Ramesh Thaakar

Ramesh Thaakar
File:Self_portrait_of_Ramesh_Thaakar.jpg File:Self_portrait_of_Ramesh_Thaakar.jpg
Born	(1931-06-27)June 27, 1931 Vadodara, Gujarat, India
💀Died	January 15, 2016(2016-01-15) (aged 84) New Delhi, IndiaJanuary 15, 2016(2016-01-15) (aged 84)
🏳️ Nationality	Indian
💼 Occupation	Artist, Photographer & Writer
👩 Spouse(s)	Kanta Thaakar

Ramesh Thaakar (26 June 1931 – 15 January 2016) was a multi-faceted artist from Rajkot (Gujarat State), India in the fields of drawing, painting and photography. Besides this, he authored books on diverse fields and pursued variety of hobbies such as philately, music, reading books, coins collection, cricket, wildlife, Himalayas, travelling, to name a few. Rajkot has been his life-long ‘Karma Bhoomi’ although he travelled and worked through out the length and breadth of India. Without any formal education in art, in pursuance of collecting autographs, he began sketching and drew his first portrait-sketch in 1948 and an artist was born at the age of 17 years. Ever since, Mr. Ramesh Thaakar drew life-like portraits of large number of personalities from almost every field, had each of them autographed and captured wide-ranging photographs, creating a rich and rare treasure of about 1800 autographed crayon portraits and more than five hundred thousand (5 lakh) photographs.

During his seven decade long artistic journey, Artist Ramesh Thaakar refined his art and achieved excellence in the fields of crayon portraits, pencil sketches, oil on canvas, portrait photography, wild-life photography, Himalayan photography and photography of historical monuments. Throughout, he remained at the forefront of enhancing the standard of art, helped to improve the artistic temper by periodically putting up art exhibitions, and had his masterpieces commissioned at prominent institutions.  In addition, he authored a number of illustrated books and created a vast personal collection of autographs, rare postage stamps, ancient coins, invaluable books and old gramophone records - a testimony of his multi-talented genius.

Life

Ramesh Thaakar was born on 27th June 1931 at Vadodara in Gujarat, India in a respectable Gujarati Brahmin family of three brothers and four sisters. Ramesh Thaakar was the sixth child of his parents. His father, Somnath Khodidas Thakar was a Telegraph Master  of Rajkot and thus, Ramesh Thaakar spent his early years in Rajkot along with his mother, Jashomati bahen, youngest sister Indu bahen, and younger brother, Madhusudan Thakar or Madhu for short. Unfortunately, Ramesh Thaakar lost his mother in December, 1934  due to meningitis when he was just four and half years old. After this, his father retired prematurely and shifted to Wadhwan City (Dist. Surendranagar, Gujarat) where he was brought up by his elder brother, Bhupat Roy Thakar and his wife, Rama Lakshmi Thakar. He began his pre-schooling in a nursery school and primary education at the Dajiraj High School in Wadhwan City.

During this period in 1942, even as a young student, he participated in the Quit India Movement by joining the local agitation for which the police detained the 11-year old Ramesh in the school premises till the agitation got over.

In 1943, his elder brother Bhupat Roy Thaakar moved to Karachi for business purposes and so, Ramesh Thaakar and his younger brother, Madhu, also shifted along and began studies at Karachi’s Karya High School. Karachi being a major city, it attracted large number of personalities from various fields which provided Ramesh Thaakar an opportunity of seeing them in person and attending their speeches, something both the brothers were fond of. This gave rise to the hobby of collecting autographs and in March 1947, he obtained his first ever autograph of Sardar Ajit Singh, the famed freedom fighter and uncle of Sardar Bhagat Singh, who had returned to India after 39 years in exile. After spending four years in Karachi when the partition of India and Pakistan became imminent in 1947, Bhupat Roy Thaakar wounded up his business and shifted from Karachi to Ahmedabad and both the younger brothers, Ramesh and Madhu went back to Wadhwan city for a short while.

In 1948, Ramesh Thaakar and brother Madhu shifted to Ahmedabad and began studying in the Thaker’s High School near Ellis Bridge. Ahmedabad, once again provided an opportunity to meet and get autographs of different personalities which gave rise to another hobby of drawing portrait sketches. He was fortunate to come across Kala Guru Ravishankar Raval who gave him valuable tips and demonstrated finer aspects of drawing a portrait. On attaining certain degree of proficiency, in September 1948, Ramesh Thaakar drew his first life sketch of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukerjee, Union Minister for Industry and Civil supplies, who not only autographed it but also appreciated the sketch. Hereafter, Ramesh Thaakar kept attaining high degree of proficiency and sketching very large number of personalities for next seven decades.

