The Artist
K. Bhadran
8 July 1942 – 10 December 2025 · Alappuzha, Kerala · Chennai, Tamil Nadu
He was born in Kerala, into a family too poor to keep him in school. He studied to high-school level and stopped. At the same school he had attended as a boy he worked as a watchman, then a clerk, and in time a teacher.
In 1964 he went north, selling rotary pumps out of Bilaspur, in what is now Chhattisgarh, and travelling widely across northern and central India. There, in 1973, he married Chandrika Das, and their son Abish Bhadran was born the following year. The marriage did not last. He came south again in 1975.
In 1976 he married Nesam Ramola. They settled in Namakkal, in Tamil Nadu, and had two children, Stephen Bhadran and Cynthia Bhadran. For years he worked small jobs to provide for them, and the family lived poorly. Only in the 1990s did a small business of his own begin to make a little money — enough to build a house and educate his children.
He read all his life. In his working years he spent what hours he could in libraries — history, English literature, philosophy, religion. He remembered what he read: scientific formulae, the words of poems, the differences between one philosopher and another. He could argue the doctrines of several religions, and recite pages of a book he had read two or three decades before.
He had no degree and no money, and a small business in a small town. Nothing he knew was ever asked for.
The drawing began
His wife, Nesam Ramola, died in 2014, after five years of illness. He stayed on alone in the Namakkal house for about a year, and found he could not live alone. He sold it and moved to Chennai in 2016, to live with his daughter Cynthia and her family, who cared for him for the rest of his life.
His life had come to a standstill. The business was behind him, and his days had narrowed to a single small room. But he had time at last, and for a few years he had his health. In 2017 he began to draw — at first only to keep his mind occupied.
It did not stay small. Soon he was drawing all day, every day, and he kept at it for the rest of his life. It was the first thing that ever let any of it out.
Since child hood I was interested in Drawing and Sketch making, penury permitted not, to pursue inborn interest, but after setting in Chennai my lifelong interest began working, and I started making drawings sketches.
I have no training or coaching in sketch making, I am self taught, I make sketches as they form and emerge my subconscious and conscious. Now I am 82, over a period of 6 years from the age of 76, I have made about 400 Sketches.
In God Father Mario Puzo said “A man has only one destiny”. I am living, working my destiny, I will do so till I breathe my last. I believe in what Poet Browning said “The Best is yet to be”.
The one hundred and sixteen drawings gathered here are a selection from those four hundred. He titled every one himself, and wrote his own account of what the works were.
He wrote this for you
Among his papers are two pages in his own handwriting, the second addressed to whoever would visit this website. They end like this. His spelling is his own.
Art lovers, Art students and Teachers, everybody who has seen them said there is art, fine Art, Classical and modern in them, Surrealism and Cubism and something individually my own — all beutiful in them and THEY MUST BE PROMOTED and PUBLICISED, so that people, art oriented people, will see the rise of a new Artist, however old I may be.
With low education and lowstandard life I am a pedestrian when it comes modern gadgets use, modern methods of promotion, I dont even know what all buttons on cell Phone or remote control means. So I sought the help of my son, my children, Son and daughter, did help me to open this website. I request the viewers to adjudge these sketches of an Octogenarian instinct made artist. Judge for its value and be gracious to inform me, or put your view on website, you can even possess them.
He died on 10 December 2025, aged eighty-three. He is survived by his three children — Abish, Stephen and Cynthia Bhadran. This site is his request, kept.
If the work moves you to say something, the family reads in his place — write to inquiry@bhadranart.com.
- 1942Born in Alappuzha district, Kerala, into a poor family
- 1964Leaves for North India; sells rotary pumps out of Bilaspur
- 1973Marries Chandrika Das
- 1974Their son Abish Bhadran is born
- 1975Returns to South India
- 1976Marries Nesam Ramola and settles in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu
- 1977Their son Stephen Bhadran is born; their daughter Cynthia Bhadran follows
- 1980sWorks small jobs to provide for the family; they live poorly
- 1990sStarts a small business of his own, builds a house and educates his children
- 2014Nesam Ramola dies of cancer, after five years of illness
- 2016Sells the house in Namakkal and moves to Chennai to live with his daughter’s family
- 2017Begins to draw
- 2023Catalogues the collection and writes his own statement
- 2025Dies on 10 December