Between the Father and the Daughter

As India Fine Arts, Mumbai is having an exclusive solo of the veteran painter Thotta Vaikuntam, www.artconcerns.com publish an interview between the artist and his daughter Sowbhagya. Through this conversation, the artist’s life unravels before us.

Sowbhagya: Hi dad. Good morning.

Vaikuntam: Hi beta. Good morning.

Sowbhagya:  Tell me something about your birth, childhood, your youth and struggling days as an artist.

Vaikuntam: Than let’s start.

Sowbhagya: Where were you born?
 
Vaikuntam: I was born in Shathrajpalli (my maternal uncle’s house) which is near  Burugupalli, which is where our actual house is. Normally in the Hindu culture, the women go to their parent’s house for the delivery of their new born. I was born in the night but I don’t know the exact time. It must have been around 3 o’clock because many people use to call me a thief as I was born at “dhonga rathiri”(thief’s time).

Later this “thief” word influenced me so much that I really started stealing small things thus I came to be known as “Dhonga Vaikuntam”.

Since Shathrajpalli was only two miles away from Burugupalli I used to visit quite often. It is a taluka which has good amenities and many educated people. This inspired my mother to make me study.

Sowbhagya: How did your village inspire you?

Vaikuntam: Our village was beautiful; it had a little stream where we use to play in the evenings. Our village was famous for its arts and weaving. There were many theatre artists who were famous for their acting in the whole district. Every day we use to have a folk play by a different cast of people. Two characters who have influenced me were Hanuman and Bhima, as they were strong, great warriors and I always felt protected by them. I left my village after completing the 4th class.

Sowbhagya: When did your education start?

Vaikuntam: My education started at the age of 4 or 5. School was very near to our home. The day my parents had accompanied me to school for admission I had worn a new shirt and carried a new slate.

Sowbhagya: What was your first drawing and when?

Vaikuntam: My first drawing was of Hanuman and Bhima on either side of the slate at the age of 3 years. I remember vaguely what I had drawn – the figure had a triangle for a head and parallel lines as legs. Later I started to copy some jewellery designs because most of my friends were goldsmiths. This is how I got attracted to lines and figures. Jewellery always fascinated me. I used to look in detail at the jewellery worn by the women. Then I started making theatre jewellery for the actors in the drama. These were prepared with colored paper and glitter. Glitter was used to highlight the actor as it would shine in the night. This is how I started liking bright colors.

Those days people made a lot of things from waste material. My sister use to make small parrots out of waste material to decorate our home. They were very colorful. The ingredients to make colors for the clothes were sold at our petty shop but I was told not to touch them as they were harmful. Weavers make colors out of the material to dye the clothes. As I was close to those people I use to sit with them and see how colors were made. The way the material turned in to color was amazing! I was still a child and they looked beautiful to me. Things like these must have etched a place in my mind.

Sowbhagya: How has jewellery designs influenced your paintings?

Vaikuntam: You can see my paintings have a lot of jewellery. I may not portray them as is but gave them a shape.

Sowbhagya: Where did you go after 4th class for education?

Vaikuntam: I went to Vemulavada to continue my studies. There I met some people who use to draw & paint. But their art did not influence me. I used to skip classes and was involved in left party discussions. I was not interested in studies.

I went to Sircilla for the 8th class. Here we had a drawing teacher called Ramachary who used to take classes after 3 o’clock. He was famous because he used to organize exams such as lower and upper, to become an art teacher trainee. There was a curriculum which included freehand, nature and geometry. These exams were conducted at the district level. Initially I was not interested in attending these classes. Then I made new friends who were attending these classes which aroused my interest. Till then I was an athlete who was playing hockey, volley ball and ring ball and also a drama artist. I dreamt of becoming a hockey player.

I met the drawing teacher and said I wanted to take up drawing classes. He told me that to become a successful artist one must work daily and seriously otherwise not to enroll at all. Teachers were strict as well as helpful. I would listen to them and devote much of my time drawing, which I started to enjoy. There were no readymade colors. We had to prepare our own color bar which was a very interesting part. With an application of little water it would turn into paste. I failed in the first examination i.e. lower one. But I continued to attend classes for two years.

Sowbhagya: When did you take to painting as a profession?

Vaikuntam: I started thinking what will be my career after completing the 9th standard. My father wanted me to become an electrician. However I was not interested in studies; my only interest was to become an artist. So I discontinued my studies and started looking for painting courses.
Once I was discussing my future plans with my friend (don’t remember the name), he told me that he knew a person called Gangaram who had attended the College of Fine Arts in Hyderabad. I found out Gangaram’s whereabouts and met him. Meeting him wasn’t very encouraging rather it was depressing. He told me that he could not get a job even after going to college. I told him that I did not want a job, just wanted to paint. He finally agreed and took me to the College of Fine Arts in Hyderabad.

Sowbhagya: How was your college life?

Vaikuntam: Daily we did sketches and practiced drawings. The college was very active with lots of discussions about Indian art and French art. My seniors included K. Laxma Goud, Surya Prakash, Dutt etc. When I first looked at the modern art of one of the senior artist, I said that it was not a painting as it had only a few strokes. Laxma, Satyananada and I had lots of discussions. Laxma got lots of books and we would all refer to them and discuss. I was confused at first but Laxma took me to senior artists and teachers. Sketching was given more importance. With great difficulty I got a diploma.

