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Magazine
We live on memories now
Photo: SANDEEP SAXENA
Dying art: Painted hoardings are no longer the norm.
Artist Balkrishna Laxman Vaidya on the good times and how he keeps his dying art alive.
Like thousands of others, I came to Mumbai for a job. My family, back in Harne village in the Dhapoli Taluka, was not in good shape. So I lived with my sister in Dadar and became an assistant to J.R. Kanade, who worked as a painter at Modern Art Studio.
I heard that 70 per cent of the work of doing the hoardings for theatres came out of this studio. Until then I had never held a paintbrush in my life and so I did the basic work: mixing paints, doing the washes for Rs. 45 per month.
Early days
“I worked there for about a year and a half but it was tough; we worked late hours and there was no satisfaction. I had developed some contacts and so moved on to Ganesh, an artist who worked at Nana Chowk. He gave me a chance to actually draw and to practise my art.
“At that time, someone told me about an advertisement for a painter at Burmah Shell at Mahul, near Chembur. The salary was Rs. 6 per day and so there was quite a rush.
“From 1952 to 1960, I worked at Burmah Shell but continued working with Ganesh in the evenings and nights. If Ganesh didn’t have work for me, I would moonlight with other studios at the rate of 25 to 50 paise per square foot.
“There were 30 art studios in Bombay at the time. Among them were the Ellora Art Studio, which belonged to Vachubhai; there was B. Vishwanath painted at the Kardar Studios in Parel; there was Ankush Art, Jai Hind Art. They’re all gone now.
“After working with Meera Art for a while, I thought I might as well open my own studio. I opened a small place in Bandra, doing show cards, poster designs, six-sheeters. My big break came with Ramanand Sagar’s “Aankhen”.
“That’s when I began to get good work like "Shor” (1972) but of course, my most important moment was when I was asked to do the posters for “Sholay”.
“Ramesh Sippy saw my work in a theatre called Swastik and liked what he saw. He made me do 90 different posters before he chose one that he liked. For the next 20 years of the first run, I did the posters.
“Gopal Sagar was the first ask me to do banners in 1969. The Bandra office was too small and so Sagar helped me get a place in Patil Wadi, Dadar. That hoarding brought us into the public eye. (It is a pity that I now get more money out of renting that space than I do from painting banners there.)
“Gulshan Rai liked my work and I began to get some really high-profile films like “Tridev”.
“Up to 1993, the hoardings on the roads were the most important way of advertisings films.
“That was when Hans, a young man from Switzerland, saw one of my posters at Opera House and loved the work. He tracked me down and although he spoke no Hindi or Marathi, he insisted on coming to learn the art of painting with me.
“He studied for three days and at the end of it, I gave him a poster to take back with him. I did not expect anything more from him but then he wrote me a letter asking if I would come to Switzerland and give a demonstration of my work there.
See the world
“I went, not because I wanted the stipend, but only because I wanted to travel and I felt this would be a great way to see the world.
“I must have done something right because they enjoyed my presentation and every two years, I get to go to Italy, Austria, Germany, London… to show them how we used to do our hoardings.
“We don’t seem to care as much about our culture as they do. There’s not much demand for our work in India but abroad, it’s different. They hang my posters in offices, in museums. My work is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, in a museum in Germany.
“But the streets of Mumbai? We live now on our memories.
SANTOSH THORAT
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