Talking walls echo voices of the underground

NEW DELHI: Between the peeling layers of paint, posters promoting events long gone, and paan stains on walls across the city, are some of the most vibrant paintings. They’re often overlooked by people rushing from one place to another or confused with ubiquitous scrawls — yet, the graffiti culture in Delhi continues to thrive.
For many artists, the appeal lies in spreading their name.Observers talk about their work, speculate their identity and artists know they’ve made their mark. But it goes beyond that. “When was the last time a wall made you think?” asks a 29-year-old graffiti artist, Daku. “Graffiti also takes people by surprise, as opposed to visiting galleries,” he adds.
Graffiti in the city, largely concentrated in south Delhi neighbourhoods like Okhla, Malviya Nagar, Shivalik, and Lajpat Nagar, seems to be dominated by psychedelic signatures of different artists in the circuit, but some also branch out to paint more provocative pieces.
“I recently did a piece ‘Brown is Beautiful’ near Panchsheel. There are ads for fairness creams every day, and people seem to ape the west. I hope to change that,” says Rane Insame, who has created a comic character, also called Rane, which stands for freedom and awareness. He changes his first name with every character he creates and each of his alter egos has a different message, he adds.
Daku, too, paints images that not only express his style, but also comment on the society we live in. Recently, he created a wallpaper where he replaced the logo of a well-known luxury brand with his own signature, and pasted it on a wall next to a garbage dump in Khirkee Extension. “There is a lot of contrast between the rich and poor, and Khirkee, opposite the mega malls of Saket, best describes that. My tag also read as ‘Kuda’ which relates to the adjacent garbage dump,” he says.
He’s been working on a new project — flags of India and China with Olympic medals tally. He plans to take it live, but predictably, doesn’t reveal when and where. The illegality of their work under the West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1976 compels artists to remain reclusive, almost to the point of paranoia. “I have a dark suit with special hearing aids, night vision goggles, and other gadgets,” says Rane Insame, who refuses to say where he grew up — somewhere in Europe is as specific as he gets — and also disguises his voice over the telephone. Worldwide, too, anonymity is custom.
Bansky, an English graffiti artist known globally for his satirical art, has concealed his identity for years, even as his canvas pieces sell for several hundred thousand dollars. He has often been criticized for going commercial, and the younger lot here has the same complaint against many artists. “Graffiti is part of hip-hop culture, which started as a form of expression in the early seventies in the ghettos of New York City. Most people know nothing about that,” says 18-year-old Slim 44 who has been plastering the city’s walls with his crew, New Delhi Styles, for about two years.
Easily one of the youngest in the circuit, Slim 44 and his 17-year-old brother Komet have already found space on the coveted graffiti Wall of Fame — a stretch in Shivalik’s C-block where every artist worth his name has a spot. That’s also where we bump into him one humid afternoon, as he walks towards a work-in-progress in the next block. “There are so many live events now where people get together and paint flowers on walls, but that’s not graffiti,” he says.
But expression doesn’t come cheap. Slim says he spends Rs 4,000 - Rs 5,000 on material for a piece that most wouldn’t understand or notice. However, with greater acceptance, things are slowly changing. Vijay Kumar Mishra, who works at a taxi stand near Panchsheel, recalls watching a group of youngsters paint one of the walls. “Why should I stop them from painting something so beautiful? You don’t see this often,” he says.
Urban designers, too, feel there is place for graffiti in any city. “In Bhubaneswar, there is folk art on some compound walls. Graffiti is a form of art, protest, and informal communication, and when done with restraint it can add to a city’s charm. There could be separate areas of municipal maintenance,” says K T Ravindran, an urban designer.
Artists, however, have mixed feeling about legalization. “It would be nice to paint without fear, but people with no knowledge doodle on walls in the name of graffiti,” says Slim 44. “Vandalism gives graffiti a bad name,” adds Daku.
There’s a long way to go before any talk of legalization gives way to action. Till then, the artists will continue to hide behind their masks, content in both their obscurity and notoriety. And even as they work in the dark, they will fill the streets with colour and imagination.