Doodle dynamo

BENGALURU: There has been incessant chirping from the people agog over the betrothal of singer- actor Shruti Haasan and her beau doodle artist and rapper Santanu Hazarika, but Hazarika handily says they are in a good space now. “We are together as partners, and have been open about it. There are artistic collaborations between us every day. We are two creative people who have found our own corners,” says the artist, who has been dating Haasan since 2020. He was in the city recently for a Royal Enfield event where he customised their helmets live, and released five hand-painted helmets.

Apart from ensuring safety in style, Hazarika, who hails from Assam, is also a multidisciplinary autodidact visual artist based in Mumbai. His choices are idiosyncratic when he dropped out of his engineering studies to become the first-ever Redbull World Doodle Art Champion in 2014. “The trade-off has paid off well. It’s quite challenging, and at the same time, satisfying for me. It’s full of surprises and struggles as well. Right now, I am my own boss. I am starting my own movement, creating my own crowd who appreciates my artwork.

If I were an engineer, I don’t think these possibilities could be explored. However, I was never into engineering but more inclined towards art and design,” says Hazarika, adding that he is happy with the prevailing situation in his career. In a span of just a few years, his base of clients have grown manifold which include Red Bull International, Adidas, Reebok, Harper’s, Dust of Gods, Ministry of Culture, Gully Gang, Azadi records, Ritviz, Nucleya, Major Lazer and hiphop artists Raftaar, and Divine, among many others. Hazarika, who has emerged from a creative field, and founded the Gauhati Art Project which is an art collective, says his work feels like any other profession.

“It is a creative business and has a structure. Just because I am a visual artist does not mean that this profession does not entail those things which are required in other fields. Managing a client, setting up an office, working, finding new inspiration, learning new skills, marketing your own product, planning your collaborations and projects much ahead – all these are part of any field in any industry,” he explains. He reveals that his grandmother would regale him with stories from the Mahabharata from which he derives a lot of inspiration from, apart from the comic books that he had read during his growing up years. Hazarika feels there is huge scope for the doodle artist in India, but each story and each struggle is different, and having some pat ience in the field is important.