Gandhi on a pencil: How this Mumbai self-taught artist is winning hearts with his chalk, clay and lead mini sculptures

A retired self-taught septuagenarian is winning hearts and awards for his chalk, clay and lead mini sculptures

It was on the insistence of his artist and sculptor friend Arzan Khambatta that Dadar Parsi Colony resident Rusi Bharucha first began his journey with sculpting around 12 years ago. “This one time, when I was at Arzan’s studio, I noticed a few pieces of chalk lying on the table—Arzan had very deftly sculpted on them. When I enquired, he said he did it to pass his time, and asked me to give it a shot as well,” Bharucha remembers, adding, “I thought Arzan was joking... I had never done something so intricate before.”

But Bharucha’s curiosity got the better of him. The retired automobile engineer and self-taught artist went back home with a box of chalk, and kept at it, till he could sculpt to his satisfaction. “The initial creations weren’t great. But I managed to perfect it after a lot of trial and error,” he recalls, adding that sculpting was also therapeutic, as he was battling cancer at the time.

The 76-year-old “chalksture creator” has now honed his craft to sculpt on everything from lead pencils, to clay and wood. “I have made my own sculpting tools... my background in automobile engineering helped,” he smiles. A high-point in Bharucha’s artistic career was when he won the second prize at the international ACG Art In A Capsule competition in 2019, for his lead art, which won him US $3,000.

His lead pencil creations (Rs 7,500 per sculpture) continue to be most in demand. “It’s easier to work on a thicker lead—I prefer the one measuring 5.6 mm in thickness.” Bharucha can make everything from faces of people to tiny figurines on lead. “My Ganesha and Mahatma Gandhi micro sculptures are a hit among most of my customers,” he adds. A practiced hand at sculpting, he takes a couple of days to complete his orders. It can be a perfect gift for a collector of curios, or a souvenir for keeps.

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