Sreelasree Nachiappa Swamigal

An obituary notice in The Hindu in October 2011 said Sreelasree Nachiappa Swamigal of the Koviloor Math had passed away. It was the end of a most unusual life – a successful professional in a number of disciplines connected with that premier art institution, Kalakshetra, to turn a religious head in his seventies. His years as a sanyasi were no less eventful than his earlier life, as he began several activities to promote and expand the religious order he headed, including running Vedic schools, opening several new pilgrim centres around the world, and bringing out several publications regularly.

Coming from Chettinad, Nachi arrived in Kalakshetra as a youngster and came under the influence of Rukmini Devi Arundale. He soon became an understudy of Conrad Woldring, a well-known Dutch photographer, and in time became a photographer of repute himself. He also trained in printing, his expertise in letterpress printing technology making him a much sought-after printer in the West after offset printing swept the world, and the old method became almost extinct there. In the 1990s, international celebrities in the arts like Alan Ginsberg, Francesco Clemente and Raymond Foye sought him out to bring out the exotic series of Hanuman Books.

Earlier, Nachiappan offered the first microfilming facility in Chennai and many organisations, including newspapers like The Hindu, utilised his services for quite a few years. His Kalakshetra Press was also renowned for its reproductions of colour photography. He introduced to Madras the klischograph, an electronic engraving machine that produced letterpress printing plates directly from an original without the use of any intermediate stages.

As a child, Nachiappan had the good fortune of learning from Maria Montessori while she was in Madras during World War II. He remained devoted to Montessori education all his life, not only running a Montessori school and teacher training centre, but also publishing a whole set of books on the great educationist and her work.

A much travelled man, Nachiappan was always keen to introduce to Kalakshetra and Madras the latest technology he had learnt abroad.

He used his knowledge of stage lighting to advantage in Kalakshetra’s dance-drama productions. He will probably be remembered best for his excellent work in photography as displayed in his exhibitions and books on Kalakshetra and Rukmini Devi.

No feature on him can be complete without reference to the controversies that sometimes surrounded him, the court cases he was involved in, including some against close associates at Kalakshetra and the Theosophical Society. Nachiappan was 88 when he passed away. – (Courtesy: Sruti)