Sowbhagya: Who is your favorite lecturer?

Vaikuntam: We had many lecturers who specialized in their respective subjects. My favorite lecturer was Vasudev Kapatal who specialized in casting. He could handle charcoal very nicely and used to bring minimum ten tons which was very hard. I could bring only 5 tons in my charcoal work. He was very strict and gave good advices. The first work he liked of mine was the Golconda series. I made around 30 drawings of Golconda. From then on he started encouraging me.

Sowbhagya: How did you get into MS University?

Vaikuntam: Laxma helped me to get into MS University and I was taken by Mani Da as day scholar.

Sowbhagya: How was the life under Mani da?

Vaikuntam: The University has allocated a studio for me. My neighbors were Rini Dhumal and Jyoti Bhatt. Lecturers reviewed our works weekly and gave advice accordingly. My lecturer was K.G. Subramanyam (Mani Da). He taught me like a father about life. He taught me how to analyze the paintings, gave a lot of examples about Indian and Western art. Indian art was not considered as art until I came here.

We had a separate professor for Indian art called Mr.Bhatt. I once attended his class but got confused about my ideas about art which I had studied till then. I started reading more books about Indian art and I stopped practicing and started sitting in the library day after day. After a month Mani Da came to me and scolded me for only sitting in the library and not practicing. Once he came and caught me around my shoulders and took me out. Everybody was surprised to see this rare sight of close relationship between a teacher and his student. I was very happy at that moment. He asked me what was wrong with me and why was I not practicing? I told him that I was confused after coming to the university and was unable to understand what they are teaching. I told him that I was not happy with what I was doing. I was spending lot of time in the library so I could remove the confusion which was building in my head. I told him that I was not able to understand the teachers properly because of language differences. He told me to stop reading and to continue sketching objects which were of my interest. He added, “Work is the only solution for any phobia.”

One thing that I learnt form him is to always do what you know and don’t get confused with unknown subjects.

Sowbhagya: How were the cultural activities in the university?

Vaikuntam: We had many activities like discussions, Festivals like Navrathri, Holi, and Dramas. Every Indian culture is portrayed in these festivals. I was there for 2 years after which I went back to my village. Once I was out of the university my struggle started as an artist.

Sowbhagya: What change did you find in your work?

Vaikuntam: The time I spent was too short to bring about any change.

Sowbhagya: How did you become an art director and how was the experience?

Vaikuntam: I don’t remember the year but my friend Mohan came to me and asked whether I would like to be an art director for Maa Bhumi. I thought for a while and said yes; though I did not know what it meant exactly, because all that I needed at that time was money and food. At that time my wife was in the village and I was looking for a job. I would have done any small job which was related to painting.

I always like to do something new. So, I had taken up art direction and got paid Rs 600/-. I met Gautam Ghosh who was the director of the film. He explained to me what the film was about and the film should be very realistic. The settings should be simple and natural. I already had seen many realistic movies so I understood the concept. I thought I needed to work in different mediums. I asked him what is the difference between movie and art direction and what an art director should keep in mind. He replied - common sense – “Understand how a farmer is, what he wears; it is nothing but common sense”.  These words stayed with me. I prepared a lot of drawings for the sets. This was a monochromatic movie. According to me this is the best type of movie. Though my contribution in the movie was small I felt happy that I had worked for a good movie. I suffered from malaria on the sets and my father was also ill. This had affected my health a lot. My father expired and my troubles increased.

My next movie was Rangulakala in 1982. Narsing Rao was the director. This film was based on the life of an artist. This was a very good movie because it showed the life of an artist. I worked on two other movies, Dasi and Matimanshulu after this but they were not as interesting as Rangulakala. Dasi was based on the problems of the slaves 40 years ago. I got the national award for Dasi but I wasn’t very happy because I didn’t receive the award for my profession. I worked a lot for Dasi as it had a lot of details. I hardly worked on Mati Manshulu.

Sowbhagya: How did your Telangana women come into existence?

Vaikuntam: After my father expired my wife Suguna started a business and we had our first son, Venkatesh. Suguna worked a lot to take care of our debts. I told my mom to come and live with us in Hyderabad as I was thinking about Venkatesh’s studies, she said you don’t have a job as yet so I don’t want to be a burden on you.

I went back to my village in1979 as my mom had a paralytic attack and my health was not doing good. I started doing sketches of my village people and worked on the same object. I read in some book that every artist comes from his roots. My roots are my village, it gave me everything. I love my village. So, I worked more on people of my village.

I was unable to earn in my village but could not leave my mother alone. We had our second son in 1980 and were very concerned about our children’s future. My mom told me to go back to Hyderabad for the sake of the children. She said don’t sacrifice your future for me. I did not want to leave her. She was a very open minded and strong lady. My mother expired. I went back to Hyderabad with your mom and brothers. I started working for Rangulakala and Dasi again. There was no proper job available. You came into our life in 1983. I did a lot of drawings and paintings on the Village men and women. Suguna started believing in Maa Santhoshi and at the same time my luck turned when I got my job back in Bal Bhavan in 1985 with my friend’s help. I had a lot of time to practice in Bal Bhavan. I tried many different concepts in the Village but the women concept was the best. As the women are from Telangana, hence the name, Telangana women.

Sowbhagya: Thanks papa, I know more about you now.