Laugh lines

Ajit Rao started his career as an architect nearly two decades ago after he graduated from the J J School of Architecture. But even before t...

Ajit Rao started his career as an architect nearly two decades ago after he graduated from the J J School of Architecture. But even before that he was experimenting with his first love — cartooning — which will be the subject of his upcoming workshop. What started of as a hobby developed into a passion and led to a journey into diverse media of expression and communication. Today, Rao has struck a balance between both forms — art and architecture.

"I used to do cartoons for Mid-Day on a regular basis. Behram Contractor (the founder editor of Mid-Day) appreciated my work and so did the readers. It was a little unusual, because I didn’t have cartoon characters instead I used to play around with words," says Rao.

But he was already getting torn between two worlds and decided to move to Ahmedabad to concentrate on being an architect. "While I worked with renowned architect B V Doshi for four years, I met several sculptors and printmakers and got hooked on to these art forms. I joined the Kanoria Centrefor the Arts to study sculpture," he says. And while he was trying to make ends meet, help arrived in the form of the first prize at the Hindustan Times cartoon competition. "I was thrilled as the prize money ensured that I didn’t need to work for some time," says Rao.

Story continues below this ad

The topic for the competition was `The Future’ and Rao’s winning entry had the Taj Mahal, in the distance, surrounded by high rise buildings. "There are tourists standing on one terrace and the guide points out saying, `That is the Taj in the moonlight’, with all the pollution surrounding the monument. I had modelled the buildings after the Jaisalmer terraces. It was a good composition for me it’s not just the idea that is important, the design and appearance also matters," he says.

The next stop was trying to translate his two dimensional drawings into three dimensional figures. "I used to make terracotta pieces in 3-D in a way I was trying to make them speak. And the next thought that came to mind was cartoon animation," he says. Butdespite getting selected by one of the best colleges in the US, Rao struggled for three years to raise funds. Finally he gave up the idea, came back to Mumbai and held an exhibition of his terracotta pieces instead. Pundole Art Gallery agreed to host the show though both he and the gallery didn’t know how it would go.

The show was a sell-out. And that confirmed Rao’s belief that he was heading in the right direction. He started learning computer animation at the Xavier Institute of Communications and lady luck called on him once again. He had applied to the Sheridan college in Canada for a four month course in animation and the head of the department, Barry Parker, was very keen to have Rao for the course. "The person whose animation film won the first prize at the Bombay International Film Festival for documentary and animation films said he wanted to give his prize money to this Indian who wanted to go abroad. And then he announced my name and handed over the Rs one lakh prize money to me," saysRao.

After he came back he decided to explore India because he felt that the cartoon form was perfect for India — given the different types of people and architecture it has. Once again financial constraints pulled him back and he joined cartoonist Ram Mohan. "He was doing the Amul Cheese Spread ad with Amrish Puri, Prem Chopra, Dharmendra and others. And I love doing caricatures of film personalities. He gave me the entire film to animate and after that I worked with him for two years and also trained animators," he says.

Story continues below this ad

After that he took off on another journey — this time to work with folk artists in Orissa and design toys. "At the same time Channel [V] asked me to design the Mangta Hai set for them. I designed it likea cartoon and they used it for a year," he says.

While he took a break to work on his drawings he started getting invitations to speak about his work. So he started documenting everything he had learnt and lectured IIT’s visual communication students, management students inBangalore and architecture students in Goa. "It was an interesting process because it helped me realise why I was doing what I was doing. And on these trips, instead of examining people as I had intended, I started examining the architecture. And I documented traditional architecture — it can also be called folk architecture because these are houses built by common people and not designed by architects," he says.

He is now using his knowledge of vernacular architecture to design a bungalow in Ahmedabad. He still dreams of travelling to various parts of India and re-interpret everything he absorbs in cartoon form. But while he works on his dream project, Rao earns his livelihood by teaching at the J J School of Architecture and training animators with Ram Mohan. "A cartoon involves capturing the essence of something in real life and expressing it in a graphic, animated or Three-D form to communicate an idea. It is a completely different world. And I want to make it a part of the real world," hesays.

The Art of Cartoon Drawing, open to all, will be held at The National Gallery For Modern Art, Kala Ghoda on April 11 and 12, 1998. For details contact the British Council at 2823530/60 .