Say NO to exploitation – discovered a wood carving magician

 There is a famous saying, “Never judge a book by its cover!” and Mr. Bhaskar, a wood carver we met today, is a living example of this quote. Once we started interacting with him regarding his interests in carving, we were amazed by the love for his work and the emotions he instills in his art works. He is famous for his wood carving at the Ram Temple at Ram Nagar and few well-known places and temples of Coimbatore city.

The carving genius:

Mr. Bhaskar, who is forty-six years old now, hails from a family settled in Chittarkottai village near Rameshwaram. His family has been involved in wood carving for centuries now. His father, at the age of 80, is still working on wooden sculptures in the Rameshwaram temple. His family moved to Coimbatore around thirty years back, when Mr. Bhaskar was just ten years old. He learnt the art from his father without any standard educational procedures. He has been working on wood carvings for almost thirty years now, and some of his great works still stand majestically in bungalows and commercial areas.

His specialty lies in carving different flowers. Once the concept to be carved is given to him, he takes not more an hour to finish the carving in an area of one square feet. His designs are a combination of spirituality and nature, such as flowers, birds, animals and so on. Although the same carving only takes a couple of minutes in the modern CNC machine, the beauty and value of a handcrafted design is way higher.

The not-so perfect artist:

Inspite of being an excellent artist, Mr. Bhaskar came under the influence of alcohol and got to drinking. Being an alcoholic, he works on anything that comes to his mind, without paying much attention to the actual requirements. Few people have taken advantage of his weakness and got their work done for pennies, though their artistic value was many fold. His story made us see the reality of the lives of similar artists, who are being exploited for monetary benefits.

Let us celebrate art and give the value and glory it deserves, rather than exploiting artisans and defaming them!

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