Chakram Prabhakar, a masterartist at the Kalakshetra Foundation’s Craft Centre

A pungent odour lingers in the well-lit and airy room, where Chakram Prabhakar instructs his lone student. You can hear a rhythmic clang-clang-chak from the adjacent room.

“Follow the strokes as I draw,” says Prabhakar, drawing a daisy that morphs into a moustachioed man.

Prabhakar reviews the student’s work, nods and on a fresh page, draws a woman’s face. His strokes are quick and precise. The student’s, more guarded. The exercise then advances into complete human figures.

The student is taking her first kalamkari class at the Kalakshetra Foundation. Kalamkari (kalam-pen, kari-work) is done on cotton or silk fabric. Scenes and characters from the Hindu epics, and motifs such as peacocks and flowers, are hand-drawn. Only organic dyes are used, lending the fabric earthy hues. The art form that originated in Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh, is 2,000 years old.

Prabhakar, the master-artist at the Crafts Centre, is from Srikalahasti. The 73-year-old took a kalamkari course there, under the auspices of Small Scale Industries, Government of Andhra Pradesh in 1976. Having joined the unit at Kalakshetra in 1998 as a resident-artist, he currently heads it.

During his training, he practised on a slate, recalls Prabhakar. His father’s

veshti was the first piece of fabric he dyed at the training. His students at the Craft Centre though, are given a piece of gadha cotton fabric soaked in a solution of buffalo milk and powdered myrobalan seeds to work on. “This prevents dyes from smudging and bleeding into each other,” the master explains.

A rectangular piece of greenish-yellow fabric, coarse with the residue from the solution, awaits the student at the work station. “Rub the residue off the cloth,” he says and hands her a stone. She is then instructed to border the fabric with daisy-paisley motifs. Upon completion, Prabhakar hands her a plastic mug with runny black glug inside. The strange odour is from this mug containing kassim, a mixture of palm jaggery and iron rust. It is used to give a black outline for the figures.

Before joining Kalakshetra, Prabhakar toured different parts of the country, showcasing and selling his craft in exhibitions. Of all his creations, he is particularly proud of a 60-feet long

Sampoorna Ramayana piece he sold for ₹25,000. “My depiction of the Tree of Life was used as the backdrop when Pranab Mukherjee came to Kalakshetra,” adds Prabhakar.

He goes home at least once every month. His wife is also a kalamkari artist. His children, however, didn’t show interest in the art form.

At the Centre, it takes the student over 10 hours (four classes) to simply draw and outline the borders and a peacock, on cloth the size of a halfspread newspaper.

The cloth is now set to undergo a complex dying process and sun bleaching before it becomes marketready. Roots, flowers, seeds, leaves, peels and barks are used for pigment.

The student hasn’t seen the infusion of colours on her artwork yet. She tells the master that she will paint her peacock in red as she heads out.

For details on the Kalamkari and Vegetable Dye Designing courses, call 24525423. The Hindu, 4 Feb 2019