Story on Sarvesh Kedia

Sarvesh Kedia

On December 10, 2017, a congregation on the open grounds of Mumbai's K J Somaya college saw 33-year-old Sarvesh Kedia crying loudly. In his hand was a "reverse sketch" of the Dalai Lama that he had made by colouring the entire background of the A-4 sheet black and then etching the benign features of the spiritual leader with an eraser. Gleaming in black ink across this charcoal portrait, was a fresh signature from the man himself. 

The Dalai Lama, who was in Mumbai to address a congregation then, had just entered the venue after having stunned Kedia by stopping, smiling at the portrait in his hand and asking him for a pen to autograph it. For Kedia--who runs a sports company and practices Buddhist chanting and sketching to relieve stress--the unexpected signature served as attestation of a long-held belief: "If it is written in your destiny, it will happen."

Over the years, that belief has only intensified further as Kedia has gone on to collect over 300 autographs of prominent figures spanning the gamut from  Air Force Marshall Arjan Singh to sprinter Milkha Singh. It all started with the film 'Fitoor' in which actor Aditya Kapoor plays an artist. After watching the film, Kedia had launched into a passionate discourse on the intricacies of sketching which made his wife--who was then his girlfriend--wonder how Kedia knew so much about art. When he confessed that his childhood love of the art could not be turned into a profession, she asked him to prove it. 

To "impress" her, he went back to his pencil and allowed muscle memory to kick in. On seeing the portrait of Katrina Kaif and Aditya Kapoor that he showed her, she encouraged him to indulge his "inborn" talent, leading to a bevy of daily sketching bouts that populated his house with the faces of everyone from Don Bradman to Dhanraj Pillai. Soon, his wife would nickname him 'Sketch Maestro', unintentionally supplying the handle of his popular Instagram page--a largely black-and-white hall of fame of well-known faces.

The first celebrity Kedia ever presented a portrait to was West Indian cricket legend Vivian Richards. A facebook friend named Amarjeet, an ardent autograph hunter, had suggested asking the celebrity for a signature since he was meeting him in Mumbai but Kedia was raw and alien to the sophisticated ways of autograph seeking then. "I didn't even know which pen to use or how many pictures to carry," says Kedia, recalling the meeting's highlights: a warm hug, good-natured jokes and two autographs. Today, the 36-year-old makes it a point to always carry two Sharpie pens and a few cards, a ready arsenal for unexpected encounters with celebs such as at the airport. 

Kedia also ensures that he dresses for the part. Once, egged on by his wife, Kedia turned up in a hoodie for a meeting with actor Ranveer Singh at a radio station where the actor had been promoting his movie on Mumbai's street rappers, 'Gully Boy'. A string of events had built up to that moment: a radio interview with Singh's RJ friend, a portrait of Singh's Alauddin Khilji avatar from 'Padmavat' that had taken Kedia 16 hours to make and a social media post showing Singh's Gully Boy face, with the words: "Tumhara time aa gaya, mera time kab aayega?" 

"Tera time aa gaya," said a message one fine morning and soon, he was staring at Singh and Alia Bhatt. On seeing a hoodie-sporting Kedia, armed with the two portraits, Singh jumped in his characteristic childlike manner, asked "Yeh tune banaya?", engulfed him with a tight hug and took both the sketches home. Days later, the sports company co-founder would bump into Singh at an event but would keep his professional distance. "One should know where to draw the line," says the passionate portrait artist, who has seen autograph hunters blindside celebs on various occasions. 

For 36-year-old Kedia, who has had tea with former president Pratibha Patil and who once spent Rs 30000 to fly to Delhi following an impromptu call for a meeting with the late former president Pranab Mukherjee, sketching is about "emotions". Months before Amitabh Bachchan's 75th birthday, Kedia would not only watch the film 'Anand' 15 times but also break down often while making the portrait, overcome by thoughts of the film's moving climax. Kedia would even ask his wife to sit with him and choose the best options from thousands of the Big B's pictures online. 

From these mental and physical snapshots, he would piece together a commemorative collage portrait that would also contain all Big B's movie titles--an elaborate endeavour whose video would make Shweta Bachchan appreciate him on Instagram. Soon, fate connected him with an insider and the next thing he knew, Kedia was sitting in the front row of a Kaun Banega Crorepati set, staring at the man with the famous white French beard. One of the portraits that he presented, came back from the green room, emblazoned with the actor's autograph. "That's when I first realised one could meet people through sketching," says Kedia.  

However, Kedia doesn't always sketch to meet people. For instance, he drew Shashi Kapoor after the actor's death and a portrait of Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh from 'Khel Khel mein' sits without an autograph in his house. "Chintuji passed away before I could gift it to him," says Kedia, who has been unlucky several times. "Narendra Modi, Pele, Malala, Obama and MSD," he says, rattling off the names of all the celebrities whose signatures elude him.

While his portraits have a life-like realness to them, there have been times when celebs have pointed out flaws to Kedia--who uses his thumbs and fingers for sketching. "Aankh barabar nahin hai. Aankh theek karke aao," Ustad Amjad Ali Khan would tell Kedia at the launch of his book 'Master on Masters'. When asked what exactly was wrong, the Sarod maestro apparently said: "How will I tell you what's wrong? My wife is sitting there. Go ask her." Later, Kedia rectified the error in another sketch which pleased the eye of the beholders including the maestro's sons Amaan and Ayaan. "I like to learn," says Kedia.

As someone who works with Olympians, those "forgotten heroes" who don't get their dues but are deluged with requests for autographs from India and abroad, he wishes India had a system in place for autographs that protected them from forgery and other malpractices. "Many do not like to sign autographs for fear of misuse," says Kedia, whose collection comprises a hard-won signature from Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho. 

On hearing that the footballer was about to visit India for an event, Kedia used Google Translator to message Ronaldinho's brother on Instagram in Portuguese. His persistence paid off in the form of a signature from the legend on his portrait. "I was told he does not sign anything he does not like," recalls Kedia.

One of his proudest portraits, though, is the first visual that greets you when the door to the late Olympic hockey legend Balbir Singh Senior's Chandigarh home opens. Kedia, who fondly referred to the player as 'Nanaji', had gifted it to him when he met him as a fan in 2019. The last time they met, the veteran had sent Kedia off with a blessing: "Tumhara bachcha Olympian bane". 

Today, Kedia looks at his collection as an heirloom, something he can pass on to his two-year-old son, Shivaan, whose name, too, is an homage to a celebrity. "His name was inspired by India's only six-time winter Olympic champion, Shiva Keshavan," signs off Kedia.