Poster painters fading away?
By Dinesh Rathod

THEIRS has been a noble profession. M.F. Husain started from there. So did film star Nana Patekar. But today, as Sahib Singh stands at the crossing of Bandra Linking Road in Bombay, staring at the poster of a recent Feroz Khan movie Prem Aggan, his eyes are filled with tears.

"It took me six full weeks to paint that poster," he complains. "And now they have covered it with this huge vinyl poster of Jhoot Bole Kauwa Kaatey. At this rate, how are we to survive? Where do we go?"

Singh is one among 700-odd poster painters in Bombay who have recently formed an union, the Mumbai Hoarding Vigyapan Kamgar Sangh, (Bombay Hoarding Painters Association) to safeguard the "Fight to livelihood". Most of them have been rendered jobless by the burgeoning vinyal poster industry.

"Ours has always been a tenuous line because work does not come easily," explains Kiran Kumar, another poster painter. "We are at the mercy of the contractors. Now the vinyl poster has made it almost impossible for us to make a living."

Ramesh Mohan of Imperial Arts has the same complaint: "Advertisers prefer vinyal posters. They can be mass-produced, their effect is more slicker, their quality can be more easily controlled and of course, the same poster can be reused in many different places."

Moreover, producing hand-painted posters is cumbersome and more time-consuming than vinyl. The artists still follow the age-old practice of working from graphs, reproducing each segment separately and painting with common enamel colours.

It is their ability to accurately reproduce a portrait in perfect picture-likeness that these painters take pride in. Despite all the odds they have to battle with from day to day, no one is prepared to leave the profession for a more lucrative line.

‘Why should I?" questions Mohan in self-indignation. "I am an artist, not a factory worker who can get into any mass-production process just because money lies there. It has taken me years to perfect my art and now I will not compromise on it"

Tuka Ram, another hoarding painter who, like many of his colleagues, has migrated to Bombay from a remote village in Bihar, especially to learn the trade, echoes Mohan’s attitude. "I will not give up poster painting for anything in the world," he says resolutely.

Yet, he is equally determined not to let his son follow his footsteps. "I cannot bear to see him struggle the way I did for 15 years," he says. "He is finishing his school and I guess I will try to find him a job as a bank clerk."

Economic security is what these highly talented, yet faceless painters are looking for. Many could have taken off like M.F. Husain to try their luck as independent artists, holding exhibitions and selling their canvases for astronomical sums.

But the financial uncertainties, coupled with the need to be smart and market-savvy, have prevented them from taking the plunge. As Singh puts it; "If I knew to speak English, maybe I would have considered that option."

The contractors from advertising agencies who get them work know this. Exploitation reaches a point where the poor, illiterate painter is made to sign receipts for amounts on job done which are far more than what he is paid. And there is no way he can protest.

"The union is there to fix the rates," explains Kumar. "At present, the going rate in Bombay is Rs 1.10 per square feet we paint. But we rarely get paid beyond 50 paise because of the competition in the market. If I do not agree to this amount, somebody else would."

Significantly, the competition is mainly from college-going kids from poor families for whom poster painting is one way of making pocket money. It is only through personal contacts that work comes in, not through the union.

"I get jobs mostly through a neighbour whose brother-in-law is a contractor," says Tuka Ram. "Once the contract is over, there is no guarantee of future employment, no insurance against accidents, no sick leave... Our fate is in the hands of God." — MF