Hyderabad through art’ is Mandakini Rao’s solo art exhibition. Her first show was ‘Project 48’ where she painted 48 frames in 48 days.
Mandakini for now is a tour guide, taking visitors on a tour through the city. Sometimes at Charminar, sometimes at Qutub Shahi tombs, sometimes on the foot steps of a mosque or at times to a busy market area all through an artist’s eye.
A painting by Mandakini Rao / The Hindu
‘Hyderabad through art’ is Mandakini Rao’s solo art exhibition. Her first show was ‘Project 48’ where she painted 48 frames in 48 days. On display at Muse Art Gallery, the self-taught artist has painted 30 frames of sights and scenes around the city.
Are they an outcome of a trip to capture the city’s mood? Or was she, like other artists, inspired to present the beauty of the city from a different angle? Reality turns out to be something else. “My works are a reproduction of what I have seen and perceived around my surroundings. They are also at times inspired from photographs and images, but no, they are not replicas. Each frame has been infused with my signature style. I have used acrylic but given the water colour effect. Some of my frames are like a dream melting away. This I have done with the colours spilling and bleeding to give that effect,” explains Mandakini.
The artist however doesn’t stick to one style or medium. The effects depend on how I want my final product as I proceed to complete it. Born in the city, Mandakini Rao is a freelance graphic designer by profession and she quit her studies to take up art. “It wasn’t the best deal with my parents. They wanted me to do MS and courses like that, but seeing my interest in art I was allowed to pursue my dream in little doses. Finally they let me do a course in Visual FX and Graphic Designing in 2012 and I worked in a few places after that, but I still wanted to paint. My interest got stuck there, she says. She worked as a Creative Head/UI Designer with an iOS, Android apps company and also in an advertising agency.
Brush strokes: Painter Mandakini Rao. / The Hindu
Mandakini also teaches art at a hobby centre on weekends; with her back to back art assignments, she is pressurised to take a break. “My friends and family have warned me, so yes, it is a break for a week after my show,” she says.
source:http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Events / Prabalika M. Borah / September 02nd, 2014
At 54, Nina Reddy is busier than ever. Photo: R. Ravindran / The Hindu
Savera Hotels managing director Nina Reddy, who is planning the 13th anniversary celebrations of her fitness studio O2, says there is never a dull moment in her day.
It’s a Saturday afternoon in Hyderabad and the sun isn’t being particularly kind. There are lessons to do and chores to finish, but for the 25 children who live in the majestic white house in Barkatpura, this is hardly of any concern.
Even as their parents and staff at the house, tell them to get back to work, they look towards the gate expectantly. When they hear the sound of an approaching car, they spring up, shrieking with excitement.
“Ninamma ochundhi!” exclaims the driver’s daughter even as the children race through the cherry and guava trees. They startle some cows as they dash past the servant quarters. They jump over the pond, run past gargoyles spouting water and stop just short of the entrance, panting.
The guard manning the gates is on his feet, to welcome six-year-old Nina Reddy with a salute, as she drives through the gates of her grandparents’ house. “From Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening, till I’d go back to my parents’ house, it used to be a riot,” recalls Nina Reddy.
The weekends spent playing hopscotch and making music with the staff’s children is not something Nina often thinks about 48 years later. Yet, she somehow seems to know that the maid’s visually-challenged son, Venkatram, is now a professor in Hyderabad.
Even today, as she bustles about managing the affairs of Savera Hotel, Nina stops to enquire after her employees — she asks her public relations manager if her son’s cold is any better and listens, nodding sympathetically, when she says that it’s only become worse. “I’m a people’s person,” Nina needlessly explains. Nina often sends young female employees scurrying into the powder room, insisting they put on some lipstick or touch up their make-up. Grooming is important, she says.
Known for her impeccable sense of style, Nina has always been chic. Even in college, when the nuns who ran St. Francis College for Women gave her disapproving looks, she wore the jeans, shorts and shirts that pleased her. “When you say Reddy, you typically expect conservativeness. Mum was not like that, she brought us up differently,” Nina explains. None of that, however, took her away from her traditional roots.
When Nina was still in college, her parents announced that a young man from Madras was coming to see her. Her first reaction, understandably, was to burst into tears — she was still in her teens and hadn’t even completed her college education.
When she met young Vijay Kumar Reddy, however, everything changed. “He was extremely shy, he still is,” she smiles. Soon, he was calling her every night post-10 p.m., because that’s when the STD call rates were cheaper. Yet, staying on the call till the wee hours of the morning ensured that he drew up a huge bill. They wrote each other love letters, long ones, which filled up every inch of the inland letter. For her wedding shopping, when Nina came down to Madras on her way to Kancheepuram, he took her to Marina beach, after a quick stopover at Savera Hotel to pick up a packed picnic lunch.
When 19-year-old Nina married into the Savera family and moved to Madras in 1979, she found the city welcoming. Still, she was a stranger here and the language posed a major challenge. For a while, she walked around referring to Vijay Kumar as ‘Namma husband’, till she watched enough Tamil movies and picked up enough of the language to stop doing it.
She dabbled in every course available in the city, making many friends along the way. She organised exhibitions and car rallies, took part in kitty parties and Round Table meetings, started The Duchess Club and fitness studio O2, took over operations at Savera and started revamping the look of the hotel. When her two daughters came into her busy life, she’d plop them on her hips, with a baby bag swinging from her shoulders and take them along wherever she went.
There was never a dull moment, nothing slowed her down and that’s just the way Nina liked it. Because, “Life is not stagnant, it’s dynamic.” And Nina’s dynamism is what makes her who she is.
Today, at 54, Nina feels that age has slowed her down physically. But, that’s hard to believe. As the clock strikes 4 p.m., most people would be itching to head home. Nina, however, fulfilling her role as the president of the National Association of the Blind, has to be present at a function. After a few hours there, she has a dance practice scheduled — she’s dancing to ‘Dhol Baje’ as part of O2’s 13th anniversary celebrations. Post that, she needs to come back to Savera, wrap up work for the day and squeeze in an hour of exercise. Once all that is done, she gets to go home, have dinner with her husband and play with her dogs.
Even with a schedule that hardly gives her time to breathe, she says she doesn’t need a vacation. “There’s no deprivation at any level, even in terms of time,” says Nina, who enjoys every activity she does. Her philosophy in life is not just to exist, but to live. And Nina lives her life quite large.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Fitness / September 02nd, 2014
