As we wind up the year with parties and grand resolutions, here’s our pick of two quirky, glamourous calendars for 2020. These celebrate Raja Ravi Verma, India’s most recognised realist painter, and fashion frat speaking up for the queer community.
Classic frames
Celebrity photographer, G Venket Ram has designed an exquisite calendar that can easily become a coffee table keepsake. The popular lensman has recreated a series of Raja Ravi Verma’s paintings in collaboration with Suhasini Maniratnam and her Naam Charity Trust (created to empower and educate single underprivileged women), which completes 10 years in 2020.
The calendar recreates 12 iconic paintings of the legendary artist, with 12 alluring divas of South Indian cinema.
Ram shares with us how the devil is in the details.
“Raja Ravi Verma Foundation graciously came forward to share some of the original paintings for additional detail. Once we finished choosing the paintings to recreate, matching the leading ladies with the beautiful women in the paintings was a Herculean task!” The 12 actresses that included Khushboo, Lizzy and Lakshmi Manchu – were chosen from diverse age groups to bring the fascinating nuances of the women in the paintings to life.
The calendar will be out in mid-January 2020.
Pride in fashion
Sunil Menon is all set with the 11th edition of his annual fundraiser calendar of the LGBTQ support group Sahodaran. The fashion choreographer and activist has picked themes from Hindu mythology for the ‘Sentience 2020’ edition. Expect “imagery and tales, portraying various human emotions that affirm that we are sentient beings”. Also, there has been a shift from all-men to an interesting mix of eminent models that include men, women and transgenders, this time.
Having shot the series exclusively in Kerala over two locations, Menon tells us that it was not an easy task.
“The challenge in doing this calendar – in executing and producing it – was the volume... the number of people involved. Every year we had one male model in each page – that meant 12 models for 12 months. Whereas this year we crossed 20 models! Moreover, we had to get the right models that would suit the character from the mythological imagery that we were depicting!”Limited edition, at Rs 1,500, available at the Sahodaran office.