The first time you met Yusuf Arakkal, you came away thinking you had known him all your life. It was a gift he had. I knew Yusuf for well over three decades — to write about him in the past tense now doesn’t seem right. He was so full of life.
We would meet often at Coffee House , near Deccan Herald , where I began my career. My knowledge of art then was book-based and Western-oriented. Yusuf didn’t speak a lot about art, preferring to talk football and cricket. He seemed to know everybody, from the waiters to the customers. Over the years I stopped being surprised at the energy he had to meet people and develop relationships.
When I returned to Bangalore after a couple of decades working outside, much had changed. But not Yusuf. He had become more celebrated and far more successful, but then in his mind even in the early days he was already a celebrated, successful artist. It was an amazing self-confidence that was nurtured in straitened circumstances — he once took me to a pokey restaurant in Shivajinagar where he said he had cleaned tables in his struggling days.
Now he was also a writer on art, having travelled the world and sieved the experiences through his sharpened sensibilities. He was happy he had known my wife, Dimpy, and myself both separately and together. For a while, he visited us every Sunday morning in his Jeep, just to chat. When he had completed a new work, he invited us to his studio. He had become a one-man industry, supporting whole families with his work. His generosity was legendary, as was his compassion.
Yusuf was master of atmosphere, bringing a texture to his paintings and a technique which was a version of Rembrandt’s. “Yes, Rembrandt is my hero, I try to paint like him,” he said. They shared something else too. Both died on the same day, October 4.
He put Bangalore on the art map, as much by his own work as by encouraging young artists. He expected nothing in return save that they listened to his stories, of which he had plenty. Like a gifted raconteur, he improved the stories with time and circumstance.
On one occasion when he came home, two artists were visiting. R.B. Bhaskaran and Achuthan Kudallur. Somehow they decided to do a work apiece in our living room which had canvases by them and others. “You don’t have a Yusuf Arakkal,” he said. “Why don’t you do something about it?” responded my wife. Later he gave me a small canvas he had done of Sachin Tendulkar.
On another occasion, we were at a book release function when I noticed a book by David Hockney which I planned to buy later. But someone bought it before the end of the show. Next morning Yusuf arrived at home with that book as a gift. Somehow he had known.
The world of art will miss a major artist. I miss my friend. Go well, comrade.
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu)
