NEW DELHI: An Indian self-taught calligraphy artist Anil Kumar Chowhan is known for writing Quranic verses in Arabic on the walls of more than 200 mosques around the country.
Hailing from India’s Hyderabad, the 50-year-old artist revealed that his passion for calligraphy was ignited while painting signboards for shops around the southern Indian city in Urdu to earn a modest living. In an interview with Al Jazeera, “I belonged to a very poor Hindu family and had to give up my studies after class 10th to support my family. I was good at drawing, so I thought why not leverage this skill to take up signboard painting as a career,” he said.
According to Chowhan, he has painted 30 temples with images of Hindu gods and goddesses. He has also painted countless dargahs (mausoleums) and monasteries. “While for over a 100 mosques, I was paid a Hadiya (remuneration), I worked for free for the other 100,” he said by adding, “I felt a spiritual connection to the places which prevented me from demanding compensation,” he said who earns about $350 a month through his freelance assignments across the country.
While working on an Islamic painting, Chowhan said that he did not attend any formal or Islamic school to learn the Arabic script or the Urdu language. “It was during the painting assignments that I learned to read and write Urdu. Soon people started acknowledging my talent and gave me opportunities to beautify landmark architectures around the city with the verses of the Quran,” he said.
In Hyderabad, 30 years back, said the calligrapher, it was important to write signboards in Urdu as the majority of the city’s population and shopkeepers were Muslim. So he had no choice but to become acquainted with the language. However slowly, while writing in Urdu without understanding it, he says he fell in love with the script.
“Over time, I started recognising the words and alphabets and slowly and organically developed an interest in it. In my spare time, I started writing the Urdu script, copying words from textbooks which further helped my craft,” he said.
Chowhan said that he did not attend any formal or Islamic school to learn the Arabic script and he also bagged his first big assignment in the 1990s when he was asked to beautify Hyderabad’s iconic Noor Mosque with the verses of the Quran.
