‘I want to sketch the remnants of old Bombay’

In a crowded street full of faces, there is an element of the city that makes it unmistakably Bombay. From the angry policeman to the startled pedestrian, the glib peddler and the inquisitive tourist, Mario Miranda’s Sidewalks of Bombay brings the city together into one sketch.

This is just one of the 16 new sketches in the exhibition Mumbai/Bombay and The World of Mario at Cymroza Gallery. The barber’s shop, a crowded bus, a bus queue and a real estate agent’s office are Miranda’s storyboards of the unrelenting, humourous city. The exhibition is a sequel to The World of Mario, which was held this January. 

Miranda, 83, reminisces, “The city stood out because of its people. I would wait outside a cinema theatre for hours just observing the people who queued up outside to buy tickets. They were colourful characters — from the dignified Parsee gentleman to the black-ticket seller...I would carry a book along, and hastily sketch any interesting fellow-commuters.”

Mumbai continues to remain the artists' favourite muse. “I lived in Colaba and travelled to St Xavier’s College daily. I’d walk past the museum, but never once went inside. I pedalled my first sketches for Re1 around Flora Fountain, but still, it was the people who won me over and became a subject of my art, and not the architecture,” he says.

Curator Gerard da Cunha who collected and archived over 8,000 of Mario’s sketches says, “Mario was often commissioned to draw urban landscape when he travelled across the world. In Mumbai, he documents the grit, culture and life of the city.”

Da Cunha is working on a documentary that has Mario explaining his work. It also includes interviews of his wife, Habiba Hyderi and old friends like Pollycarpo Vaz who worked as a receptionist at the Airlines Hotel and helped Miranda sell his first postcards to tourists.

The artist works on sketches more than cartoons now and is presently working on sketches of Goa. “People seem to have lost their humour, so the things that were funny then, don't seem to be funny anymore,” he says. However, he is looking forward to returning to Mumbai. “I want to sketch the remnants of old Bombay like the homes in Mazagaon and Kotachi Wadi,” he says.

Exhibition on until February 28. (Daily from 11am to 7pm except Sundays). At Cymroza Art Gallery, 72, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mumbai - 400 026. Merchandise is on sale.