Mysore: Very recently I received an unusual and unexpected gift from one of my patients, Atyeb Ahmed, who is into the construction business. He used to visit me in my clinic now and then seeking a prescription either for his own minor ailments or those of his family members. One day he walked in and handed me a package saying that it was a gift from him. When I opened it, I found that it contained two very pretty landscapes in watercolour, beautifully framed. I was pleasantly surprised when he told me that they were his own work and that painting was his hobby from childhood.
My surprise turned to astonishment when he said that he was a self-taught artist without any formal training, while his work reflected an unusually high level of excellence. It appears he was an introvert as a child, preferring to retreat into the nooks and corners of his house with his crayons, drawing pictures on the backs of the wedding invitation cards his father used to receive.
He was attracted and inspired by characters like Phantom and Mandrake in the comics that his older sisters used to read and he would reproduce them endlessly.He says that his fascination with drawing and painting was so intense that all his notebooks used to have their last few pages full of his art and very often while his friends wrote seriously during their class tests he used to draw and paint on the answer sheets.
Hearing that the world-famous heavyweight boxer Muhamed Ali was likely to visit Srirangapatna, he once painted Ali’s portrait hoping to meet him there and get it auto-graphed. The visit was some-how cancelled at the last moment and a disappointed Atyeb says it would have otherwise become his most prized possession today. It appears he was initially very shy of exhibiting his work but developed confidence in his artistic abilities when he was adjudged the first prize winner in a painting competition organised by the Jaycees and the Traffic Police in the city in the year 1979 and his name appeared in many newspapers including Star of Mysore.
After this, while he was studying at the National College in Bangalore, thanks to the encouragement he received from the Principal, he started participating in painting competitions regularly, winning many awards and prizes. It appears he won awards at the Dasara Exhibition too but seeing the quality of his work the organisers refused to let him participate in the amateur category forcing him to compete with the professionals.
He attributes the excellence of his artistic abilities to the encouragement he received all along from his family members, friends and teachers who, instead of criticising him for his seemingly useless obsession, encouraged him in doing what he liked to do most.
Atyeb may be contacted on Mob: 98454-90808.
source: http://www.StarofMysore.com / Feature Articles / by Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD / March 02nd, 2012