THIRUVANATHAPURAM: God, the greatest artist of them all, might have committed a mistake when he forgot to fit a pair of hands to Sajayakumar while creating him. But the creation, Sajayakumar, has grown into an artist himself who does not want to commit the same mistake - to handicap his creations.
However, he doesn’t feel let down over being born disabled because he feels God himself has intervened at every crucial juncture of his life; be it in the form of Reverend father Joseph Marthoma Metropolitan, who fulfilled his aspiration to pursue a career in arts; his guardians at the care home for physically challenged - where he lived most of his life - who gave him special care and bought him brushes, pastels and palette; his friends at Raja Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts, Mavelikkara, who popularised Sajay on the social networking site Facebook; and Asif Ali, Managing Director of Komusons Productions and Art Gallery in Kochi, who after coming to know of Sajay through Facebook, came forward to sponsor him.
His paintings may not be technically handicapped, but his subjects, at least some of them, are indeed; for instance, a pencil sketch of an adorable young naked lad perched on a vine reaching out for a butterfly, in which the only unnatural element is the artificial limb attached below the boy’s right knee. There is also another painting of a crutch depicted on a background painted in blood red. But Sajay, a person who does not want his disability to be his Unique Selling Proposition (USP), does not attribute this inclination to his own handicap.
‘’I grew up among a group of physically disabled children at Asha Bhavan at Pathanapuram during my school days and with mentally disabled at Jyothis during his college days,’’ says Sajay, gesturing with his right leg just like a normal person would do with his hands.
Sajay is accompanied by his close friend Mujeeb Sooranad from Raja Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts, Mavelikkara, and his sponsor Asif Ali.
‘’When I joined the college, I was an arrogant guy who thought myself to be an exceptional artist. But Sajay’s brilliant strokes drained off my pride,’’ says Mujeeb, who remembers that it was the case with most of the other students in their batch.
Asif Ali told ‘Expresso’ that Sajay would be given a chance to showcase his works at all exhibitions that his art gallery would be hosting in future.
Sajayakumar is in the capital city to participate in the Weekend Art Mart, an exhibition of paintings with the theme ‘Creators on the Street’, organised by Shangri Lla Art Gallery. It is also the first official exhibition of Sajayakumar, who hails from a poor family of daily-wage workers.
Sajay is the son of Vijayan, who expired two years back, and Suma of Pathanapuram. He has a younger sister Sajitha, who works at Jyothis, a care home for mentally challenged at Mavelikkara.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by Thiruvananthapuram Mayor K Chandrika at 4 pm in front of Hotel Taj at Thycaud on Saturday.
rejith@expressbuzz.com