For matriculation examination, Ramesh Thaakar, once again shifted from Ahmedabad to Rajkot and joined A.S. Chaudhary High School. In 1950, Ramesh Thaakar’s father handed over his old Voigtlander camera to him and with this, he began photography, starting with the first Republic Day Parade held at Surendranagar. Subsequently, on 1st August 1950, he joined the office of District Superintendent of Police at Rajkot as a Junior Clerk where he continued to serve for next 18 years. It was a blessing in disguise as all through this period, being from the police department, he got special help in approaching the dignitaries for sketching and photography.

Finally, in 1968, in order to pursue drawing, painting and photography full time, he took premature retirement from the police department. Thereafter, Ramesh Thaakar devoted his entire effort towards drawing and photography as a freelance professional. He continued to explore novel methods in different areas and evolving higher degree of expertise. This included portrait photographs without using flash light and from unusual angles, colouring black & white photos with transparent water colours, enlarging and processing at home black & white photo blowups upto 12 feet in length, life size cut-outs of black & white photos pasted on plywood, cut along the border, and coloured with transparent photo colours, and many more.  Along the way, number of other hobbies were developed, varied interests cultivated, and the society at large enriched with his expertise. He started a cultural  organisation, Setu in 1972 and single handedly organised a major musical programme at Rajkot which was attended by some great personalities from Indian cinema, followed by some more musical events. He also established Rajkot Philatelic Association, Gujarat Mountaineering Club, a Rajkot branch of Youth Hostel, to name a few but faded out in due course of time. In between, along with one local entrepreneur, he also planned and worked on setting up a private Horse Riding School and a Zoological Park at Rajkot.

With advancing age, photography and rush to collect autographs was restricted but not the spirit. He slowly began diverting towards writing pictorial books on diverse subjects like Dwadash Jyotirlinga – the 12 most revered Lord Shiva temples which was published in 1992, his own artistic journey in 1998,  Folio of six select crayon portraits in 2004, Indian postage stamps in 2008, and finally, his dream project of a coffee table book on 100 crayon portraits of Mahatma Gandhi with tributes in their own hand writings by 100 different personalities which got published in 2013. He still created larger than life size oil painting of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for Jawahar Bhavan at New Delhi in 1992, oil painting of MIAF Arjan Singh at the behest of the then Indian Air Force Chief in 2006, and oil paintings of tall leaders of Saurashtra for display at different institutions. Probably, his most important exhibition of crayon sketches was organised by the Nehru Memorial  Museum & Library at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi in 2004 which was witnessed by the President of India Dr. Abdul Kalam and other top dignitaries. With the advancing age, the body weakened but not the drive. He never stopped working – either he would write, give a talk or an interview, guide young artists, or share experiences with the visitors. This journey of exploration, experimentation and creativity continued unabated till he breathed his last in the Army Hospital R&R, New Delhi at the ripe age of 85 years on 15th January, 2016. 

Autograph Collection

Right from his childhood, Ramesh Thaakar was very fond of seeing the great personalities from close quarters. As a result, he would invariably reach the venue early and occupy one of the front rows.  In February 1947, when Aruna Asaf Ali came to Karachi, one of Ramesh Thaakar’s classmates, Prem Shankar Joshi, was seated adjacent to him in the front row. He suddenly saw him getting up and going on the dias and obtaining her autograph. This inspired Ramesh Thaakar to develop a hobby of collecting autographs as it would not only enable him to see the leaders from close, but also provide a possible opportunity to talk with them. On 9th March 1947, when Sardar Ajit Singh, a great freedom fighter of India and Uncle of Sardar Bhagat Singh, arrived in India after 39 years of being in exile, there was an address planned at Maratha High School in Karachi. Ramesh Thaakar grabbed this opportunity and presented a school exercise book for his autograph, and when he signed it in Urdu, Ramesh Thaakar’s happiness knew no bounds and his hobby of collecting autographs began. Since then, he has collected autographs of who’s who from different fields from across the world in 31 autograph books. Some of these are national leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Indira Gandhi, Jai Prakash Narain, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Musicians like Pandit Omkarnath Thakur, Fayyaz Khan, Ustad Alludin Khan, Pannalal Ghosh, Begum Akhtar, Bismillah Khan, Pandit Ravishankar, etc. Cricketers like M.S. Duleepsinhji, Col. C.K. Nayadu, Vijay Hazare, Vinoo Mankad, Mansur Ali khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, Don Bradman, Len Hutton, Richie Benaud, Frank Worrell, Garfield Sobers, hanif Mohammed, etc. Movie stars like Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Nargis, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Naushad, Mohd. Rafi, Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, etc. International personalities like Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Bertrand Russel, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.

