist
lostloff 