Mohammad Shakil

'Labour of Love with Paint and Brush':

by Rohan L. Jayetilleke

India is a leader of performing arts as well as aesthetics. This is not an over statement. The excavations at Mohondojaro and Harappa cities (now both in Pakistan) of the Indi valley civilization of circa 5000 - 3000 BC, or even aeonsmor far back, have yielded metal figurines, kiln-burnt bricks, with ornamentations, baked earth slabs of seals with figures, squarish pieces of metal with animal figures engraved on them, the form of currency, and also inscriptions in.

Though the historians call it Aryan civilization, which is untenable as Aryans were nomadic tribes riding wheeled animal driven carts or on camels with spears and bows and arrows entered India from the north-west frontier to read the indigenous civilization, sometimes driving them to South India calling them 'Dravida' meaning southern

 man.

Thus they established the 'Varna' based society, meaning complexion-based. These Aryans were Persian (modern Iran) with fair complexion and they called themselves Iranians or Aryans meaning the white coloured superior race.

As painting is one arm of the Indian age-old culture, it is not surprising that many a young man and woman in India take to painting as a vocation of self-employment, and the Indian community too patronize them buying the work to use them as interior decor of their homes of the corporate sector.

Thus there is a demand and a supply ever continuing in tandem. Today hundreds of aspiring artists, many of whom are students of art colleges either reading for the Bachelor in Fine Arts (BFA) or Master in Fine Arts (MFA), the degrees not to embellish their names, to be tuition quacks of the genre of Sri Lanka, but to have a thought insight into the heritage of Indian painting and the technicalities in art, to serve the motherland and not for personal glory, flock to art galleries with their landscapes and portraits.

They are quiet content with whatever price they fetch for these works are juste counted by them as only an exercise on the path to becoming a professional artist and also walk into the hearts of the young who will be their future customers. Among these young enthusiasts,not infrequently, the connoisseur spots a real promising talent to take India to a global spread in painting.

This talent he spots, has fluidity of hand or painterly quality that manifests specially. Certainly, here is someone who will be in a position to carve out a niche for himself and not get lost in the vast ocean of human activity and perception. This writer, though not a painter, but a connoisseur of aesthetics, as there are such exhibitions in Sri Lanka, and while in India scan the Hindu culture scene column and make a beeline to these painting exhibitions, that usually take place at least once a week.

Emerging as a painter is just not a cake walk, nor it is dotted with throns and pricks, but a path one has to evolve himself with a clear insight into what he would be and what he would produce with his heart, mind, paint and brush, working in tandem.

It is so with young, Mohammed Shakil of India, who had to labour hard to reach long and winding road to art and discover the artist's techniques in the transfer onto paper and canvas the multitude of images that he views all around him in India's life and times.

These images creep into the subconscious of the artist and are sharpened by the imagination, until they take a life of their own with paint and brush.

Born in Moradabad the Uttar Pradesh town famous for its brass craft, Shakil grew up in Delhi, the eldest of seven children. His father was a master-craftsman or in a sense a woodman who could bring wood alive with his chisel and achieve some marvels in wood craft. His mother excelled in embroidery.

Thus from his young days Shakil, grew up in close association with the line, the curve and the final composition of piece of. In school he gained the appreciation of his teachers and was the best bet to be sent to represent the school in art competitions. He did win many awards, among them are those he won at competitions held by UNICEF, Shankar's Weekly and Delhi Police Traffic. The latter are not only authority on peace but give their traffic controlling hand signals too for upcoming artists to take the safest route to emerge as Indian artists.

At 37 years, Shakil has the boy-next-door manner and he could be anything from a water purifier salesman or an information technology enthusiast from the look of it. However, he has sold hundreds of his paintings. Though a prolific young artist he is, most innocently he says, "It was necessity rather than passion which led me to paint so much.

My father went into depression, when much of his contractors, even though he had done many interior decor, including those of five-star hotels. He dropped out of work and the responsibility of the family fell on me."

In these circumstances, just out of school, he started hanging out with students of the College of Art, who would go out spot-painting and sell their paintings to art galleries for Rs. 100 each. Shakil explains, "That was a lot of money then and I must have painted ever so many water colours.

Soon I started selling. Sometimes I go to someone's home or an office and I am pleasantly surprised to see my early works hanging there on the wall." In Sri Lanka this trend is not there. People prefer imported colour digital products, with no indigenous life and environment in them. They unwittingly are promoting the foreign painters to the exclusions of the sons and daughters of the homeland.

Manju Mayor, an art promoter who is specially enamoured of Shakil's work, said, "Whenever someone needs a painting of a specific kind, I know Shakil will be able to meet with the need. He is a gifted hand. Last Diwali (Deepavahi - Festival of Lights all over India, when the skies are emblazoned with beautiful fireworks for days at night) I sold as many as 200 Ganeshas (God of Wisdom) painted by him to corporates to give out as gifts". This trend is totally absent in Sri Lanka with the corporates at least for Vesak, Sinhala-Hindu New Year or Christmas.

Shakil did his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Chandigarh. Shakil nostalgically says," Even while studying I would be making frequent trips to Rohtak to design soap and detergent packets. My teachers knew that I was supporting my family, so they never stopped me."

And he sold landscapes (not of foreign countries but of India) he also worked for his own satisfaction on the city scenario of the hustle bustle and towering concrete blocks and the poor cycle-rickshaw wallahs peddling on. Well fed man wheeled by a ill-fed man, is one theme for his creative mind.

He painted 'citys apes' with overlapping grids that are contained in buildings or cramped hilltops. Living in Mehrauli, he progressed to paint monuments, with a fine degree of abstraction. His works are included in collections of Park Royal, Hayat and Oberoi hotels.

American hotels and corporates like Tata, Pepsi, Reebock and others. He also painted beautiful Rajasthani belles. Coming from a family of wood carvers redecoration he has a passion for ornamenting doors and windows too. These doors bring a modest income for him.