B 23
For a long time CMS College had on its campus both the university courses meant for advanced studies and the language and basic mathematical skills-based school for the beginners. Theology and related languages were important for those who pursued a career in religion, church and missionary work. But for the general students education was a way to higher levels of socio-cultural life and they obtained it by studying in the Grammar School of the CMS College. Kerala Panini A.R. Raja Raja Varma visited the college towards the end of the 19th century and suggested that the school could be now separated from the college campus. This was a productive suggestion that helped in changing the complexion of CMS College.
In this relief work the artist Nishad MP focuses his attention on A.R.Raja Raja Varma’s portrait. The standing posture is elegant, royal and scholarly. From the relief panel he looks out straight into the contemporary social space from a historical time. Floating around him are the basic alphabets and signs, a firmament where the scholar is comfortable with. The bracket at the left hand end of the relief shows the separating parenthesis that gives a sort of explanation for the suggestion of separating the school studies from the university education.
