Drawing On Experience

More than 18 years in the animation industry have equipped Phani Tetali with the skills to be an accomplished academic

How did you discover your passion for drawing?

PT: I am told that the first drawing I did was that of a cow, maybe when I was four years old. My parents were very supportive and encouraging, getting me to draw every day. I was lucky I got to read all the comic books of those times. The fun part was when I used to draw the entire comic after reading it.

Growing up, I got introduced to MAD magazine. That was my real inspiration! I used to spend hours admiring the work of great cartoonists and caricaturists who regularly contributed to the magazine. Sergio Arragones, Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Al Jaffe, Don Martin, Duck Edwing, Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano and Dave Berg became my heroes!

My biggest inspiration has been my uncle, Bapu, who was a great cartoonist and film director in Andhra Pradesh. Whenever he visited us, my parents would get me to quickly draw something and show it to him!

My art teacher, Mr. Parameswaran, was another huge influence. In school, I used to spend hours sitting next to him, watching him paint on huge canvases. He used to get me to draw alongside him, and during those conversations, he would tell me about the medium, about his process and technique.

What took you from engineering to design?

PT: My dad was a Professor at IIT Madras and I spent my childhood in the 1970s in the beautiful green and wooded campus. In the last year of school, everyone was busy preparing for medical or engineering entrance exams while I used to sit and doodle or draw cartoons on the margins of my Physics and Math text books. I loved to draw, but at that time, in the early 1980s, I had no idea where these sketches and doodles would take me.