The uncertain life of a street artist

Earning a living as a live caricaturist means first finding a good spot and then looking for customers willing to have their features wildly exaggerated, writes Rasheed Kappan

Unlike Church Street, busking is rarer in Jayanagar. Credit: DH Photo/Pushkar V

Credit: DH Photo/Pushkar V

Credit: DH Photo/Pushkar V

Credit: DH Photo/Pushkar V

The footpath gives you a pedestrian feel. But when you make it your perch to spot a face in the oceanic wave of people passing by, you know you are in business. And that’s exactly what I did on a weekend on Church Street recently, as I tried my luck at drawing faces, and for a fee.

Paper in hand, pen in tandem, I emerged from the shadows to be the next big caricaturist on Bengaluru’s buzzing walkers’ street. I knew a cartoonist at the far end had an established business, and the crowds flocked to him. But here I was, the challenger with a mission!

First, I had to find my territory. Looking around, I spotted a violinist playing lilting Bollywood tunes. His handcrafted violins were for sale, but he was lost in his music. I loved his passion, and instantly knew he would be my Face One.

But first, I had to strike up a conversation. That proved easy. Affable and friendly, his face brightened when I told him I wanted to draw his caricature. His smile was inspiring. In a flash, the pen was on paper.

Business acumen demanded that I make a spectacle of this. Passers-by had to see my act. So I raised my voice and went full blast: ‘Caricature! Caricature!’ This was my chance. The crowd knew there was a new caricaturist in town, and he meant business. To make it a bit more appealing, I would charge not a rupee more than what my competitor levied, I decided and settled on Rs 200 as my fee.

Juxtaposition was my magic wand. The violinist in real life had company now. Once I was done, I stuck his caricature on the mesh wall behind him. The crowds looked at my art and the man, and back again. It was like a collective, oceanic wave. A couple smiled. I had found my first paying customers.

Five minutes. That is all I had to capture their faces, break them free from the conventions of reality, and make them feel they had got their money’s worth. Tickling their funny bones had to be subtle, calculated, nuanced. For, not everyone would like their prim and proper faces wildly tweaked. I had to be patient, gentle on those eyes, a bit less savage on those noses.

Curious and amused, onlookers followed the pen’s whacky path. Behind me, some looked over my shoulders. From the corner of my eyes, I watched them, searching for my next face. Making eye contact was my best bet. That would quickly graduate to a proposal: ‘Why not you?’ I would quote a price, but never disclose that the first face, the violinist’s, had ‘free’ written all over it.

My art followed a path practised for years. Staring deep into the smiling visage, the pen would first get the facial outline right. The hair, in a zillion strands, would be next. In love with curly hair, rich with a million possibilities, I would let the pen go berserk in a frenzy of designer strokes. The graphic cartoonist in me relished those moments of absolute bliss.

But you know bare outlines will not impress the customer. Their smiles would quickly degenerate to frowns. And that would be catastrophic for your fledgling business. So I faced the challenge head on, populating that visage, first with an eyebrow that mimicked their own. Eyes, nose, lips turned my tools to redefine them, to gift them a new personality.

Lone walkers walked alongside love-struck couples. They came in all sizes, all shapes, and in a delicious array of hairstyles. The weirdest beckoned me, but not everyone looked my way. I had to try hard, and keep my business alive. They called it busking, and I was the busker in a new, carefree avatar.

Children as models

Catch them young, quipped a voice within me. I knew exactly what it meant. Young parents, ever ready to please their kids, would want their long-planned Church Street visit to be memorable. And I would be their memory man, capturing their looks for posterity. One day, when they grow up, the kids would crown me with nostalgia.

Bemused, bubbly and sometimes belligerent, the young ones were tough to pin down. But the parents would hold them, help me make eye contact, get a quick screen-grab of their face before their attention waned.

As darkness fell, and my spot slipped dramatically on the visibility chart, I decided to pack up for the day. A short stroll, and I could see the old portrait artist at the far end was yet to call it a day. He sat in a bright spot, lit up enough to beckon every passer-by. I took some notes, and moved on.

