Paints, brushes, easels and sketchbooks are for ordinary artists. For Chandrakant Bhide, his tool of choice is the good old Halda typewriter.
Paints, brushes, easels and sketchbooks are for ordinary artists. For Chandrakant Bhide, his tool of choice is the good old Halda typewriter. The 61-year-old can sketch anything — film stars, sports personalities, famous landmarks, gods and goddesses — using his fingers and the smooth, worn-out keys of his typewriter.
Bhide’s association with the typewriter began when he joined Union Bank of India as a typist-clerk in 1967. “I was once asked to type a list of telephone numbers. Instead of typing them as a list, I typed them in the shape of a telephone instrument,” recalls Bhide. “Initially I used the ‘x’ key for my pictures. Then, I started improvising and using other symbols like ‘_’, ‘=’, ‘@’, ‘-’, ‘,’ in my sketches.” For Bhide the ‘@’ sign is ideal to Sachin Tendulkar’s curls and the comma is for laughter lines and wrinkles. But it’s not easy. Each portrait takes an agonising two hours.
“I use my left hand to hold the paper and my right index finger to type the symbols. My hands start aching after 15 minutes. It is not possible to make a portrait at a stretch,” he says. “I even shade my portraits, using a light or hard touch on the keys.”
Since the artist had no typewriter at home, he would work on his pictures before and after office hours. Bhide would often show his sketches to his subjects, like Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Lata Mangeshkar and Dilip Kumar. “My idol, the famous cartoonist Mario Miranda autographed one of my sketches with the words ‘I wish I could draw like you type.’ That was my biggest compliment,” says Bhide.
Bhide sketched RK Laxman’s Common Man and showed it to the cartoonist. “Laxman was so enthralled that he said the result could not have been better with a pen and brush,” he adds. Having taken voluntary retirement in 1996, Bhide now spends time on his typewriter — a gift from his colleagues. “When I opted for VRS, I approached the administration to ask them if I could purchase my typewriter. But I was told that it could not be sold. But during my farewell, the chairman of the bank allowed me to purchase it for Re1. I was touched,” Bhide says.
His son Aditya wants Bhide to start using a computer. But the typewriter still holds pride of place in Bhide’s heart.
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