Sangeetha Ratna Shri. N.P. Ramaswamy (Pensketch)

Shri. N.P. Ramaswamy Sir, is one of the most famous carnatic vocalists in India. Shri. Ramaswamy has been in the field of music for the last 60 years and has performed across the country. He has authored several articles and papers relating to music and has penned three books too. He studied up to his tenth standard in T.D. High School, Kochi and higher education in Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam. Shri. Ramaswamy is an MSc in Applied Chemistry – Pharmaceutical Science

Shri. Ramaswamy’s repertoire includes over 1,500 compositions which include 24 krithis and 16 varnam. He is the best-known music teacher in the state and has groomed many famous musicians. He is top grade singer in AIR for more than 50 years and conducted thousands of concerts. He has very large circle of disciples and music lovers.

Shri. Ramaswamy Sir, is the recipient of the gold medal for Carnatic music from Maharaja’s College, Ernakulam. He has also won the Sangeetha Ratna, Sangeetha Poornasree awards, the Kerala state award and Sangeetha Thilakam award. Please visit his official website : npramaswami.com/

I met this great personality in a strange occasion. On 04/12/2009, my friend Shri. Dinesh R Shenoy (a great artist) told me to assist him to take some photos of NPR and told that maybe it was his first photo session. (some of the photos can be seen in my album : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.254274304603773.71520.100000636154417&type=3). From then on we met regularly. I don’t know what he had seen in me to appreciate my “talents”. I even written and submitted about 10 devotional poems in Tamil !! Within two days, he called me. At my surprise one of poems was already composed. He directed one of his disciples to sing. It was like a ‘Keerthana’ and I was totally thrilled. After that he directed me to make these as an album and release. But because of limited resources or financial problems, I have sidelined it.

The great Ramaswamy Sir turned 80 years. He specially invited me to participate and take snaps of the celebration held on 27th and 28th August 2011 (some of the photos can be seen in my album : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.254275701270300.71523.100000636154417&type=3). He even took his precious time to invite me to attend Lunch held on 19/05/2012 in connection with the Sadabhishekam celebration.

Thank you Ramaswamy Sir for all the blessings.

Charlie Chaplin (Pen Sketch)

Quotes of Chaplin

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.”

“Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.”

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”

Speech from the film “Great Dictator”

"I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness - not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate - has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man - cries for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say: 'Do not despair.' The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!

Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St Luke, it is written the kingdom of God is within man not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful - to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason - a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us unite!

Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up Hannah. The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world - a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and their brutality. Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope, into the future, the glorious future that belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up, Hannah... look up!"

Scene from the film “Great Dictator”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4
 

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj (Pen Sketch)

Chhatrapati (Emperor) Shivaji Maharaj
(19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680 )

His Royal seal seal which read in Sanskrit :

Pratipatchandralekheva vardhishnurvishwavanditaa |
Shaahasoonosshivasyaisha mudraa bhadraaya raajate ||

'This Royal Seal of Shivaji the son of Shahaji, ever increasing in splendour like the moon on the first day of the bright half of the lunar month, shall shed auspicious benevolence and commands the homage of the entire world.'

Vishwa Konkani Sardar (World Konkani Leader) Sri. Basti Vaman Shenoy - Founder of World Konkani Centre, Mangalore

 

Shaheed Bhagat Singh (Pen sketch)

 "I emphasize that I am full of ambition and hope and of full charm of life. But I can renounce all at the time of need, and that is the real sacrifice."

“If the deaf are to hear, the sound has to be very loud.”

“Any man who stands for progress has to criticize, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain, and makes a man reactionary.”

Netaji Subash Chandra Bose (Pen sketch)

"The greatest curse for a man is to remain a slave.
The grossest crime is to compromise with injustice and wrong.
The highest virtue is to battle against inequity, no matter what the cost may be."

“We should have but one desire today- the desire to die so that India may live - the desire to face a martyr's death, so that the path to freedom may be paved with the martyr's blood. Friend's! My comrades in the War of Liberation! Today I demand of you one thing, above all. I demand of your blood. It is blood alone that can avenge the blood that the enemy has spilt. It is blood alone that can pay the price of freedom. 'Tum mujhe khoon do, mein tumhe azadi doonga' (You give me blood, and I promise you freedom).“It is our duty to pay for our liberty with our own blood. The freedom that we shall win through our sacrifice and exertions, we shall be able to preserve with our own strength......' “

- Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

My Best friend Dinesh R Shenoy (Pen Sketch)

Short note on him for my facebook friends......
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He is an artist who is active in the field of painting for last 28 years studied under famous portrait artist Late Shri. Joseph Newton. He is running my own Studio Gallery named “Chitrasala Art Gallery” and the gallery got privilege to receive auspicious guest Sir Roy Calne (Nobel Prize Winner), Shri. K.K.N. Kurup (Historian and former Director General, Centre for Heritage Studies, Hill Palace & Former Vice Chancellor, Calicut University), Cinestar Salim Kumar etc.

Some of his works are collected and permanently displayed in Arakkel Museum (Kannur), Hortus Malabaricus Museum (Hill Palace), Centre for Heritage Studies (Hill Palace), Cochin Refineries, BSNL (Ernakulam), Aspinwall , Malayala Manorama (Ernakulam, Kottayam & Delhi), Harbour View Residency (Ernakulam), Cochin Club, Lotus Club, YMCA (Ernakulam), Alappatt Arcades (Ernakulam), Brunton Boat Yard etc.

