At Mahadeva Gramam in Payyannur, Kannur, a 60-year-old title-deed writer, K K Kumar, is the undisputed choice to draw the Congress party's hand symbol during elections.

He is not an artist or a painter, and the task of drawing the party symbol's graffiti in Payyannur fell on him inadvertently. "In the 1982 Assembly election, V T Bhatathiripad was the candidate from Payyannur. The hand symbol drawn by someone in Mahadeva Gramam didn't look right despite several attempts," says Kumar. He gave it a try, which turned out to be perfect. He was then tasked with drawing the party symbol in Mahadeva Gramam during the campaign.

Later, when K P Kunhikannan contested from Uduma constituency in 1987 as the UDF candidate, he took Kumar under his wing to draw the symbol. He has been drawing the symbol in Mahadeva Gramam ever since. He drew the symbol for himself in 2010 and 2020 LSG polls when he contested to Payyannur Municipality from Ward 28. He won on both occasions and now draws the symbol for the Congress candidate in the ward, T A Ranjini.

Kumar says he never had any interest in art streams and has not tried his hand at any formal art disciplines. Among the artistic works, he likes political cartoons the most and insists he has been a fan of Kunchu Kuruppu in Manorama.

"I am not a professional, I do this out of passion and love for the party, and during every election season, when our party gets into campaign fervour, it's sort of a ritual for me to paint the walls in the streets with party slogans and the hand symbols for candidates," says Kumar, who has never drawn any symbol other than hand.

If there is anyone curious whether his calligraphy skills brought him into the profession, he clarifies instantly, "I inherited the job from my maternal grandfather." Kumar discloses that his family, which includes his wife Jyothi and daughter Yami Madhav, doesn't quite take a liking to what he does as he spends a lot of time out for campaigning activities.

While Kumar has deed writing during the day, his graffiti works usually start after dusk, and continue till 10 pm and sometimes extend late into the night.