Artist Manohar Desai's calligraphic creations have found him a wall of fame at the National Calligraphy Museum in Moscow

Can you ever comprehend the idea of letters coming together to celebrate a festival or interweaving themselves to form a protective grill? Not until you enter the artistic terrains of Manohar Desai's mind. He recognises the beauty of letters, which rule his creative mind only to materialise as innovative art works on canvas. And now, Desai's passion for calligraphy, has found him a wall of fame at National Calligraphy Meuseum, Moscow, Russia.

Hailing from an art school background, Desai's romance with artistry is not new. "I was always into paintings. However the intrest in Calligraphy evolved only during my college days," says the art lover who apart from calligraphy also does a lot of landscape paintings and illustrations.

A professor of calligraphy and typography with Symbiosis Institute of Design, Desai believes that the foundation of any good calligraphic composition is amicability with colour, strokes and space. "During the training workshops for my students, my initial effort is to remove the colour, space and stroke fear of the students," says he. Desai who will be representing India's Devnagri script at the international forum in Moscow will be giving live demonstrations of his works on the tunes of Indian classical music. Treating every letter as a form and using the forms to create calligraphic compositions is what his artistic instincts inspire him to do. Away from the lighter shades that calligraphy works are generally draped in, Desai showcases his indigenous style by using brighter shades.

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