'Poster' boys of bygone era

HYDERABAD: Peer into this huge dilapidated complex in Moazamjahi market and one catches a glimpse of film stars on paper gathering dust. The crumbling walls seem clinging to the tatters of paper posters of old Hindi films and scattered on the floor is a heap of drawing sheets with pencil sketch figures of Dilip Kumar, Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha. Clearly, this building has seen better days and sitting at the entrance, the caretaker who does not wish to be quoted, confirms the fact."This complex called Isra Arts studio was once a lively place where a little less than a dozen painters churned out hundreds of film posters embracing theatres all over the city," he tells.
Ramesh, 54, is one among those painters behind those iconic huge billboards in bright colours now popular only among the collectors of folk art. Celebrated as the pioneer in his field in Hyderabad in the 1960s, he now works for the same studio. He does not paint posters any more but insists on being called an artist even though he only paints a few stray portraits of people occasionally. "Those were the days when viewers had good sensible cinema to watch and we had loads of work," he says, "now both are lost."
Those good old days were before the late nineties before the introduction of computer-designed vinyl with the film 'Chinagate' in 1998 that brought the bad news for these artists.
"We were around 30 in the city who suddenly lost work when things became digital," says M Guru Verma, an artist who now works as a salesman. While some took to sketching charts and files for school students, others turned into daily wage workers for the same company they worked for as painters. For instance, M A Kaleem, 52, another such painter now makes number plates for vehicles and A Ravi, 58, runs a small general store in Secunderabad.
"The owners anticipated the coming loss and were quick to shift to other business. But we suddenly found ourselves out of job," says Kaleem.
Poster making was once a huge industry with some thousands of posters tossed up in a year, recollect painters. The hotspots for this art in the city apart from Moazamjahi market were Narayanguda, S D Road and Chikkadpally . Some of the theatres even had in-house artists to do that job. Artists insist that the hitech versions are not half as attractive as the earlier ones, sometimes killing the essence of the movie. "Today's posters are all about sexy heroines and sultry heroes, no attempt to use imagination to explain the plot, "says Kaleem.
"Capturing all the drama of a film with brushes and strokes is an art and a lot of hard work," says Ravi enthusiastically describing the whole process. "We would get the film's photos and a small booklet about the script a month in advance. Using our imagination, we would make a rough pencil sketch of the poster on a small sheet of paper and send to distributors and start working on it once they approved the design," he says.
The final poster did not have the luxury of a mistake. It was directly done on a white handloom cloth fastened to a wooden frame. A rough sketch with a charcoal was drawn on the cloth. Powder colours were mixed with oil for a glossy effect. "For the heroines, only a single light fluorescent shade in light orange was needed, while it was all intense greens and blues for villains," says Ramesh adding that heroines were the easiest to paint.
"We were used to the sight of towering billboards carried in carts to nearby theatres like Jamrood , Vikranti and Navrang and being put up at night," says Anwar Ali, a shopkeeper in the area. "By looking at them we would decide whether to watch the film or not and often congratulate the artists for their masterpieces when they came to watch movies," he recalls.
While the job was hugely satisfying and fun, it never meant good money. When he started in 1969, one banner fetched only Rs 40. "It improved gradually to more than Rs 100 for a banner," says Ramesh. The highest he ever got was Rs 800 for Mughal-e-Azam rereleased four years ago as the "distributors wanted the poster to be made in the old style".
"We made the largest number of posters for 'Sholay' that ran in a number of theatres here. For celebrating its 100 days of success, we made the posters again. But this time drawing Amjad Khan was a challenge as he had earned the reputation of the most fierce villain ever," says Ravi who fondly remembers painting "Mother India" and "Deewar" posters when they met with the same success.
These artists say they can easily say which is an easy and which a difficult face to draw in just a glance. "Madhubala is by far the most beautiful face I have drawn. From the new ones, I would love to draw Aishwarya although it is very tough getting her likeness," says Kaleem.
"During the "season " around festivals, we worked till four in mornings to complete an urgent order but all was worth it once the work was complete and appreciated," recalls Ramesh citing how a distributor once gave him a box of sweets for churning out a beautiful poster for 1971 Feroz Khan starrer 'Mela' . But just as he unearths a poster from the junk and dusts it, the faded colours in his own life suddenly surface.
"I feel as if somebody has cut my hands. After we lost work, it was a struggle to make both ends meet. There were huge debts till I changed career,'' says Ravi, "I had a family. Painting posters was no longer a job option."