Tax official wins hearts with caricatures at IITF

New Delhi: An unusually long queue of middle aged people and teenagers greets visitors at the Income-Tax department’s pavilion at the IITF in Pragati Maidan. They are not tax payers wanting to file tax returns but art lovers who want to get their free live caricatures made by a deputy commissioner of income tax.

“The common people feel special to be subjects of an art work and that is most satisfying,” said Sajjive Balakrishnan, 54, an I-T deputy commissioner from Kochi, as a finishes each caricature in less than three minutes.

Mr Balakrishnan, a sought after man at the exhibition’s Hall 12, has little time to breathe easy. “I have been doing about 70-100 caricatures a day,” said Mr Balakrishnan, who has made over 1.5 lakh caricatures in the past 40 years.

Devansh, a class 8 student, is happy to get his caricature done from Mr Balakrishnan. “I will get it framed and place it in my room,” said a student of Birla Vidya Nikethsn school in south Delhi.

 Mr Balakrishnan, who is the deputy chairman of Kerala Cartoon Academy, said the people find it difficult to believe that he is a tax official. “The common perception about a tax official is someone who conducts scrutiny and asks tough questions. A taxman as an artist is a surprise for them,” he said.

Art and creativity seem to run in his family. “My wife is an awarded singer and radio artist and my son is a musical key board player,” said Mr Balakrishnan, who himself started making caricatures at the age of 15.

He said he regularly contributes to I-T department’s in house magazines and conducts workshop for IAS trainees at an academy in Uttarakhand’s Mussoorie.