History student explores vocabulary of Sangam poets through art

To introduce the vocabulary of the Sangam anthologies, Prathik along with his artist friend Vikram Srinivas is doing a series titled Sangam Sol. “Poetries of the Sangam period are not as popular among the common public as much as they are in academia. Even if we were to deliver lectures, it requires immense attention span and sustained interest. I thought the best way to introduce the Sangam lifestyle is through the Sangam vocabulary itself. Vikram and I are exploring the vocabulary of the Sangam Tamil poets and are depicting it through art,” says Prathik.

““People are always curious to learn about the lifestyle of people who lived 2,000 years ago, their eating habits, etc. and that’s the exciting part of this project. By sharing those details, today’s generation will get to know the life of people during the Sangam period (1st century BC to 4th century CE). For eg, the word angadi is used to denote a shop/market in Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. The market spaces are classified as nalangadi—day markets (maduraikkanji) and allangadi - night markets (Agananuru). But today, not many people use the word ‘angadi’. Vikram does an artistic representation of the Sangam words so that people can relate to it easily,” he adds.

For the project, Vikram Srinivas, who is a professional visual designer, follows mixed styles such as the mural style of Thanjavur palace and Ramalinga Vilasam in Ramanathapuram. “Since we are depicting the society from 2,000 years ago, we have to be extra careful. Prathik and I have a lot of discussions on how the art should be. We might not be able to get the perfect picture but this is our point of view. The art is abstract and I have illustrated it in a manner easy for people to understand,” says Vikram.