Chalk Sculptor

Cariappa a good friend of mine who is a central government employee had a few things inside him which even I did not know until I visited him for a drinking session 1n 1994 when he had just moved from Bangalore to New Delhi. He had these miniature chalk carvings displayed in his showcase which was his passion part from Phrenology, which is the study of human behavior.

To most of us, chalk is a breakable piece of stationary used in classrooms. But to Kaleyangada Cariappa, a central government employee in Delhi who hails from Karnataka, chalk is what his are is all about. With some imagination and ingenuity, he turns chalk into miniature carvings which, can stay for life.
Cariappa’s latest work, now under scrutiny by editors of the Guinness Book of Records, is a three mm-high elephant flanked by smaller versions of 2mm and 1 mm each. Cariappa is happy about his achievement. “it cost two weeks and a lot of chalk, but it is now ready at last.”
Cariappa started chiseling chalk when he was six years old. “When I began, it used to help me control my anger over criticism about my failure. It could be that I had failed in some exam, or hat somebody teased about it and I couldn’t take it. It is as though so I needed to prove to myself that I could achieve something …. Something unique,” he says.

Most of his works have motifs. One of them is a carving of an angry man with an uplifted hat. This was to show that “when people get angry, they talk through their hats.” Another impressive carving is of a running dog.
The tools Cariappa uses are simple: a blade and a needle.
He says all arts involving carving need a lot of practice and chalk carving more than most arts. But it has one big advantage: it is inexpensive, no matter what the wastage.
Most of his works are made from a single piece of chalk, though some are two or more pieces glued together. One of his most impressive works is a pregnant woman surrounded by five children. Another carving of a couple with their son and daughter is almost as good.
Besides chalk carvings, Cariappa also pursues another passion called phrenology, which is the study of human behavior from the size, shape, form and contour of the human head. Cariappa makes fantastic claims about phrenology. For instance, he says it could help check crime by 50 per cent. He even claims that it could help nab Veerappan, (the mosted wanted man by the law in 1994), along with suggestions on how to go about arresting him.
In addition to chalk carving and phrenology, Cariappa has other hobbies like designing greeting cards with thumb impression, zari threads and beads.