Ganesha cast in type

The click-click-click of typewriter keys mingles with far-away sounds of Dadar’s afternoon traffic that drift in through Chandrakant Bhide’s window. Hunched over the 50-year-old typewriter, the 73-year old is not jotting down memos or making up an affidavit. He is creating art.

Using the ‘x’ key, he quickly creates a likeness of Lord Ganesha and his vahana; then hyphens and ‘o’s make up a plate of laddoos. He tilts the paper, holds on to the roller to keep the paper from shifting and carefully presses on the ‘/’ key to create the edges of the plate. In 20 minutes, he extracts the sheet with a flourish. It now sports a simple Ganesha idol, complete with mouse, laddoos and a diya on the side. “This is the simplest one I can do,” says the artist. “The first time my work was printed in a prominent daily in 1975, it was Lord Ganesha done using x-es.”

Having done hundreds of such typewritten Ganesha pieces since the first one, Bhide has branched into using other keys, including only ‘/’s and hyphens of varying length to create continuous outlines, a feat that makes the resultant picture look like a sketch – certainly not what one would expect from a typewriter.

With the ongoing Ganesh Chaturthi, Bhide has been busy clicking up a storm, making pictures for his close family and friends. However, the artist’s illustrious body of work – which once led him to rub shoulders with the likes of RK Laxman and Mario Miranda – goes much beyond just gods and goddesses.

Having started out as a clerk in Union Bank with an adept hand at typewriting, he once typed up his boss’ telephone directory in the form of a telephone. And opened up new horizons for typewritten art. 

It was his version of Laxman’s Common Man, which got him an attendance with the illustrator, and subsequently led to a friendship that spanned decades. And his typed-up sketch of Miss Fonseca, Boss and Godbole led to a friendship with Miranda, who inaugurated his first exhibition held on the Union Bank premises. “Only Bhide can draw with a typewriter,” says a self-caricature of Miranda as he tries in vain to make sense of the typewritten art form.

Miranda had dashed it off during the inauguration and Bhide keeps it even now, carefully laminated and tucked away in a folder.

Since then, he has had 12 solo exhibitions and has been a recipient of excellence awards, both in the fields of art and banking. Looking back over his career, Bhide says that his foremost supporter was his father. “He was unable to put me through JJ School of Art when I wanted to go due to economic constraints. But it was he who helped me get a job as a typist and also he who encouraged me to try and expand my horizons and try new experiments with my art, once I got started,” he reminisces.

Though Bhide confesses that he has preserved most of his artworks in his files – from portraits of Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar to caricatures of Mario Miranda – his most valued possession remains his typewriter.

“When I was about to retire from Union Bank, I asked to buy it. Though the administrative department had objections, my boss overlooked them and asked me, during my farewell party, to buy it for `1,” Bhide says, with a grin.

Today, however, an hour at his beloved typewriter is enough to make Bhide’s hands cramp. Having to hold onto the roller and create exacting strokes takes strength that his fingers have started to lose, especially since there is no delete key on a typewriter. “Today, if you were to make a mistake on your computer, you’d just delete the word. For me, I’d have to start from scratch,” he explains. “Till date, I’ve only ever used white ink for only one of my works. I do not believe in patched-up work. The goal is to strive for perfection.”

Another Ganesha

This year, Bhagyashree Deshpande, a renowned paper quilling artist and the holder of India Book of records, will be attempting to etch her name in the prestigious Limca Book of Records by creating the largest paper-quilling Ganesh idol