Join The Dots

“On Sunday,when I saw the news of his death on television,I was deeply saddened. I immediately recalled my meeting with him in 1992 in Mumbai. He gave me his autograph and even appreciated my artworks,” Bhaduri says.

Art has been Bhaduri’s passion since his childhood days. “Films have always inspired my art. I once saw a poster of Asha Parekh at the Pune Railway Station. I was mesmerised. That’s when I started borrowing money from my elder sisters to buy magazines and draw the stars featured in them,” he says. With no formal training in art,Bhaduri shifted to the stippling technique in the early 1970s. “My boss at work once commented that computer drawings were better than sketches. I wanted to prove him wrong and thus began practising the art of stippling. It’s quite difficult as once a dot is made on paper,it can’t be erased,” he says. For the last 30 years,he has been sketching Dev Anand’s portraits. The black and white sketches also reflect his belief that the actor looked his best in black and white films.

The sketches minutely depict every face line and strand of hair and capture Dev Anand’s unique style. “Sometimes it takes me days,sometimes months to finish one. I have to be fully satisfied,” he says. His last sketch took 25 days to complete. “It was my mother who stressed on the need to bring out fine details on paper. I have worked very hard,” he says.