ADILABAD: Nirmal art, the over 400-year-old tradition of making softwood toys and paintings, perhaps lost its connection with the glorious past with the death of 85-year-old Boosani Narsingam. The veteran, who died at his residence in Nirmal district headquarters town, was the last of the Naqash artisans to have worked in the original form and style of the genre.
Narsingam, who began dabbling in the art form during the days of the Nizam as a child, witnessed many a changes in the art form and style over time. He had seen his community of Naqash artisans falling on bad times and the art form struggling to regain its foothold.
“It was in the later half of 1960s when murals in homesteads began going out of vogue and we began painting on boards,” the artisan had told this Correspondent two years ago. “This change had also made the Naqash artisans adopt use of synthetic paint and discard colours made from clay and rock,” pointed out Kala Ratna awardee and founder of Adilabad’s Kala Ashram, Guruji Ravinder Sharma. The Naqash artisan community of Nirmal is believed to have migrated from Karnataka in the 16th century though some also believe that it came from Rajasthan. The community, which has 40 families working under a cooperative society at Nirmal, specialises in using ‘poniki’ or white sander wood and paintings as wall mountings.
The range of toys included birds, animals, fruits, all of which had undergone design changes over time, and the toys used by the story-telling Manda Golla community, apart from the range of paintings, including scroll paintings, miniatures and murals done in natural colours. Narsingam was the only artisan in the entire South who made the Ganjifa playing card decks which featured miniature paintings on the cards. “The veteran quit working about a year ago due to ill health,” recalled B.R. Shankar, manager of the Nirmal Toys and Arts Industrial Cooperative Society, adding that two of his sons worked with them.
Narsingam had won accolades and a National merit award for his expertise yet commensurate recognition eluded him. “Now it is for the State to honour its illustrious son,” Mr. Shankar observed.