During all these years, Ramesh Thaakar had autographs of almost all the prominent personalities except Mahtma Gandhi. In 1989, one of the Dandi marchers, Ratanji Boricha presented Ramesh Thaakar a small book, “Aashram Bhajnawali”, which was autographed by Mahatma Gandhi. In 1990, Ramesh Thaakar got another autograph of Mahatma Gandhi, presented to him by a friend, Bhikhubhai Gabhrani, son of another Dandi marcher, Abbas Varteji, signed on a book – Srimad Bhagwad Gita. In the same year, Purshottam Gandhi, a veteran social worker of Rajkot, presented two different types of Gandhiji’s autographs, whereas Prabhu Das Gandhi presented two original letters written by Gandhiji to his grandfather, Khushal Chand Gandhi. This enriched the autograph collection of Ramesh Thaakar manifold.

A list of prominent personalities is attached at the bottom.

Drawing

Crayon Portrait Sketches

Ramesh Thaakar continued with his hobby of collecting autographs from Karachi to Ahmedabad. On 8th September 1948, a well known American author and journalist Louis Fischer had arrived at Ahmedabad to deliver a speech at the Prema Bhai Hall. After the function, when Ramesh Thaakar approached him near his car and requested for the autograph, he bluntly refused, saying that if he signs one book, he will have to autographs all the 50-60 books around him. But at that very moment, an artist presented a couple of his pencil sketches to Louis Fischer who delightfully autographed them without any hesitation. The artist was none other than a well known cartoonist, Bansilal Verma “Chakor”. This incident gave an idea to Ramesh Thaakar that if he learnt drawing, nobody would refuse him an autograph. Soon thereafter, he picked up a pencil and paper and began attempting sketches of different people. However, the initial results were far from satisfactory. On seeing keen interest in drawing, Ramesh Thaakar’s brother-in-law, Dr. M.M. Trivedi, took him to the Kala Guru, the great Ravishankar Raval for guidance. Ravishankar Raval personally gave valuable tips, took Ramesh Thaakar to his art school where he made one of the students sit down, and drew his life sketch to demonstrate finer aspects of drawing a portrait. This is precisely what Ramesh Thaakar wanted to learn and since then he has considered Ravishankar Raval as his Guru.

On attaining certain degree of proficiency, on 26th September 1948, Ramesh Thaakar drew the life sketch of Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukerjee, who was then a Union Minister for Industry and Civil supplies and had come to address at 4:30PM to Majoor Mahajan Sangh office near Lal Darwaza of Ahmedabad. Equipped with couple of pencils, erasers, sharpner, and few drawing papers, Ramesh Thaakar took a seat on the left side of Dr. Mukherjee and started sketching him as guided by Ravishankar Raval. Thankfully, Dr. Mukherjee’s appearance was relatively simple to draw. When the function got over at 5:30 PM, unsure of his artwork, 17 year old Ramesh Thaakar presented his maiden life sketch to Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee. To his great delight, Dr. Mukherjee not only autographed the sketch, with the same drawing pencil, but also encouraged him, saying “Well done, young man” and patted him on the back. Ramesh Thaakar further presented his autograph book, to which Dr. Mukherjee happily signed in English as well as Bengali. With this sketch, created just 18 days after seeing “Chakor” presenting his sketches to Louis Fischer, an artist in Ramesh Thaakar was born.

