Making Paintings Feel Real

The journey of artist Balkrishna Dixit (64) is one that proves how determination can win over the biggest odds

- Huned Contractor

We are sitting in the small canteen of the State Transport (ST) bus stand at Swargate in Pune. The rains have taken a break today morning and the sun is just about peeping through the clouds. Over steaming cups of coffee, Balkrishna Narayan Dixit, who has arrived in Pune by the morning bus from Mumbai, lets me flip through an album of photographs of his paintings. After I have finished studying the images, my first remark to him is: “These can’t be paintings; they are photographs of people.” Dixit laughs. He has a very endearing, unassuming nature. “Of course they are photographs of some of the paintings I have done over the years. Everyone tells me I make very life like paintings,” he says.

And so he does. It is a unique style that he has painstakingly developed over more than 40 years.

Born on October 3, 1952 in a small village called Sonpeth in taluka Parbhani of Maharashtra, young Balkrishna was the member of a family that had to fight hard to make ends meet. In fact, poverty was such a constant companion that the future seemed to hold no promise. And it was while still in school that Balkrishna realised he had a fondness to draw everything that he saw around him – people, birds, landscapes, huts, temples, sculptures of gods, etc. After he had managed to make it up to Class XII, Balkrishna decided he had had enough of academics and would be better off focusing on developing his talent for making sketches and painting them. Easier said than done!