On the occasion of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav and G20, Banaras Hindu University’s Prof Suresh K Nair and his team of eleven students made a long mural painting in collaboration with airport director Aryama Sanyal at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Varanasi.
The mural painting measured 55.74 square meters (600 square feet). The mural also entered the “Eurasia World Records”.
The eleven students were from the faculty of Visual Arts, where Prof Nair teaches. The students were awarded participation certificates by “Eurasia World Records”.
The names of these students are Saurabh Srivastava, Pulak K. Sarkar, Arunima Mondal, Kajal Verma, Manasi Shah, Aastha Tiwari, Tenzin Yonten, Norbu Tashi, Tenzin Newdon, Shruti Gupta and Priya Gupta.
The certificate was awarded to Prof Nair and Sanyal on May 14 at the Varanasi airport by Sadia Hannan from US on behalf of Eurasia World Records.
According to Sanyal, the 20×30 foot mural painting, which is 6.096 metres long and 9.144 metres broad, has become the airport’s main attraction.
Prof Nair said, it contains 300 lotus flower designs and a mirror Shiva Linga in the centre, where the viewer can see himself teaching us in one of the Vedic mahavakyas: Tat Tvam Asi (That is You), according to Nair.
BHU Vice-Chancellor Prof Sudhir K. Jain inaugurated the mural a few weeks ago and requested Nair to create more paintings on the campus.
Prof Nair is a native of Adakkaputhur, Kerala. He obtained his National Diploma in Mural Painting from the Institute of Mural Painting Guruvayur, Kerala, under the guidance of Mammiyur Krishnan Kuty Nair.
He was inspired by the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Benod Behari Mukherji and Ramkinker Baij and joined in Department of Painting, Viswabarati University, Santiniketan as a student to continue his studies. Currently, he teaches art in the Department of Painting, Faculty of Visual Arts, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
Since 2010, Prof Nair’s monumental painting ‘Cosmic Butterfly” has been exhibited at Essl Museum, Vienna, Austria. He has also exhibited his works in the USA, Spain, and Canada. He was awarded the Elizabeth Green Shield Foundation Scholarship (1999) from Canada and Fulbright Fellowship ( 2006-07) from the United States for an educational exchange program at Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, under Professor Nicholas Kripal. He has received State Award from Kerala Lalithkala Akademi, Ministry of Culture, Government of Kerala.
