“I have no training in this job. But even as a child I was interested in drawing and that continued through my growing up years. After my class 10, this is the job I ventured into first and I stuck to it. I began by painting buses and slowly graduated to doing designs on its body. I freelance and hence work at workshops in Eranhipalam, Perumanna, Balussery, Kunnamangalam and Koyilandy.
Though I do not recollect well, I must have been doing this job for the past five years. In the initial days, all we designed on buses were lines but things started changing when buses designed at places like Karur started plying on the roads here. Those buses boasted a lot of designs on its sides and we started following it. If you notice closely, you will see that it is the buses that ply on Kozhikode – Kuttiadi route, and the ones to Thrissur and Kannur which usually have a lot of design elements on them.
Usually, bus owners have a design in their mind and I follow their instructions. On rare occasions, they give a free hand and I bring in my imagination into play. I search the internet and get images that can be used as models. I also keep a tab on the designs on the buses I see on the road. When a bus comes in for design work and painting, we first finish patchwork and then apply putti. Then it is given a coat of paint and the design part begins. The design is drawn with a glass mark. That part of the design which needs to be immediately worked upon is bordered with a tape and the area outside is covered with newspapers to prevent the paint from spreading. Then I bring alive a design with spray paint. Once the entire design is done, I give a final enamel coating to make it glossy. At the workshops, there would usually be one or two people to help me.
Ideally, painting a bus takes about three days. If there are lot of intricate designs, work of course, takes longer. As of now, it is popular to paint flowers and animals on the bus. But it is the minute geometrical designs that really test your skill. If something goes wrong while spray painting, it is back to giving another coat of paint and starting afresh.
However, it is a tough time to be in this business. New rules mean not many bus body-building work is happening in the city. Many workshops have lost over 50 per cent of their business and workers have even moved to other fields. Consequently, I hardly get to work on new buses these days. It is the old buses that are undergoing a makeover and getting a new coat of paint that I work on.
On top of it, the rains are anyway bad for work. However, in busier times, I would often be shuttling between the various workshops and for an elaborately designed bus I could ask as much as Rs. 10,000. The fact that I am doing something I like keeps me going and till date no work has appeared too daunting.”
A column on the men and women who make Kozhikode what it is.