In 1949, Ramesh Thaakar had gone to Porbandar to prepare for his matriculation exam from his cousin brother, P.T. Bhatt who was a seasoned teacher at Sir Bhavsinhji High School. Through him, Ramesh Thaakar could get in touch with H.H Maharana Sir Natwarsinhji of Porbandar who invited Ramesh Thaakar to draw his pencil portraits. The Maharana of Porbandar was so impressed that he took along Ramesh Thaakar with him to Pondicherry to draw a pencil portrait of Maharshi Sri Aurobindo. This was a private trip to Chennai, Pondicherry, and finally to Ooty, where the Maharana had his winter palace, which gave Ramesh Thaakar a rare chance to travel in his special royal saloon.  At Madras, now Chennai, the Maharana took Ramesh Thaakar to draw a sketch of H.H. Maharaja Sir Krishna Kumar Sinhji of Bhavnagar who was the Governor. Ramesh Thaakar not only got the opportunity to sketch the Maharaja, but also got a chance to draw portraits of musicians Pandit Omkar Nath Thakur, Ustad Faiyaz Khan, and Ahmed Jan Tirakhwa, who happened to be there. On reaching Pondicherry, they had the darshan of Maharshi Shri Aurobindo and The Mother (Mirra Alfassa, a French spiritual Guru). Ramesh Thaakar drew beautiful portrait sketches of both the saints. In fact, The Mother was so happy that she not only autographed it but herself drew a portrait sketch of Ramesh Thaakar and presented it to him as blessings. During this trip, Ramesh Thaakar was also fortunate to have darshan of another great saint, Sri Raman Maharshi, and drew his sketch.

In 1950, before joining the police department, Ramesh Thaakar had gone to Indore, which provided him a dual opportunity of getting cricket coaching as well as an opportunity to draw portraits of Colonel CK Naidu, Mushtaq Ali, CS Naidu, and many other cricketers. By 1951, Ramesh Thaakar had established himself as a good portrait artist and had in his collection, sketches of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, General K.M Cariappa, H.H. Aga Khan Prince Sultan, to name a few. Now he started exploring the possibility of obtaining autographs from international personalities abroad. Accordingly, he approached the Indian High Commissions in London and Embassy in the USA, sent beautifully drawn lifelike pencil portraits to them, and to his great surprise could get it back with autographs of Sir Winston Churchill, President Harry Truman, and the great scientist Albert Einstein. From 1952 onwards, Ramesh Thaakar started portraits in multi coloured crayons also in addition to drawing sketches in black colour or brown colour.

In 1953, Ramesh Thaakar got yet another great opportunity to when the Rajkot’s Member of Parliament, Jethalal Joshi, arranged his visit to New Delhi for the budding artist. In the national capital, on four different occasions, he got a chance to sketch Jawaharlal Nehru. Besides this, he also got a chance to draw portraits and obtain autographs of Dr. B.R Ambedkar, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Dr. S Radhakrishnan, Captain Shahnawaz, Purushottam Das Tandon, and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai to name a few.  The most memorable interaction with the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was on his birthday on 14th November 1953 at his residence, No.1 Roberts Road, now the Teen Murti Bhavan. Jawaharlal Nehru had granted a twenty minute audience at 7.00PM in the evening to draw his portrait. He first had a look at four of his pencil portraits, which Ramesh Thaakar had brought from Rajkot. Nehru mistook one of the portraits for a photograph as it was created so beautifully with complete likeness and intricate details of wrinkles, grains of the skin, and even threads of his cap that it actually appeared like a photo. On Ramesh Thaakar’s explaining that it was not a photograph but a sketch, Pandit Nehru rubbed his ring finger on the portrait with bit of an anger. On not finding a black charcoal mark on his finger, Nehru got further infuriated, to which, Ramesh Thaakar dared to explain that the mark would not appear because of the fixative layer sprayed over it. Not convinced, Nehru once again rubbed at the same spot, this time more vigorously, only to find the fixative layer disappearing, and a black pencil mark appearing on his ring finger. There was a sudden change in his expressions, and Nehru embraced Ramesh Thaakar with a big smile and appreciation and autographed all the sketches with great delight. He then sat down for twenty minutes wherein Ramesh Thaakar drew two sketches. To his surprise, Nehru pointed out the shape of his nose and drew his nose himself to show it to the artist. These are some of the rare memories.

