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Subramania Bharathi's associate Arya dead

Freedom fighter and well-known painter Bhashyam alias Arya, an associate of celebrated Tamil poet Subramania Bharathi, died at his residence in Madras on Friday morning after a brief illness.

He was 93, and is survived by three sons and three daughters.

Spurred by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak's vision of swaraj, Bhashyam became a firebrand revolutionary and performed several daring feats in protest against British colonial rule. He shocked the rulers by clandestinely climbing the ramparts of Fort St George, the seat of British power in Madras, and hoisting the national tricolour after bringing down the Union Jack on January 26, 1932.

Bhashyam also participated in flash stirs and clandestine burning of foreign clothes in the city's prominent textile shops.

Later, he embraced Gandhism and was jailed several times.

Assuming the pseudonym Arya, he went on to become a painter of repute. The well-known portrait of poet Bharathi with a twirling moustache that adorns the walls of thousands of homes in Tamil Nadu is his work.

He has the credit of having crafted the statues of Mahatma Gandhi at the Thakkar Baba Vidyalaya in Madras, of Sathyamurthi at the Rippon Buildings housing the city corporation, and of Vaidyanatha Iyer in the Madurai Corporation premises.

UNI

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