Sitaram - The Portrait
maker of Gods
By
P.R.Ramachander
God’s pictures are the treasured possession of most of the
Hindus. They keep it with reverence in their prayer room. Most of the time we
are not bothered to find, who painted it. For example I have been charmed by
the Bala Krishna as well as Viswaroopa paintings of Guruvayurappan. I also
reverentially look at and fold my hands, when I see the great painting of
Puducode Annapoorneshwari, (Which is in the home of thousands of people
originating from Puducode) who is my family Goddess. Some how I never wondered
as to who painted these great pictures.
About eight
years back I came
to know that these have been painted by Sri Sitaram, who was 77 at that
time and even then he very
busy in making oil paintings of various gods in Palakkad. Sri Sitaram belongs
to Guruvayoor and was given initial training by his father Sri Srinivasa Iyer ,
who was a celebrated painter. He had the good fortune to Meet Sri Kondaiah Raju
, a celebrated oil painter who was producing almost all the calendars in India
originating from Sivakasi , some 40 years back.. Sri Sitaram got interested in
oil painting and specialized in Portrait painting. He was especially interested
in Painting Gods and that too Guruvayurappan. His painting skill is very great
.
He told me that Several days the Guruvayur temple authorities
permitted him to see for some time Guruvayurappan , at the time
of Nirmalya Darsanam when
the God only wore a Kaupeena and his painting of Guruvayurappan is an extremely rare thing to get .In
Puducode also after the morning Pooja
it seemd he used to be shut inside the
temple after morning pooja , so that he
can see the goddess extremely well.
When I met him
accidentally before eight years, I had the God fortune to help him get lot of contacts and orders to draw God’s
pictures. I am attaching his paintings of Guruvayurappan and
Puducode Bhagawathy. After That I lost all contact with him,
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