Ramesh Thaakar had another great opportunity during this trip when Jethalal Joshi and Congress General Secretary Balwant Rai Mehta arranged for drawing sketches and taking photographs of the President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad during his usual daily activities. This was facilitated by a journalist, Harin Shah, and Deputy Minister Jaisukhlal Hathi on Dr. Rajendra Prasad’s birthday, on 3rd December, 1953. When this plan was suggested to the President, he was magnanimous in offering a stay within the Rashtrapati Bhawan for a day so that the artist could freely move around and draw his sketches. Accordingly, a guest room on the first floor of the northern wing, was provided to Ramesh Thaakar. On this day, he drew five different sketches which were appreciated and autographed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad on the following day. This also provided an unexpected chance of attending a private Kavi sammelan of Hindi poets in the Yellow Room of the Rashtrapati Bhawan in the evening. While the President left after spending 45 minutes, Ramesh Thaakar attended the entire programme and got an opportunity to draw the sketches of eminent Hindi poets such as Maithili Sharan Gupt, Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’, Sumitranandan Pant, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’, and Mahadevi Verma.  This trip provided yet another opportunity of sketching some famous cricketers on the last day of the First ‘Test Match’ between India and Commonwealth XI or S.J.O.C. Team(Silver Jubilee Overseas Cricket Team to mark the Silver Jubilee of BCCI) such as B.A. Barnett (Captain of SJOC Team), Frank Worrell, Sonny Ramadhin, Roy Marshall, Vijay hazare (India captain),Polly Umrigar and Subhash Gupte.  

In 1961, he attended the Bhavnagar Congress session where he got the chance to sketch Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Humayun Kabir, VK Krishna Menon, Kamaraj Nadar, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, N. Sanjeeva Reddy, Mohanlal Sukhadia, Kamlapati Tripathi and Lal Bahadur Shastri to name a few

In 1991, during his long trip to Delhi, hosted by his brother-in-law and Rajya Sabha MP, Shri Jeetubhai Bhatt, he was invited for a 30 minute official meeting with the President R. Venkataraman in his study at the Rashtrapati Bhawan on 18th July 1991 to see the pencil and crayon portraits of created over the years by Ramesh Thaakar different personalities along with their autographs. As Prime Minister Nehru had mistook a pencil portrait for a black and white photograph, similarly the President also mistook a few portrait drawings for photographs. Probably, Ramesh Thaakar was the first ever artist from Gujarat who was officially invited to personally show his works at Rashtrapati Bhawan to the President of India. He grabbed this opportunity to also visit the same very room where he had stayed in 1953.    

Since then, Ramesh Thaakar has created more than 1800 pencil and crayon portraits of celebrities, both national as well as international, from almost all walks of life, and has each one autographed by the personality. This elite list includes Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Dr. BR Ambedkar, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Vinoba Bhave, Indira Gandhi, Maharshi Shri Aurobindo, Shri Mataji, Shri Raman Maharshi, King George VI of UK, Sir Winston Churchill, Earl Clement Attlee, Sir Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, President Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Charlie Chaplin, Pablo Picasso, Don Bradman, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, Prithviraj Kapoor, Ashok Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Dilip Kumar, Ustad Allauddin Khan, Begum Akhtar, Pt. Ravishankar, Bismillah Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, to name a few. A list of prominent personalities whose autographed sketches have been made are listed at the bottom.

Oil Paintings on Canvas

Gradually, Ramesh Thaakar graduated from pencil sketches to limited water colour drawings, and finally to oil on canvas. These oil paintings were being created mostly for commercial purposes although he did create one self portrait of himself and two beautiful oil paintings of Kanchenjunga massif from different angles, as seen from Darjeeling and Sandakphu which still adorns his home. In 1988, he made a huge oil on canvas of the size of 6ft X 4ft, a bust portrait of the Rajkot Mayor, Arvindbhai Maniar, which was installed at the Connaught hall, now named Arvindbhai Maniar hall. This canvas painting is considered to be the largest portrait in the country and presumably in the world.  Again in 1988, he created two life size paintings of Darbar Gopal Das and Bhakti Baa which were unveiled by former Chief Minister of Gujarat, Babubhai Jashbhai Patel. In 1990, two life size canvas portraits of first chief minister of Saurashtra, U.N Dhebar and first speaker of Saurashtra legislative assembly, M.B Joshi were unveiled by the Governor of Gujarat Shri Mahipal Singh Shastri in the Arvindbhai Maniar Hall of Rajkot. In 1991, Ramesh Thaakar was commissioned by the Jawahar Bhawan at New Delhi to make a life size canvas painting of Jawaharlal Nehru whereas in 2005, he created a oil painting of the Marshal of the IAF Arjan Singh at the request of the then Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi.

Photography

Portrait Photography

It was in 1956 that Earl Clement Attlee, former Prime Minister of UK was instrumental in  Ramesh Thaakar taking up portrait photography seriously. During his visit to  had given a special appointment on 13th October, 1956 for Ramesh Thaakar to draw a crayon portrait sketch. At the end of a 20 minutes sitting, seeing a camera hanging from Ramesh Thaakar’s shoulder, he made a subtle comment, “Instead of asking an old man like me to sit for 20 long minutes, you could have snapped my photo and finished drawing a portrait later. I would have autographed on the rough outline.” These words struck Ramesh Thaakar to focus on photography, leading him to emerge as a Photo Artist.

