A photo essay on the Aam Artists of Mumbai and Bangalore
by Gopal MS
THE GREAT GALLERY of the ordinary artist is found on the streets of India. When people stain it with their red paan-chew spit, it only adds to the beauty of the art. The big olive green dot of a cow-dung cake on or next to it will keep evil eyes away from it. You are free to splash water on it. Indian men can happily spray their territorial marking on it. And if someone pastes a B grade poster on it, all we have to do is wait for it to peel off in bits and pieces and reveal the art in a new light.
Some of the Aam Artists are usually paid before a painting is made or immediately after. The art is sold even before it created. It brings returns to the person who commissioned the painting immediately unlike the artists who wear deo and walk barefoot in 5 star hotels. Unlike famous artists, the Aam Artist is always satisfied with his art.
The Aam Artist prefers walls. Some prefer corners. Every day Aam Artists are also OK with the floors, pavements. The world is their canvas. The audience found in the train toilets or a Sulabh Sauchalay are the most discerning.
The Aam Artists do not sign their work usually, except if it is the wall of a national monument or Ajanta or Ellora. We are all Aam Artists when we travel. We like to leave our mobile numbers, names and name of our 8th standard school crush on the walls of the Taj Mahal.
But all this does not take away the beauty of our work. The work we learnt from the drawing class teacher in our schools or like ekalavya we learnt from the masters who have never been schooled in art.
The west is yet to discover the beauty of our lines, shapes and colours. Our humour is lost in translation for now. When they do, they will copy us and do it very badly but make a lot of money out of it. However the Aam Artist is slowly dying because it is now easier to steal vector images and photographs on google images and print it on posters.
For now, please enjoy a selection of masterpieces from the streets of Bangalore and Mumbai here.
Gopal M S is a copywriter working for an advertising agency in Mumbai and a photoblogger. Originally from Bangalore and a little slow to keep pace with the madness called Mumbai. He pauses Mumbai, a city that is always on the move as photographs and then finds things are missed in the blur. You can see Gopal’s documentation of the streets of Mumbai with a little camera on a blog called Mumbai Paused. It has images of the city’s people, parks, playgrounds, work spaces, villages within the city or whatever that is missing from the popular imagery that appears of Mumbai in movies and the mass media. He is currently fighting baldness, social media addiction and is exploring other parts of the World Wide Web. He is also a father.
Blog: mumbaipaused.com. Instagram: @mumbaipaused
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