Suvarna Keshava was born in the year 1965 to Girijamma and Ramaiyya in the scenic village of Melpal, Koopa Taluk, Chikkamagaluru, Karnataka.
It is said that art chooses an artist and this augurs well with Suvarna, who was initiated into the fine art of Rangoli at a tender age of 6 by her mother Girijamma. As is the case with all the artists born in Malenaadu, she had the natural fervor for putting Rangoli in the lush green village of Melpal. In her formative years, Suvarna started putting Rangoli in many weddings and other auspicious events in and around her village. In those years where colorants for Rangoli were not available, she used to utilize blue liquid used for clothes, Turmeric, Kumkum and also the crushed green leaves so as to mix with the white Rangoli to produce the required colors.
In the year 1983, she got married to H.S.Keshava and they settled in Hariharapura, a town near the divine abode of Goddess Shaaradhaamba, Shringeri. Suvarna attributes her success in Rangoli to all the support and encouragement given by her husband all these years.
It was in the year 1997 that a Rangoli workshop (Samskaara Bharathi) in Prabhodhini Gurukula, Hariharapura, proved to be a turning point in Suvarna’s career. It was here that she had the privilege of learning the 5 fingered Rangoli from her Guru Santhosh (an accomplished Rangoli artist from Dharwad). In the very next year, a couple from Nagpur came as a blessing in disguise to the Rangoli workshop and further honed her skills in Rangoli.
Eversince, there has been no looking back. Suvarna to her credit has put Rangoli in more than 1000 events till date like weddings, temple utsavas, navarathri uthsavas, events in major Hindu festivities all over the nation like Shringeri, Shimoga, Chikkamagaluru, Mysore, Bangalore, Magadi, Belaguru, Tumkur, Delhi, Chennai, to name a few. She is one of the topmost Rangoli artists of the nation and is specialized in putting the 5 fingered Rangoli, in which she has mastered the art of producing five Rangoli lines at once using five fingers of the hand. She has put Rangoli in vast areas like 100X100 ft, 200X200 ft, etc – an accomplishment in the annals of Rangoli field.
Any art, if pursued with full devotion and total surrender to the almighty, would scale greater heights and this has been fully evident in Suvarna’s Rangoli. She attributes the divinity, effervescence and breathtaking visuals in her Rangoli to the guru parampara of the Shringeri Seers, mainly his holiness Bharathi Theertha Swamiji of Shringeri and his holiness Satchidananda Saraswathi Swamiji of Hariharapura.
Suvarna was also a BJP gramapanchayat leader in Hariharapura and is a president’s medal award winner (by Former President of India Dr.Abdul Kalam) for her cause to create clean villages in the vicinity of Hariharapura town.
About My Family
Suvarna’s elder daughter Dr.Shruthi Rao HK is a PhD in Samskrutha and works as a Research Assistant in Karnataka Samskrutha University. Her son-in-law Achyutha Rao is a much sought after Violinist in the field of Carnatic music. Her younger daughter Keerthi HK is a Bharathanatyam Dancer and works a dance instructor in Aalapana arts, Singapore.