In 1961, he attended the Bhavnagar Congress session where he got the chance to photograph number of great national leaders. In 1962, he went and spent about 6 months in Mumbai and got a chance to do photography in the film industry. In September, 1967 when the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Rajkot, one portrait clicked by Ramesh Thaakar was liked by the Prime Minister so much that number of orders were placed for supplying hundreds of copies to the Prime Minister’s Office in that non-digital era. This photo with Ramesh Thaakar’s citation in his own hand writings is available on the internet. Over the years, he focused on portrait photography and became well known Portraitist of great repute.  He has clicked some memorable portraits of private individuals as well as great personalities such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira gandhi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Jai Prakash Narain, Prithviraj Kapoor, Talat Mehmood, Amrita Pritam, Pandit Ravishankar, and his father, Somnath Thakar.  

A first extensive tour undertaken in 1979 was exclusively to photograph Jyotirlinga temples mainly located in central India. Next tour in 1980 of central and north India covered photography of important monuments of Mughal architecture, Buddhist monuments of Sanchi and Sarnath, and Islamic architecture at Lucknow, and Delhi. It also allowed photographing river Ganga at Rishikesh, Haridwar, Allahbad, and Varanasi. 1982 provided him a rare opportunity of meeting and taking photographs of JRD Tata’s historic golden jubilee flight from Karachi to Bombay with a halt at Ahmedabad.

Wildlife Photography

Ramesh Thaakar developed a keen interest in wildlife photography when in 1955 he accompanied Jawaharlal Nehru to the Gir forest. Subesequently, he trekked inside the Gir Forest extensively in 1960s, to 1980s, both to study the Asiatic Lions as well as other flora and fauna, and capture their photographs. Simultaneously, he also began enlarging them and processing at his home studio successfully to create beautiful black & white blow ups of length upto 12 feet but width restricted to 4 ft being the maximum width available of the Agfa paper. Displaying these enlargements pasted on a plywood became a fashion in Gujarat. It is noteworthy that the entire process of printing, developing, drying and pasting on plywood was entirely designed by Ramesh Thaakar himself, and was executed at his home studio with the help of only the family members.

Nature & Himalayan Photography

A trip to Musoorie in 1980 provided first glimpses of a snow clad Himalayan range which lured him for life to Himalayan photography. In 1986, he visited Shimla and later made extensive tour of Kedarnath and Badrinath areas, and photographed a number of peaks of Garhwal Himalayas such as Chaukhamba, Bharat khoota, Neelkanth, Kamet, and Mana.  In 1993, Ramesh Thaakar toured Kumaon area covering Nainital, Almora, Baijyanath, Bageshwar, Chaukori, Kausani and Ranikhet and photographed the mighty peaks of Trishul, Nanda Khooti, Mrig Dhuni, Devisthan, Nanda Devi, Nandakot, and Panch chuli. In 2000, visited Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Gangtok and Sandakphu to capture some of the highest mountains of the world such as Kanchenjunga range, Mount Everest, Lohtse and Makalu.

