Nadikerianda Nala Ponnappa

Nadikerianda Nala Ponnappa(Cartoonist) was born in the year 1948 in Mangalore. Ponnappa is one of the most well-known cartoonists of Karnataka. He has created a niche for his craft in a career spanning over two decades. This architect-turned-cartoonist has an excellent sense of humour which he expresses through his cartoons.He is the grandson of Nadikerianda Chinnappa, a well-known compiler, poet and singer from Kodagu.

Family

Father

Nadikerianda Mitoo Subbaiah

Mother

Nadikerianda (Neravanda) Ponnamma

Wife

Nadikerianda (Palecanda) Nalini

Children

• Nadikerianda Nishad Somaiah
• Nadikerianda Neeraj Chinnappa

Family tree

kodavaclan.co

Education

• He completed his early education from Mangalore and Pune before moving to Chennai.
• He studied to graduate as an architect and then went to Chicago, USA for higher studies.

Career

• Ponnappa is a self-taught cartoonist who was interested in cartoons from his early childhood. He began to publish his cartoons in his college magazine.
• Ponnappa started his career as an architect and worked as one from 1970 to 1981. During this time he worked in Chennai, Delhi, the US and Africa. After that he decided to give up his steady career as an architect to become a cartoonist. Accordingly, he left his regular job and settled down in Bangalore in 1982 to become a full time freelance cartoonist.

Achievements

• Over the years he was successful in earning the reputation of being an expert cartoonist. His daily cartoon ‘Offside’ is a regular feature of the local Times of India.
• Ponnappa was a member on the world jury of an international cartoon competition on Humankind and Energy held in Hanover, Germany in September 2000.
•  At a competition held in Germany, one of Ponnappa’s cartoons, which depicted the German language being deeply influenced by the English language, was selected to be put up as a poster by the German Cartoonist Association
• He has also won prizes of excellence at cartooning competitions held in Korea and Romania.
•  He was the only Indian to be invited to attend the Kyoto International Cartoonist Conference in 2002 where he was also presented the jury award for his cartoon on ‘Remembering 9/11’.
• He was awarded the First prize by the epd- Entwicklungspolitik publication, in a competition held at Frankfurt to commemorate the 50th year of India’s Independence
• He also contributes for the Economic Times. His cartoons have been a regular feature in Midday in Mumbai for the past 17 years.
• Ponnappa has expertise in drawing cartoons belonging to almost all genres. However, his main focus is political genre in his line of work. He mainly loves to draw cartoons that convey social messages or provide entertainment through ‘comic strips’.
• Over the years Ponappa has developed his signature style of drawing cartoons. His cartoons are the result of a unique drawing style, use of language, satire, choice of subject etc. he constantly challenges himself to innovate and produce a piece that is different from all the other pieces. One of his aims of drawing cartoons is to express the collective concerns of the general people and try to bring about changes in mass psyche.
• His works have also been published in the Penguin Book of Indian Cartoonists and The Third World Book of Cartoonists from Germany.
• Ponnappa organizes workshops on cartooning to encourage the new entrants or aspirants. As s cartoonist N Ponnappa is considered to be among the top talents in India.

Awards

• He received the Karnataka State Rajyotsava Award in 2007.
• He was awarded the ‘coorg person of the year, 2016’