A 29-year-old architectural draftsman and artist, Tamilarasan Shanmuganandam, has entered the Singapore Book of Records a second time, for creating the ‘Smallest Image of Thiruvalluvar made from the Thirukkural’ on a 26cm by 38.1cm A3 sheet of paper.
It is a new record that he has set. He was awarded this record at the Little India Shop Owners & Heritage Association office on Dec 23.
The Thirukkural, a masterpiece that has transcended boundaries of country, language, and religion, is a series of 1,330 couplets that preach the virtues of life, written by the ancient Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar.
In this portrait, Indian national Tamilarasan has painstakingly written over 300 lines of text, in letter size less than 1mm, all 1,330 couplets. Where there are spaces, the majestic form of Thiruvalluvar takes shape.
Mr Tamilarasan created this portrait as a tribute to the 90th anniversary of Tamil Murasu.
Drawing a Tamil poet whose poems are of such timeless significance seemed, in his words, “an apt tribute to a newspaper that has given so much to the Indian community over many years.”
Hence, he has repeated the words “Tamil Murasu, Voice of the Community, towards the century” in Tamil more than 200 times to form “Tamil Murasu 90” at the bottom of the portrait.
In total, including the 42,194 letters of Thirukkural, the artwork contains more than 47,000 handwritten letters and more than 10,000 words.
Before this, Mr Tamilarasan entered the Singapore Book of Records in 2024 for his 82cm x 52cm portrait of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to mark his 100th birth anniversary.
The 52-hour effort was recognised as “the largest portrait made of handwritten letters”. The painting was formed with more than 100,000 letters by writing the word “Singapore” more than 11,000 times.
Comparatively, Mr Tamilarasan says the Thiruvalluvar portrait was more challenging as the words in every couplet are different, and he had to ensure he copied every word correctly.
After drawing gridlines in pencil, he wrote directly with a 0.38mm pen, leaving no room for mistakes.
The portrait saw the light of day only thanks to many nights of work by Mr Tamilarasan over two weeks, sometimes even till 4am.
As his full-time job stretches even to Saturdays, the only day when he could work on the portrait even in the daytime was Sunday.
He said: “I only slept for about four hours daily and went to work as per normal. With sleep-deprived eyes, I had to look at my own minuscule handwriting, which normally you would need a magnifying glass to see. Yet, I kept myself going thinking: Can I not sacrifice two weeks to honour the 90-year work of Tamil Murasu?”
The entire portrait took 57 hours to complete. It took shape not in a fancy studio but rather in the laundry room below his flat, as he did not wish to disturb his roommates’ sleep.
The humble setting highlighted the simplicity and skill of the master craftsman.
Mr Tamilarasan hails from Vedaranyam, Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu, and has a degree from the Arulmigu Meenakshi Amman College of Engineering in Kanchipuram. He came to Singapore to work three years ago.
To date, he has been working at a local construction company Modular Technology - also where his portrait of Mr Lee was unveiled.
Earlier this year, he completed an A3 pointillism portrait of Lord Perumal using only dots, spending 180 hours on the piece.
Ending the year with yet another record, Mr Tamilarasan hopes to explore a new theme next year and continue pushing artistic boundaries.
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31 Dec 2025 12:43