Next destination

Heading to Jayanagar Shopping Complex the next weekend, I knew busking wouldn’t be a cakewalk. Church Street had enduring warmth, a verve like no other, and crowds that synced with what I had in mind. But good old, traditional Jayanagar would be different.

I was wrong. Landing there after years, I was stumped by the crowded streets, the cosmopolitan mix, and the vibrant energy. I knew I had to shift gears, and find a spot to try my luck. If I was smart enough, this would be easy picking.

Where I was standing, I couldn’t find an inch for the floating crowd to stop and patronise my art. I had to do some quick thinking.

Relatively calm, the footpath on 9th main right opposite the complex, beckoned. There was no cartoonist in sight to challenge me. A bunch of
mehendi artists were all I could see, and I knew how to make my next move.

Church Street had given me that confidence. The willing violinist had shown me where a simple chat could take you. That was my first busking lesson, my dive into street smart survival.

Sporting a smiling face, I approached the mehendi bunch. In a second they knew I wasn’t there for their art. I told them if hands and palms were their canvas, the face was my subject. The mission was to indulge them, demonstrate the versatility of my art.

The modus operandi was now cast in stone. I offered them a caricature, absolutely free. What I left unsaid was this: I would occupy the spot next to their space, even grab a vacant chair. Amused and willing, they let me get started. My talking kept them smiling, as my whacky lines grabbed every eyeball in sight.

In walked a couple with a child. What caught my attention was the father’s avatar. The French beard was special, the whiteness of it contrasting with a well-packed face. And he wore spectacles that stood out with a curvy design. I thanked my stars for this gift from God, a subject crafted perfectly for my first paying customer.

Special treatment

Wary of customer displeasure, I was initially reluctant to cross the line, to blow features out of proportion. I knew a caricaturist had that licence and no one had a legal right to take offence. But this father subject, with a face so captivating, had to face the full force of my whacky art. Breaking convention, I drew his spectacle first and located the visage behind it, almost like an afterthought.

He did not seem amused at first, but a half-smile nod from his wife, and he was okay. Triumphant that my experiment had made some impact, I eagerly awaited the next target for special treatment. This time, I would engage them in longer conversations, and amplify the reach of my art.

I recalled how my first chat with my first paying customer went on Church Street. It was casual talk, their names first and whether they were original Bengalureans or just visitors. That often got them talking, and laughing when I would ask if they wanted their caricature to show teeth. The informal, human connection mattered. Customer satisfaction firmly rode on it.

In hindsight, the experience stood out both for its artistic and business sense. It was a carefree, fun dive into a world populated otherwise by roadside vendors and buskers struggling to keep their hearths burning.

Apparent on the wrinkled face of that violinist, I could see a determination to keep going against odds. He had no choice. Back in Hoskote, his wife and three daughters awaited his weekly visits, aware that their tomorrows depended on the sale of his violins. “It is a tough job. People love it when they hear my music. But rarely does it translate to sales,” he lamented.

From musicians like him to live caricaturists like me, the art of busking straddles the entire spectrum from survival to satisfaction.

In cities worldwide, the law enforcers generally let them be, on streets, railway platforms and other public spaces. But not everyone is that lucky. A policeman could frown at a dancer, refuse to smile at a clown, be dazzled by a magician or floored by an acrobat. In common parlance, a ‘mamool’ quickly fixes that frown.

On Church Street, a path designed to celebrate art, creativity and life, busking is hardly questioned. But on roads elsewhere, fighting for space with a thousand vendors, busking could get tricky. Commercial outlets, wary of distraction, could get insecure. They just might call the cops and clear you out.

Need permission?

So, as a lawyer suggested, prior permission could do the trick. “Head to the BBMP if the area is residential,” he said. But not every busker is convinced about this process. Getting permission can be much harder than a full day busking at one’s own risk.

Looking back at my finished craft, I wondered what the customers would do with it. Years from now, they would see it as a record of a memorable day bygone. Or they might just return for another caricatured look at their own selves.

Asking around, I learnt that some planned to frame my work. And then, my mind turned whacky, hypothetical: What if, once home, they put my work under a microscope, spotted those features that I had targeted and went straight into corrective mode? A nose job, maybe? Who knows!