As children while commuting on the roads, it was common to see paintings of ferocious gods on temple walls such as a flying Hanuman, tiger, boldly painted ads on buses and filmstars painted on saloon.
But as times change, these have completely vanished and been replaced by flexis which are created in a matter of hours. Galleries and exhibitions are filled with works of artists who got a platform to showcase their work, but what of the artists who didn’t? For this lot, the streets became their platform and they became signboard artists.
Thousands of such people still live in the city, the most popular addas for such signboard artists used to be Ramkote, MG Road, Manju theater lane, Ameerpet, Jambagh and some parts in Old City. Now these streets have been replaced by digitilised shops.
While some have adapted to the new technology, others like 64-year-old Mohammed Sultan is still dependent on signboard painting. A resident of Chintalmet, Hyderguda, he is an expert in drawing portraits, scenery and historical monuments, but struggles to make ends meet. “I can only draw but can’t market which is my drawback. Earlier, some friends were kind enough to help me get work since they had seen it. But that has changed, everything has become digital now. Not many people call me for this work. I earn from wall paintings and touch ups these days. In a month, I get work for ten days if I’m fortunate, other days, I’m jobless for more than a month,” rues Sultan.
While some have adapted to the new technology, others like 64-year-old Mohammed Sultan is still dependent on signboard painting. A resident of Chintalmet, Hyderguda, he is an expert in drawing portraits, scenery and historical monuments, but struggles to make ends meet. “I can only draw but can’t market which is my drawback. Earlier, some friends were kind enough to help me get work since they had seen it. But that has changed, everything has become digital now. Not many people call me for this work. I earn from wall paintings and touch ups these days. In a month, I get work for ten days if I’m fortunate, other days, I’m jobless for more than a month,” rues Sultan.
Perception about signboard painters’ is they are small time Johnnies, but their work actually requires a specific skill set. There are different strokes for each language. For instance, to write boards in Urdu, they use two pencils.
This wasn’t the case previously, a lotus stem used to be cut at an angle to write double words. Even the brushes used for this art were different. “Earlier we used to get special brushes made from mangoose hair but those were banned due to objections by animal activists. One advantage of these brushes was you need not dip too many times for the enamel paint.
The natural fibre held on to the paint for quite long. It’s not the same with artificial brushes available in the market now,” feels another painter Sagar. Most of the time, these painters are given reference pictures to create the image. In case of temples, the authorities just tell them what they are looking for and the artist proceeds to create it on the walls in the form of beautiful gods and goddesses. The interesting thing is most painters who do the temple paintings are Muslims who even know the mythological stories of each god like which deity has how many hands and the animal used as their vehicle. Art, they say has no caste or creed. It is more about creativity and passion.
Tough Times
“To draw one god or goddess it takes around 4-5 days depending on the size. If it’s a small size painting it can be done in a single day. But as technology developed, even this part of our work has taken a hit. People want to see new and easy options and prefer flexi which is quicker to make. The downfall of signboard artists started from 2005,” opines Sayyed Ibrahim, a signboard artist who decided to learn tricks of the digital world to keep him afloat.
“It’s just a matter of one or two hours to design a painting on the computer which is transferred on the flexis. Once upon a time, I remember drawing almost all the film stars by hand. I am an expert in drawing Amitabh Bachchan from angles that even he will be surprised to see them,” adds Ibrahim, who is the president of Telangana signboard artist association. Painting aside, there is also a certain amount of safety risk involved for these people.
Many times, painters have had to climb a 20 foot wall to paint ads without any proper safety harness leading to accidents in the past. Understandbly, with so many hurdles in the profession and shortage of work, many have shifted to more lucrative livelihoods like wall painter or auto driver. As the adage goes, only the fittest can survive the rest will just go along.
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