Arun Kolatkar - Life

Life

Kolatkar was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, where his father Tatya Kolatkar was an officer in the Education department. He lived in a traditional patriarchal Hindu extended family, along with his uncle's family. He has described their nine-room house as "a house of cards. Five in a row on the ground, topped by three on the first, and one on the second floor.". The floors had to be "plastered with cowdung every week".

He attended Rajaram High School in Kolhapur, where Marathi was the medium of instruction. After graduation in 1949, much against his father's wishes, he joined the s b college of arts gulbarga of art, where his childhood friend Baburao Sadwelkar was enrolled. His college years saw a "mysterious phase of drifting and formal as well as spiritual education", and he graduated in 1957.

In 1953, he married Darshan Chhabda (sister of well-known painter Bal Chhabda). The marriage was opposed by both families, partly because Kolatkar was yet to sell any of his paintings.

His early years in Mumbai were poor but eventful, especially his life as an upcoming artist, in the Rampart Row neighborhood, where the Artists' Aid Fund Centre was located. Around this time, he also translated Tukaram into English. This period of struggle and transition has been captured in his Marathi poem ‘The Turnaround’:

Bombay made me a beggar.

Kalyan gave me a lump of jaggery to suck.

In a small village that had a waterfall

but no name

my blanket found a buyer

and I feasted on plain ordinary water.

I arrived in Nasik with

peepul leaves between my teeth.

There I sold my Tukaram

to buy some bread and mince. (translation by Kolatkar)

After many years of struggle, he started work as an art director and graphic designer in several advertising agencies like Lintas. By mid-60s he was established as a graphic artist, and joined Mass Communication and Marketing, an eclectic group of creatives headed by the legendary advertiser Kersy Katrak. It was Katrak, himself a poet, who pushed Kolatkar into bringing out Jejuri. Kolatkar was, in advertising jargon, a ‘visualizer’; and soon became one of Mumbai’s most successful art directors. He won the prestigious CAG award for advertising six times, and was admitted to the CAG Hall of Fame.

By 1966, his marriage with Darshan was in trouble, and Kolatkar developed a drinking problem. This went down after the marriage was dissolved by mutual agreement and he married his second wife, Soonu.