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The peaceful rural sceneries and landscapes with the delicately shaded backgrounds.
The colourfully depicted Hibiscus flowers with petals that seem so real and
numerous
other paintings, mostly on nature, speak of his talent and capability of
Mr. Narayanswamy Elangovan who has conquered fate. |
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| They were
on a picnic to Batala in Punjab and the youngsters were in high spirits. Twenty-two-year-old Mr.
Narayanaswamy Elangovan, an administrator in the Indian Air Force was posted
to Kanpur and so he was out to celebrate with his friends. Says Mr. Elangovan, "It
was supposed to be a farewell get-together for me. We decided to go swimming
and I dived into the canal. But unfortunately, as I had miscalculated its depth
I hit the bottom of the canal and severely injured my spinal cord. In that
split second in 1970, Mr. Elangovan, a youngster at the threshold of a promising
future
turned into a tetraplegic. |
A
little unwillingly Mr. Elangovan goes down memory lane, he recounts "Those
were dark days. I do not even want to think of those days when I was in a dark
depression. In 1976 I took shelter at the Paraplegic home. where, Nurse Captain
Shakuntala helped me a great deal to cope up with my severe depression. She counselled
me a great deal and encouraged me to turn to mouth painting".
Continues
Mr. Elangovan somberly, "Financially we were very poor and there was no way
I could meet my needs. I was not given a pension as the Ministry of Defence decided
that my injury was not attributable to defence regulations. The inability to support
my agged parents and younger sister, either financially or physically threw me
into gloom".
"But," confides Mr. Elangovan wryly, "as
the say, ' Necessity is the mother of invention.'
To divert myself from my problems, one day I held a pen in my mouth
and tried to write. Within a week the scribbling became legible and this boosted
my morale." Soon he graduated to writing letters to his family and friends.
The next step was trying to draw the numerous pictures that he came across
in magazines and books. His room mate and friend Mr. Kohli was there to lend
a helping
hand when he faltered. The laborious painstaking efforts woke up the latent
artist in him and Mr. Elangovan, the artist was born.
With quiet confidence
Mr. Elangovan says, "Soon I started painting cards." The peaceful
rural sceneries and landscapes with the delicately shaded backgrounds, the
colourfylly
depicted hibiscus flowers with petals that seems so real and numerous other
paintings, mostly on nature, speak of his talent and capability.
In 1984 he became
a member of the Association of Foot and Mouth Painting Artists. Every year he
sends 20 paintings to their headquarters in Schaan in Luxemburg. Of these the
best are selected to be reproduced in the form of greeting cards and calendars.
Ten of Mr. Elangovan's paintings have been selected. In addition, his impressive
bio-data informs you that he has won numerous awards and prizes. His paintings
have been exhibited in Pune, Delhi, Mumbai and Taiwan.
The trip to Taipei
in September 1991 has a special place in his heart. With a smile tugging at
his lips he relates, "It was very nice. We were able to meet our counterparts
from South Asia and exchange our views and problems. There were 200 artists
and some of them had come with their families."
He also keeps in touch
with the world outside by reading newspapers and watching television. "I
enjoy watching sports and whenever I get sometime, I watch sports on TV."
Now Mr. Elangovan is busy painting on the topic of peace. Though felled by
a blow of fate, this frail man is Forex (Foreign Exchange) earner for Indian,
as his paintings are bought by the international organisation to which he belongs.
Mr. Elangovan says with deep conviction that when God
closes a door, somehow somewhere he opens a window. |
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