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Nothing typecast about KK
OTHER THAN scholarly pursuits can universities offer scope to let one's creative side come to the fore? Certainly yes in the case of K. Krishna Moorthy working in the registrar office of Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages.
Instead of getting bogged down with official paper work, he let his creativity flower. On his own initiative, he pursued, learnt and developed certain interesting art forms like shadow plays, drawing pictures through typewriter and the word art.
``These crafts have come to me naturally. I was interested in creative works from childhood. I had no reference works or teachers to guide me, they just flowed into my mind,'' says KK with a smile. What began as a hobby a decade ago has evolved into giving performances all over the State.
``I was pretty fast with the typewriter and when I drew caricatures on it for use as printing cards they were appreciated. With that, I practised drawing different pictures,'' he says. Sometime later, he started making shadows formed by candlelight speak, so to say.
KK developed the shadow forms further by making use of the recording studio on the campus, incorporating sounds from mimicry artistes and made small skits containing messages against smoking, religious tolerance, etc. He made 29 such acts which he performs for about 15 minutes during shows. These skits are presented in English and Telugu and some have been performed for CIEFL's foreign students.
Training at a drawing school for a few days before joining CIEFL gave shape to some of the ideas floating in KK's brain. His teacher there provided him a glimpse into how numbers can be brought to life by making figures out of them. Why not alphabets, he thought. With the help of `elephant' word he drew the animal and from then on illustrated different figures of a joker, peacock, etc. He has made 50 such figures of word art thus far and plans to bring them out in the form of a book. "I feel this will serve as a good handbook for children to think creatively," he says.
KK, however, admits it is difficult to make a shadow play of every story or rhyme and the same goes with making figures out of every word. "Most of the time they come spontaneously but any new ideas have to be first approved by my wife and kids,'' he laughs.
By V. Geetanath
Photo: K. Ramesh Babu
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