JOIN USSometimes tragedy brings out the best in a man. The story of Munnawar Hussain of Ahmedabad is no different. Coming from a minority community, Munnawar lives in a ghetto of Juhapura in Ahmedabad and the communal conflagration of 2002 in the state changed the life of this erstwhile taxi driver forever.
“I used to own a taxi and would drive around tourists across various sites in Gujarat and at times outside the state. As I could somewhat understand English and speak a few words, several travel companies called me whenever they had foreign clientele and I used to make good money,” Munnawar says.
However, the riots of 2002 saw his earnings come to an abrupt end. His sole earning means – taxi – was burnt down by a mob when it was in a garage for repairs. The incident, however, did not kill the spirit of the man.
“I was heartbroken but knew that I had to do something for a living and that is when I met noted painter and great human Toofan Rafai, who knew about my work in the field of art. He had seen my work and suggested that I should hold an exhibition of my artwork and see if I can make some money. He helped me organise my first exhibition at Alliance Francaise in Ahmedabad and my life was never the same,” Munnawar recalls.
Since childhood, Munnawar had developed a habit of sketching and drawing. Though he does not remember how and why he began, he carried the passion in his adulthood.
Even as a taxi driver, he would patiently wait for his clients to return and instead of whiling away time in small talk, he would just pick up pencil and begin to draw dots on the paper.
“I loved painting but one day I just started putting dots on the paper and a beautiful image emerged and it attracted me. This was beginning of my journey and I continue to be fascinated by dots on the paper. I also loved old buildings built in stones. They always remain stoic and somehow that attracted me to them,” he says.
Almost all of his over 400 dot paintings till date are of these silent buildings. He has made over 51 paintings of world heritage sites of Champaner in North Gujarat, Jumma Masjid, Bungalow of Dutch General in Surat, Jaunpur Masjid, Red Fort and even Konark Temple.
“Now I generally paint using a photograph but earlier I would sit in front of the monument and bring it alive on a white sheet of paper,” he adds. The other thing that egged him on to pursue his passion of dot painting was that at the time Munnawar held his first painting exhibition around 2002, a team of French conservationists was in Ahmedabad to help local government restore heritage buildings in the city. One of the team members saw Munnawar’s artwork and fell in love with it. He bought at least 18 of his paintings and even organised exhibition at Nice in France.
“I have since sold a lot of paintings to Dutch, Americans and others. Once I received Rs 1.5 crore for four of my paintings and I could buy a house for my family,” Munnawar says.
Dot painting was traditionally done by aborigines in Australia and consists of various paint colours like yellow (the sun), brown (the soil), red (desert sand) and white (the clouds and the sky). However, over the years, many artists prefer only black dots on the paper to create their paintings that appear like sketches.
Last month, a painting made from one trillion black dots has been insured for a whopping 100 million pounds in the UK. Using the latest laser technologies from a laboratory in Cambridge, an unknown artist converted one square metre of sheet with a trillion black marks to give it an effect of a solid black colour.
But Munnawar has stuck to giving shape to his paintings by hand, working painstakingly for over 16 hours in a day. More recently, Munnawar shifted his focus to creating paintings of various buildings of Vadnagar, the birthplace of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I am a huge fan of Modi and have done paintings of his neighbour’s house where he used to visit frequently, his favourite library, Sharmishtha Lake where Modiji used to swim, the garden where he would sit meditating and even the idol of Lord Ganesha that is dear to his mother Hiraba,” he says.
Breaking from his tradition, he has even sketched the Prime Minister and is hoping to rake in the moolah by finding a right buyer. “In the last 14 years, I have done only three portraits, all of deceased persons. Modiji is the only living person I have done painting of. My dream is that all my paintings of Vadnagar be hung in the Prime Minister's Office or his official residence so that whenever he walks by he feels at home,” Munnawar says.
A dream he hopes would turn into a reality some day.