Nowadays, most people hardly use the ‘Gundu Bulb’ (Tungsten bulb) at homes for its higher power consumption. But, with Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha announcing the 100 free units of electricity to households soon after she took back the reins, a city-based artist, displaying his intricate workmanship, has thanked ‘Amma’ by drawing her colourful image inside a tungsten bulb! And by doing so, the artist UMT Raja believes that Tamil Nadu is going to ‘shine’ under the rule of ‘Amma’
Raja, who is a goldsmith by profession, renamed himself as ‘UMT’ Raja to proclaim his self-reliance after watching the 1988 Kamalhassan starrer ‘Unnal Mudiyum Thambi’ directed by the late film doyen K Balachander. “After several attempts, when I met the veteran film maker and showed him the tattoo ‘UMT’ on my arm, he said that this was the best award to his film.”
While Hindu women wear thalis and mettis as identities for their being married, the question on the identity of a married Hindu man is something far away to Raja. Lauding the Chief Minister also for her announcement of providing 8 gm gold free for thali in her revised marriage aid scheme, Raja thought of thanking her in another artistic way.
He made four different dollars of thali. Now, he arranges them horizontally one after the other. And there appears the word ‘AMMA’ with each of the four dollars depicting one letter of the word! “With the advent of machines in making jewelery, many of the goldsmiths have renounced their traditional occupation and taken up other odd jobs to eke out a living. While I thank Amma for increasing the quantity of gold by 4 gms for thirumangalyam in her revised marriage aid scheme, I also request her to take certain measures to retrieve our traditional occupation,” he said. Demonstrating how he drew the colourful image of ‘Amma’ inside a fused electric bulb, Raja pointed out: “It is just like painting on the glass. But, the challenge is drawing the image from the inside of the bulb.”
The artist twists the hairy tip of the brush and keeps it pointing upwards and dips it in the necessary enamel colours. Now, holding the bulb horizontally between his fingers, he inserts the brush into the bulb and carefully draws the smiling image of ‘Amma’.
A Kuniyamuthur resident, Raja could not pursue his schooling after class IX. Answering a question whether he bagged any prizes for drawing in his student days, he informs: “Though the opportunity of receiving a prize came to me only once in my school life, I missed it after my incorrect understanding of our Tamil teacher Eswaran Ayya’s language. A chaste Tamil speaker, when he called me, one day, in the assembly as ‘Raja, Onbathaam Vakuppu ‘E’ Pirivu ‘ I wrongly understood that he was calling some other ‘Raja’ from ‘IX standard ‘E’ section’ as I belonged to ‘C’. But, only later on, I realized that the teacher had used the third Tamil alphabet ‘ E’ only to mean ‘C’ in English ! “