Travels

Besides touring with the Maharana of Porbandar in 1949 and to Delhi in 1953 which has been covered before, in 1958, he toured with Vinobha Bhave on his padyatra for his six days in Saurashtra and drew about 40 sketches. In 1961, he attended the Bhavnagar Congress session where he got the chance to sketch number of Congress leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Humayun Kabir, VK Krishna Mennon, Kamraj Nadar, Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, N. Sanjeeva Reddy, Mohanlal Sukhadia, Kamlapati Tripathi and Lal Bahadur Shastri to name a few. In 1962, he went and spent about 6 months in Mumbai and got a chance to do photography in the film industry. In 1978, he toured Udaipur and photographed the city of lakes and the panther show at Jaisamand Lake. In 1979, he undertook an extensive tour of central India, primarily to photograph jyotirlinga temples. He covered Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Daulatabad, Aurangabad, Parli, Hyderabad, Indore and Ujjain. In 1980, he undertook a long and extensive tour of central and north India covering Bhopal, Sanchi, Vidisha, Allahbad, Varanasi, Sarnath, Lucknow, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Delhi, Chandigarh and Agra. In 1986, he visited Shimla and later made extensive tour of Kedarnath and Badrinath, and photographed a number of peaks of Garhwal Himalayas such as Chaukhamba, Bharat khoota, Shivlinga, Neelkanth, Kamet, and Mana. In 1990, he undertook an extensive tour of Western Rajasthan to capture the character and grandeur of Bikaner, Jaisalmer, sand dunes of Sam, Jodhpur, Ajmer, Pushkar, and Mira bai’s birth place at Merta. In 1993, Ramesh Thaakar toured Kumaon area covering Nainital, Almohra, Baijyanath, Bageshwar, Chaukori, Kausani and Ranikhet and photographed the mighty peaks of Trishul, Nanda Khooti, Mrig Dhuni, Devisthan, Nanda Devi, Nandakot, and Panch chuli. He also visited the border towns of Mahendranagar in Nepal and Phuntsholing in Bhutan. In 1996, he had a long stay at Agra during which he did extensive photography to capture unusual pictures of Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, and other monuments of Agra and Gwalior. In 1998, he travelled in South India to Ooty, Wellington, Madurai, Rameshwar, Kanyakumari, Trivendum, Allepy, Thekkady, Kodaikanal, Palani and Coimbatore. Soon thereafter, in 1999, travelled to Mysore and Bengaluru. In 2000, visited Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Gangtok and Sandakphu to capture some of the highest mountains of the world, especially the Kanchenjunga massif. In 2003, visited Bhubneshwar, Puri and Konark. In 2008, went on a month long trip to Kuala Lumpur with his nephew, Pratik Thakar. In 2013, visited Jaisalmer and Pokhran.

Music

Being an ardent lover of KL Saighal’s songs, Ramesh Thaakar established an organization by the name of “Setu” and single handedly organized KL Saighal Night, a musical program at Rajkot. Tall film personalities like Nargis, Naushad, Talat Mehmood, KN Singh, etc attended the event. Besides that, he organised number f other concerts of Talat Mehmood and other artists. He has in his collection all the 78 RPM gramophone records of K.L. Saigal’s songs as also other L.P. records numbering more than hundred. All these records were maintained in top condition and catalogued. Besides being a good singer, he could play most of the indian musical instruments especially the flute.

Author of Illustrated Books

Ramesh Thaakar began “Bina Publications”, his own publishing house named after his daughter Bina. In a major departure from the usual calendars, in 1979 he published a six page large size pictorial wall calendar, “Glimpses of India – Lions” containing exquisite photographs of the Gir lions along with it’s detailed history. In 1980, he published two sets of six page pictorial wall calendars of large size - “Soar of Saurashtra” and “The Twelve Jyotirlingas” as part of the series “Glimpses of India II & III”. These wall calendars had classic photographs and detailed history of each one. In 1981, he published three different calendars in the continuing series Glimpses of India. Series IV was “Sanchi” in English language, Series V was “The Mughal Architecture” in Arabic language, and Series VI “The Indian Lion” which was a 12 page pictorial table calendar. This was also presented to the Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi on 21st January 1981 when she visited Gir forest. With his deep knowledge in varied subjects and good command over Gujarati, Hindi and English languages, he has contributed a number of articles in different newspapers and gave radio talks and interviews on All India Radio as well as Doordarshan. He has also contributed on various subjects in the Gujarati encyclopedia – Gujarati Vishwakosh. Ramesh Thaakar’s first book was a pictorial volume Dwadash Jyotirlinga – the 12 most revered Lord Shiva temples which was published in 1992 in Gujarati and Hindi by Pravin Prakashan of Rajkot with a foreword written by the eminent Dr. Karan Singh. His own artistic journey was covered through a pictorial biography, ‘The Pilgrimage of Art’ in 1998. A  folio of six select crayon portraits was exquisitely designed and published by Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi in 2004 on the eve of his exhibition at Teen Murti Bhavan. A book on philately, ‘150 Years of Indian Postage Stamps & Its History (1854- 2004)’ was published in English and Gujarati in 2008. It not only covered the history but also photos of all the stamps released so far including by the princely states, clicked from his own collection with all the technical details. Finally, his dream project of a coffee table book on 100 crayon portraits of Mahatma Gandhi with tributes in their own hand writings by 100 different personalities got published in 2013 as ‘100 Tributes’ by Navjivan Publications. Its an exquisitely designed volume with a sketch on right hand side page and the tribute printed on the left hand side page in three languages of English, Hindi and Gujarati, and possibly fourth also if written in any other language. Its a collector’s item and within six months, it had to go for reprinting another one thousand copies.

