When railway stations turned into art canvases

In a bid to make purely functional trainu00a0stations 'Adarsh', The Western Railway has commissioned artists to depictu00a0the Mumbai's landmarks at Railway Stations. Someu00a0of theseu00a0art works are already up, and the stunning Bandra-Worli Sea Link watercolour at Bandra Station, comes highly recommended

Spare a moment to stand and stare. Even as you pass through the high-arched walls, the intricate eaves and the colossal doors that confer Bandra Station its Grade-1 Heritage Structure status, weave your way to a section housing a high-ceilinged entrance hall that now resembles an art gallery.
u00a0
The five massive watercolours mounted on the walls depict the landmarks that give the Queen of the Suburbs its distinct identity: the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, Mount Mary Church, Bandstand, Carter Road and the station itself.



You might have to crane your neck to see the intricacies, but the burst of colour will hopefully elicit a feeling of pride for Maximum City.

"The idea was to associate various stations on the Western Railway with the local ethnic ethos of the place," says SS Gupta, chief PRO, Western Railway.
u00a0
So, now you can view illustrative panels at Dadar (with a tiny introduction to the place alongside paintings of its milestones like Shivaji Park, Siddhivinayak Temple and Chaityabhoomi), Mahalaxmi and Marine Lines, apart from those that dot the sweeping corridors of Bandra Station (which was restored two years ago for Rs 50 lakh).
u00a0
A sure-fire hit with tourists.

"We have made 15 panels in all, each depicting three illustrations," says Nitin Oak, founder-director of Cloud Nine Graphics, the company behind developing these stations into "adarsh" (ideal) stations.
u00a0
"Initially, we were given barely 15 days to finish the work, but we insisted that a project of this magnitude would require at least two months to complete."

Using photographic samples to gain perspectives, Oak's partner and artist, Ramdas Nivelkar set off on the gruelling deadline-driven assignment, finishing each artwork in less than two days and the entire assignment in three-and-a-half months.

"I had already put colour to the Bandra-Worli Sea Link using the flat perspective that we had sourced from the Internet. But the very next day, we stumbled upon a beautiful aerial shot of the Sea Link in one of the newspapers.
u00a0
So I reworked the entire sketch over the next two days," says Nivelkar, who is also professor of Applied Art at Sophia College. The mammoth artwork is now mounted on a 10 feet x 20 feet frame, the largest of the lot.

But what is worth keeping an eye out for is a colossal painting spanning 38 meters (approximately 125 feet), which will be painted by several artists through this month.

The painting will then be installed at the entrance of Borivali Station. "It might just be the biggest painting in the country," smiles Oak.



Being closely associated with the Railways (the previous three generations of his family worked for them), Oak has charged just Rs 3,60,000 for the 45 commissioned works.

But just as Bandra Station was defaced by reckless paan chewers, hawkers and graffiti within three weeks of its restoration, Nivelkar rues the fact that preserving the artwork from apathetic passers-by and stone pelters might be quite a task.

"The work is done on paper, using watercolours and the ink technique, rather than an oil painting on material that has a longer shelf life. Still, nothing can beat the fact that thousands of commuters will catch a glimpse of it everyday," he ends on a promising note.