Sketches of happiness: Meet Harsha Pathu, a girl who draws smiles on her subjects' faces

When I show my sketches to people, the joy on their faces is everything to me. That’s what inspires me to work more.
Harsha Pathu
Harsha Pathu

Fathima Harsha aka Harsha Pathu is a 24-year-old social media fame artist hailing from a small town in Malappuram of Kerala. Her Instagram reels of sketching random people, she comes across in life are the new talk of town. Harsha sketches these strangers silently and later shows the art to them, capturing the whole excitement and wonder in a video. Amidst all the different energies that flow through social media every day, her content is a treat to scroll through.

Growing up, she always showed interest in sketching. Even as a child, she tried to draw her own father and mother while they were engaged in various household activities. But she was never encouraged to do so. “You shouldn’t be drawing moving things. It’s not auspicious”, she was told. It was her teachers who noticed her interest and made her join drawing classes.

With the lack of support at home in pursuing this interest forward, she started to earn pocket money doing artwork, Mehendi, etc. Later she found out about the course in Fine Arts and the possibility of a career in her passion, and thus joined the Government Fine Arts College in Thrissur.

Though, in the beginning, Harsha liked to sketch strangers while travelling as a means to pass the time, later, the idea piqued her interest. But what surprised her more was the pure reaction on people’s faces when they see themselves as a sketch. It gave her so much joy.

Her choice of people when out on the streets is also unique. She wanders alone, takes her time to observe people and doesn’t just choose anybody. She sketches those people to whom she can bring a smile, through her work.

She sketches people like domestic workers, security guards, disabled people and street-side shopkeepers. Here, she has sketched a lady who sits in the streets of Mattancherry selling snacks. The lady is so surprised when Harsha shows her the sketch. She smiles, and says, "Super... thank you".

The reels of Harsha are mostly filled with voiceovers of people who love her work and have appreciated her for it. In the reel here, the women you see are the sanitation workers in Fortkochi who are so delighted to see the sketches this girl has drawn of them. They ask her with excitement, " You have drawn me..wow, will you give me this sketch?".

In all her years of learning how to draw, and sketching several good-to-look-at paintings, sketching down these faces has made her the happiest. Inspired by her content, many young artists have broken their inhibitions, and now they also try to interact with the public they sketch.

Having completed the Fine Arts course, today Harsha is an Illustrator, Makeup and Henna artist who also takes up commissioned digital artworks and collaborations. She lives an independent and financially stable life in a zone that she envisioned.

The old man in the video tells Harsha, "It's nice, the surprise when people draw us silently. That has a different thrill of its own".

When asked about her growth over the years, Harsha says, “I was stuck in my life for quite a number of years. Like me, there are many more girls. I found something I derived my happiness from, and I worked really hard on it over the years. Society won’t change for you, We must change”.

“I love my life today because I am enjoying a freedom I didn’t know existed”.

From the shy girl she once was, Harsha today lives a free bird life, finding work as a successful entrepreneur, while also dispatching sketches of happiness to random people she meets in life.

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The New Indian Express
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