100 Tributes to Mahatma Gandhi

It was in 1959 that he drew first of the 125 pencil portraits of Mahatma Gandhi starting with Madhu Limye.

Ramesh Thaakar’s huge collection crayon portraits was conspicuous by the absence of one portrait of, none other than the Father of our Nation, Mahatma Gandhi. Since he had passed away eight months before he started drawing, his autographed sketch was obviously, not possible. Sometime in mid August of 1959, an idea struck to him, as to why should he not draw a crayon portrait of Mahatma Gandhi from one of his photographs, and get a small tribute to him from one of his close associates or his contemporaries on the portrait itself. He thought it was a wonderful idea to have a combination of art and tribute which over a period of time would create a variety of portraits as well as varied tributes by personalities from different walks of life. Soon he drew nearly a dozen different types of portraits and on 30th  August, 1959 when well-known freedom-fighter and Socialist leader Madhu Limaye came to Rajkot, he was requested to pen a tribute and he wrote an impressive piece under Mahatma's drawing with great appreciation. Soon this concept took roots and in next 50 years, Ramesh Thaakar created a unique collection of more than hundred such portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, each one in a different pose with hand-written tributes from different personalities from varied fields. Its a rare collection which has come out in a coffee table book in 2013.

Exhibitions

In 1949, 18 year old Ramesh Thaakar participated in post and telegraph staff Diwali Udyog Kala exhibition with all the 30 autographed life sketches created so far.  

In 1956, he participated in Rajkot Law College art’s and literature exhibition.

In 1961, he participated in All India Police Arts Exhibition at Ootacamund where he won the 2nd prize and a certificate for his pencil portrait of Jawahar Lal Nehru. But as the picture was damaged, he returned the prize in protest.

In 1965, he held the first ever one-man-show exhibition of Saurashtra at Rajkunwar Baa Lady’s Club and pioneered the system of holding such solo exhibitions.

In 1967, he held a one-man-show exhibition for one week at the Watson museum gallery in Rajkot.

In 1969, on the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth centenary, he held a one-man-show exhibition of drawings and photographs at the birthplace of Gandhiji, Kirti Mandir in Porbandar.

In 1974, he held a one-man-show exhibition in Mumbai organized by Jaycee, Junior Chamber of Commerce, Borivali.  

In 1992, a major one-man-show exhibition was organized at Gandhi smriti, formerly the Birla Bhawan in New Delhi,  from 2nd October to 9th October.

In 1998, he put up a one-man show at the Tagore Hall of Ahmedabad.

In 2000, he put up a one-man show on the occasion of inauguration of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Art Gallery in Rajkot. Along with the exhibition, an oil painting of Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee as well as a photo of his sketch drawn by Ramesh Thaakar as his maiden sketch in 1948, were unveiled.

In 2004, an exhibition of crayon sketches was organised by the Nehru Memorial  Museum & Library at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi from 14th November to 4th December 2004 which was witnessed by the President of India Dr. Abdul Kalam, former Prime Minister V.P. Singh, Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh, I & B and Culture Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, Karan Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, M.S. Swaminathan, President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn, AOC-in-C of Western Air Command Air Marshal S.P. Tyagi, AOA Air Marshal HS Garkal,  and other dignitaries as well as common citizens and students.

Recognition

In 1988, famous saint and speaker Morari bapu unveiled the portrait of Arvind Maniar and felicitated Ramesh Thaakar. In the same year, he was felicitated by former Chief Minister of Gujarat, Ratu Bhai Adani, for the two life sized paintings of Darbar Gopal Das and Bhakti Baa.

In 1990, Ramesh Thaakar was felicitated by Shri Mahipal Singh Shastri, the Governor of Gujarat, with a citation and a shawl for the excellent oil paintings created of the first Chief Minister and speaker of Saurashtra.  

On 19th August 1993, the world photography day Ramesh Thaakar inaugurated a photography exhibition at the Indian Medical Association Hall of Bareilly (UP) organized by Bareilly videographers and photographers welfare association. He also delivered an interesting talk covering the history of photography after which  he was honoured with a shawl and a memento by the District Magistrate of Bareilly, Mr. Deepak Singhal.

2000 – Governor of Gujarat felicitated at Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Art Gallery of Rajkot Municipal Corporation.

2004 – Felicitated at Nehru memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi by S. Jaipal Reddy

2013 – Jyoti CNC - 8 Best All Time Creative Personalities of Saurashtra

2005 & 2006 – Nominated for Padma Shri by Ministry of Culture

References

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