Artists pay tribute to their city on the walls of Matunga railway station.
Chor bazaar in Mutton Street.
Hand painted poster of the movie "Guide"
Mumbai---City of dreams? City of persistence? City of
hustlers ? Every one arrives here with their bag of ambitions and wrestles it
out with this giant mammoth of human deluge to either make it or get swallowed.
I rolled into Mumbai, one wet morning unsure about whether I should brave the
traffic and set out to look for the famed hand painted Bollywood posters of yesteryears. Since I had
read that this eclectic dying art form is still found in the lanes of chor
bazaar in old Mumbai, I was desperate to find it. I got out of my hotel in Juhu
and walked down the street looking for a cab driver who would help me navigate
this alien city. After a few minutes of haggling on transportation fares, I was
sitting in a black and yellow fiat stuck in traffic, conversing with my cab
driver.
Now, Mr. Vibhushan Gupta (the cabbie) is a true blue blooded ‘Mumbaikar’.
An old timer of kashmiri descent, he migrated to Mumbai and made it his home
decades back. Ever since he has been driving a taxi and could proudly name all the
celebrities he has ferried around. The drive was long but conversation
colourful, he spoke about his love for classic Bollywood films, shiv-sena and politics, scarcity of water followed by paralyzing rains. I could
sense the amount of love and pride this non Marathi heart had for the city he
called home- a city that soars and stinks, inflicts innumerous adversities on
its denizens but keeps them going because it never lets them stop dreaming. The
dream machine is ever churning pulling more people towards it each day.
Speaking of dreams, bollywood is an industry that sells it
and has our nation hypnotized. Mad scientists, hard boiled detectives, sensuous
starlets, murderous robots, vengeful goddesses, saucy heroines, super human men-are
staples of bollywood movies. It’s an ever evolving genre of motion picture that
is constantly swinging between fantasy and realism. Unlike the aggressive
marketing propaganda of movies today, bollywood of yesteryears employed
simpler tactics. As a child I remember seeing colourful hoardings outside movie
theatres depicting the actors in their various facial contortions, from trade
mark expressions of romantic nuances, angst from tragedy to violent rage, images
all hand painted and pasted above making us mere mortals look up and gape at
these celestial beings of cinema. This art form is now scarce. Cinema halls
have switched over to cheaper digital prints leaving poster artists with no
option but to change their means of livelihood. Most of these artists have
disappeared and chor bazaar in Mumbai has the last of these posters. That’s why
,I was on my way, eager to get my hands on this rare form of art.
Chor bazaar which literally means “thieves market” is aptly
named since all stolen goods eventually finds its way here. It’s famous for
antique items including vintage bollywood posters. As I entered its narrow
lanes hopping and skipping trying to avoid pot-holes filled with rain water, I saw
the iconic “Mother India” poster on display in one of the shops. Arif is one of
the last hand-painted poster sellers on Mutton Street. Like most old things
find their way to Chor bazaar, bollywood posters of every decade carefully
wrapped in plastic adorn the walls of his tiny shop. Business is slow but Arif
has not lost faith Apart from posters there are old gramophone records , movie
pamphlets and even song books. It is a store
house of bollywood’s legacy. He still has a few poster artists working for him
but orders are not coming in abundance these days .On learning that Kriya
Kalash is interested in promoting poster art, Arif agreed to be a part of the process ,thus
enabling us to give new lease of life to this dying art form. Change is a good
thing, but to preserve the old even better .Why should an art form this unique
fade into oblivion? People like Arif and his poster artists need to get their
due. Someone once told me that acceptance and neutrality to matters offers
solutions, I now realize how wrong the logic is, because when there is a chance
to make things right one should go ahead and be proactive about things and
that’s what we at kriya kalash want to do by being in the process of preserving
these hand made posters.
Some other iconic posters
If you would like to buy hand painted bollywood posters kindly contact us on kriyakalash@gmail.com.
