Wood, letter, best

A postman wants the world to see his sculpting skills

A postman wants the world to see his sculpting skills

POSTMAN Dyandev Parshuram Nevrekar gives multi-tasking a whole new meaning. The Mahim resident is full-time postman and part-time sculptor. Nevrekar smiles as he says, "I may be a sculptor but not many people know of this. I make sculptures since the past four years. It began as a hobby and now is a passion."

Bomb Blasts
Says Nevrekar, "I have been a postman since 28 years. I work at the Prabhadevi post-office which is located opposite the Shardashram School (Dadar) It is called Prabhadevi post office though because we have been shifted there from Century Bazaar, 15 years ago. The Century Bazaar post office was flattened in the Mumbai bomb blasts in 1993."

Varnishing Act
After he returns home from work, this postman who yearns for the world to see and recognise his talent, sits down with a wooden block and starts chiseling it to a sculpture. "I have 40 sculptures now," says Nevrekar, mainly of deities and objects like bullock carts, deer frolicking in a park and sparrows in trees. Nevrekar who brings the wood from his village in Ratnagiri district, works on a sculpture for two months. A soon as it is over, he signs off with a flourish putting a coat of varnish on his work.

Culture-vulture sculpture
A box in his one-room-kitchen home in Mahim holds his art. "I have no workroom or studio I work at home. I take a photo album of pictures of my work to show my seniors at the post office." While he is on his rounds, Nevrekar visits several sculpture exhibitions, "At the Ravindra Natya Mandir in Prabhadevi, the Jehangir Art Gallery and Kutir Udyog Bhavan Gallery near the Gateway of India, quite often," he says.

Dream on, dakiya
If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the test of a sculpture is in the selling. Would Nevrekar's sculptures sell? He laughs humbly when asked what he would do if he became a famous, best-selling sculptor. "I would keep my job, which sustains my wife and two children, he says, "and anyway, I do not know if that would happen." Nevrekar, though, aims to smash a sculptural century. "I want to make 100 sculptures and then hold an exhibition in which these are sold," says this dreaming 'dakiya' who delivers letters for a living and brings wood to life as a passion.

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