Kozhikode: He has mostly portrayed smiling faces. It was the same smile that bloomed on renowned director Richard Attenborough’s face, when having grown tired of searching for someone to design the poster of ‘Gandhi,’ ultimately chanced upon P Saratchandrans’ paintings.
The greatest disaster that can befall an artist is to lose the function of his skilled hand. Subsequently, he went on to complete more than 300 paintings that challenge the verisimilitude of photographs. In time, he also lost the sight in his right eye. Now, a leg had to be amputated. Despite all these tribulations, paintings blossom from the fingertips of the 78-year-old ensconced in his Eranhipalam abode, aptly named ‘Muskaan,’ {smile}.
For more than 35 years he plied his vocation of designing in what used to be Bombay. The Thalasserry-native, a wizard at creating cigarette covers, has designed more than 20,000 of those. The ravages of diabetes withered his arm, which was corrected through surgery.
He continued to fashion designs for an advertising agency. In 2002, returned to settle in Kozhikode. Apart from conjuring 300 odd paintings, he also conducted upwards of 15 exhibitions, including in fellow Thalasserian and friend Basheer Badayakkandy’s ‘Gudhaam Art Café.’ A few months back a leg had to be removed after seven surgeries because of infection caused by a shard of glass. For five months he was in a critical state in a hospital.
It was in 1982, while working for Golden Tobacco Co., that their in-house agency, Source, landed the contract to design the poster of ‘Gandhi.’ Since everybody liked the poster featuring Mahatmaji and the scene of the Jalianwallah Bagh massacre, Saratchandran designed three more. Subsequently, started his own advertising agency, called Orbit; which gave up in favour of freelance work.
The son of Panjikkal Padmanabhan, post-and-telegraph-master in Kozhikode Head Post Office, and Padmavati, lost his father at the age of two months. From the lap of plenty the mother-son duo tumbled into penury. They found shelter in a relative's home in Thalassery. It was a time of abject want. Enraptured by painting, he joined Kerala School of Arts, run by C V Balan Nair, who became Saratchandran’s guru.
He believes that what steered him through those turbulent times were fortitude and the grace of the Muthappan deity in Parassinikkadavu. That is the reason why, after amputating his leg, he offered three paintings of the deity to Madappura, which was received by Hemanth Lakshman and Devanand on behalf of the family managing the affairs of the temple. Vimala, his wife, was the private secretary of ‘Metroman’ E Sreedharan. For the past decade she has been suffering from Alzheimer’s. Only son, Aditya, is in Mauritius.
