Mangaluru:
Karan Acharya, 27, hailing from Kasaragod and working for a Bengaluru-based company in Hyderabad, has still not recovered from the pleasant shock that he received on Saturday.
At a rally in Mangaluru, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi had complimented Karan for the Hanuman portrait that has captured the imagination of people across India. “This is a laudable achievement, and is the power of his talent and imagination,” Modi had said.
Karan’s phone has not stopped ringing since then and his social media accounts have been flooded with plaudits. “I started receiving calls from my family and friends at 7.40pm on Saturday. I started getting jittery, thinking that something untoward may have happened at home. When I came to know about PM mentioning my name and art, I was shocked and surprised. I immediately connected live on YouTube, but that moment had passed. However, my friends saw to it that I could relive it through the recorded version,” Karan told TOI from Hyderabad.
The vector image came through when a group of youths in Kumble near Kasaragod asked him to design a saffron-tinged Hanuman for the Ganesh festival in September 2015. Till then, they were using ‘Om’ flag for their festival celebration. They wanted to have Hanuman’s image in the flag, and the change met their expectation. Thereafter, the vector art, done just under an hour, gained popularity in Kumble and beyond.
Working for Arambha Design and Art, Karan is currently ideating for ‘Aarogya Today — Cancer Prevention Conference’ scheduled in Hyderabad from May 13.
Is he working on similar vector art works? “No. But I do sketches not to lose touch,” said Karan.
Karan, whose grandfather Ramachandra Acharya was a wood-carving
artist, gives credit to his mother Manjula for encouraging him to be an artist. His vector image has not been copyrighted. Karan says it would not have gained the popularity it did if it were copyrighted.
