Portrait of the man who creates faces

 (Balgandharva)

He does magic with his fingers, and creates faces of characters that we love! Fingers are but a tool, real magic is in the mind that directs those hands. He has the most intimate relation to the people whose faces he makes, that of the touch. The sensual pleasure  in making of the face gets intuitively transferred to the character and thus we the adore the actors that play parts. The hands that create the face never have a face in our minds, the magician vanishes as the magic is done. He is the make up designer who creates the world of beauties and uglies, of heroes and monsters and of pure wonderment. He is the make up man Vikram Gaikwad.

(Movie Sardar)

I recently had the great pleasure of listening to this fantastic artist on the occasion of the memorial of Make-up artist Narayan Dehspande in Nashik. It is hardly ever that we come face to face with the artists that work behind the camera, and Vikram was a surprise to even greater good. His dialogue began with acknowledging makeup as a fine art and how the make-up person is the most intimate relation of the actor and went to the higher realm of understanding make-up. Vikram learnt his art under his guru whom he calls 'Baba' and began his career at the young age of six, in Pune when the city was opulent with classic dramas flourishing in all genres. He did make up for actors who meditated their roles and performed not as themselves but the characters. With a dramatic entry in bollywood with Shyam Benegal's film on life of Sardar Patel , Vikram never looked back. As down to earth as one could be, his story of how he landed up designing Sardar Patel for this film is interesting. Every now and then while in Pune, he did make-up for the annual stand-up dramas in smaller towns. One of the actors from these plays (with stub of a nose) got himself done as Abdul Gafar Khan from Vikram and went to Benegal's office with his photograph. Whether the actor became Gafar or not, Vikram was summoned on urgent basis to make the nose of Sardar which was just not right till he arrived!

(Sanajy Dutt's various make ups in Sanju)

From them began his glorious journey into Bollywood as he has never looked back. He has done wonders with numerous films and has been pivotal in the success, majorly because he does not just colour the faces but designs them. He thus works only after reading the scripts of the films  and has done work that is nothing but optimum. Vikram made the nose of Sardar in wax much before the art of prosthetic had come to India and humbly says that even after all his work, he has done only 20 percent of what his 'guru' did. With wide range of reading, deep understanding of human psyche and different philosophies of the world, Vikram believes that make up reflects he characters of the make-up artist and there should always be a check on how much one should interfere in god's creations.

Jaatishwar, Bengali 

                                                         ( Moner Manush, Bengali)

Listening to this magician is as good as looking at his designed faces. He has a knack to oration, being part of the Film Institute of Pune and has acted his part in an award winning role. With verses of poems and dialogues of plays on his lips he mesmerises with his understanding of art as well as humanity. He observes that we as mammals resemble animals; and animals too each look different. The cows and crows would think we all humans look alike, he quips.  With reminiscences of working with actors and directors, his conversations enthrals all as we unfortunately come to the end. Here I must narrate one incident which is funny but a great reward to this ace artist. For a advertisement, when the agency could not make a Chimpanzee act, they summoned Vikram who then designed a small man as a Chimpanzee. The ad was banned right away after it was aired by the animal activists as harassment to the wild beast. Vikram and the company had to got through immense pain to prove that the chimpanzee in the video was not a chimp! What could be a better appreciation of his art!!

 (Osama in Tere Bin Laden)

 (Gandhi, in The Making of Mahatma)

Although there is no end to the work of this portraitist, I would end with his remarkable work, the magnanimous Marathi drama, Janata Raja, one of Vikram's pursuits. Not only has he done the makeup for the characters, but he has actually absorbed the ideals of Babasaheb Purandare's Shivaji. The interview thus rightly ended with Aurangzeb's conversation with his son, that Vikram narrated with all his zeal:

"Shivaji is a crook, he is our enemy and we have to destroy him. But he is a role model of a ruler. The men that he has created do not budge for any desires and offerings that we give. He is virtuous and rightful and fit to rule the kingdom. But you my son would never understand this, immersed in my royalties, wine and women."

                                                                     (Janata Raja)

An artist who understands the director, the writer, the actor and the character, what Vikram creates is sublime, he portrays the roles that the actors have played. He has taken the art of make-up to the transcendental realm where the spectator and the artist get the utmost aesthetic pleasure alike. I would certainly never be capable enough to draw a complete portrait of the man who creates faces!