Drawn to Animals

“He always had stories to tell but was unable to write these for books. So,he illustrated his thoughts,” says Sonali. Pulak’s journey started as a young boy from Bangladesh who became a refugee in India after the Partition. “His childhood in Dhaka had lots of adventure but,after he came to India,Pulak had to shoulder the responsibility of his family and put himself through college,” says Sonali. College was Kolkata’s Government College of Art,Homsey College (London) and Rietvald Academy (Amsterdam).

Though trained as a painter,Pulak’s passion to draw led him to a career in advertisement at a time when its content was ruled more by illustrations and less by photographs. At the age of 41,however,he gave it up to join Children’s Book Trust at the encouragement of famous cartoonist Shankar. Some of Pulak’s famous works,apart from Tiger on the Tree (written by Anushka Ravishankar) and Tales of Indian Classics series include Mulk Raj Anand’s A Day in the Life of Maya of Mohenjo-Daro,and Ashok’s New Friends (written by Deepa Agarwal) for which he won a National Award (for Children’s Literature).

In his artwork,there is little or no background or embellishment as Pulak kept the focus firmly on the characters. One of the most interesting,and rarely talked-about aspect is his paintings. “It was his paintings that sustained him till the end. This was his source of income,” says Sonali. Pulak’s paintings started with rice paper as a medium,which he took from his days in Shantiniketan,and adopted the “stylised” figurative form; though,in the last few years,his strokes had become more abstract.

Pulak has left behind two unfinished works. One of these is a story on which he was wanted to collaborate with Sonali. “It is about Makhna the elephant,who comes from Madhumalai forest in Karnataka,” says Sonali. The other is about the honey collectors of the Sundarbans and their forest goddess,Bon Bibi.