Monochromatic Landscape works are his speciality and he had done more than 400 landscape paintings of ancient Cochin. His Monumental landscape works are appreciated by many.A separate collection of paintings of old Dutch, British, Arab, Greek ships are highlight of his gallery.

Pls visit his page : https://www.facebook.com/dineshrshenoy and appreciate his great talent.

And also visit to  : http://artistshenoy.blogspot.com/

Thank you ... :)

Swami Vivekananda - Pen Sketch

उत्तिष्ठता जाग्रता प्राप्यवरान निबोधता
क्षुरस्यधारा निशिता दुरत्यया
दुर्गं पथस्तात कवयो वदन्ति - (कठोपनिषद)

uttiṣṭhata jᾱgrata prᾱpya varᾱn nibodhata:
kṣurasya dhᾱrᾱśitᾱ duratyayᾱ; durgam pathas tat kavayo vadanti (Kathopanishad)

Do not be under the notion that you can get this blissful experience in a trice. Awake! Arise! Stop not till the goal is reached! Seek refuge with men of wisdom. Know it, then, by surrender to them.

Mario Miranda - Pen sketch

Dev Anand - Pen sketch

Another Cartoon about 2012 i.e. End of the World.

Is the World is going to end by this year?  What can you say about the Mayan Calendar Prophecy? Is it true? 

“This is the ancient land, where wisdom made its home before it went into any other country… Here is the same India whose soil has been trodden by the feet of the greatest sages that ever lived… Look back, therefore, as far as you can, drink deep of the eternal fountains that are behind, and after that look forward, march forward, and make India brighter, greater, much higher, than she ever was.”

"It is the same India which has withstood the shocks of centuries, of hundreds of foreign invasions, of hundreds of upheavals of manners and customs. It is the same land, which stands firmer than any rock in the world, with its undying vigour, indestructible life. Its life is of the same nature as the soul, without beginning and without end, immortal; and we are the children of such a country."

युनान-ओ-मिस्र-ओ-रोमा सब मिट गये जहाँ से
अब तक मगर है बांकी नामो-निशान हमारा ॥
कुछ बात है की हस्ती मिटती नही हमारी
सदियो रहा है दुश्मन दौर-ए-जमान हमारा ॥

My first cartoon

I have no knowledge about cartoons. Its' sketches are different from other drawings which I have used to. Though, from my childhood I was very much interested in drawing cartoons. But now only it emerged as a flash and materialized due to some socio-political happenings around the state where I am living.

In this cartoon PM asking CM of Kerala that when is the "urgency (or death ceremony) ?" It was asked in the context of the requirement of PM's urgent intervention in the Mullaperiyar Dam issue. In Malayalam "Adiyanthiram" has two meanings, one is urgency and the other one is ceremony (mostly, sometimes it refers only to death ceremony)

(എനിക്ക് കാര്‍ട്ടൂണ്‍ വരയ്ക്കാന്‍ അറിയില്ല. പക്ഷെ പല ആശയങ്ങളും ഇടയ്ക്കിടയ്ക്ക് മനസ്സില്‍ പൊന്തിവരാറുണ്ട്. എന്നാല്‍ സമകാലീന പ്രശ്നങ്ങളെ കുറിച്ച് ജനങ്ങളെ ബോധാവാന്മാരാക്കുന്ന കാര്‍ട്ടൂണുകള്‍ പത്രമാധ്യമങ്ങളില്‍ തീരെ കാണുവാന്‍ സാധിക്കുന്നില്ല. മുല്ലപ്പെരിയാര്‍ പ്രശ്നത്തെക്കുറിച്ച് പ്രധാനമന്ത്രിയെ ധരിപ്പിക്കുവാന്‍ നമ്മുടെ പ്രിയപ്പെട്ട മുഖ്യമന്ത്രി ഡല്‍ഹിയില്‍ പോയ വാര്‍ത്തയെപ്പറ്റി എനിക്ക് തോന്നിയ വിഷയമാണ് ഇതിനോട് ചേര്‍ത്തിരിക്കുന്ന കാര്ടൂണിനു ആധാരം. ഇത് എന്‍റെ കാര്‍ട്ടൂണ്‍ വരയ്ക്കാനുള്ള ആദ്യത്തെ ഉദ്യമമാണ് . (sketches curtsey : Cartoonist Kirtish Bhatt & Cartoonist Yesudasan))

My Konkani Poem "पाळांचे मोह"

Introduction

Hi, everybody... :)

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Balakrishna Mallya. I am an artist creating contemporary as well as realistic oil paintings on canvas. Written more than 1000 poems in my mother tongue "Konkani", about 50 poetries in Malayalam and also in Hindi. I am also writing (in the process) many stories that could be used in making for thriller/paranormal movies. Now I am also trying to sketch some cartoons from November 2011.

I have written a book on "Hortus Indicus Malabaricus" naming "Hortus Malabaricusum Konkanigalude Pangum" (ഹോര്‍ത്തൂസ് മലബാറിക്കൂസും കൊങ്കണികളുടെ പങ്കും) regarding Hortus Malabaricus and the contributions of Konkanis.

This blog includes every activities relating to me, mostly poems, cartoons, pencil & pen sketches of great personalities. Thanks!