On an Indian railway platform, life rarely pauses. Trains arrive late, chai is poured endlessly, strangers become temporary companions, and stories quietly unfold in the gaps between departures. For artist Bijay Biswaal, these in-between moments are not fleeting, they are the very substance of his art.
Early Life and First Encounters with Art
Born in a small village in Odisha, Biswaal’s journey as an artist began long before galleries, exhibitions, or international recognition entered the picture. In a place where “art culture” was almost non-existent, creativity had to invent its own tools. As a child, he drew on the mud floors of his home using charcoal taken straight from his mother’s chulha. Cardboard boxes from his father’s medicine shop became canvases. With no access to art supplies or formal training, Biswaal learned instinctively, drawing wherever he could, with whatever he had.
“I was always drawing,” he recalls. “On the sand, on dusty cars, on the floor, on paper, it didn’t matter.” Even as a schoolboy, drawing class was his refuge; he often finished not only his own work but his classmates’ drawings too. Long before he had the language to define it, he knew art was not a hobby for him, it was an impulse, almost a way of being.
Despite this lifelong pull towards art, Bijay Biswaal did not immediately become a full-time artist. He worked for the Indian Railways, a demanding public-facing job that required long hours, night shifts, and emotional resilience. Yet, even in this structured, often exhausting routine, art never left him. If anything, it followed him more insistently. After long shifts, he would return home and paint late into the night, unable to leave a canvas half-finished. During phone calls, he sketched absentmindedly. Painting was not something he “made time for” — it was something that occupied his mind continuously.
Bijay Biswaal and his Style of Art
Interestingly, Biswaal never experienced what many artists describe as creative block. “If I’m not painting, I’m sketching. If I’m not sketching, I’m observing,” he says. The world around him: people, spaces, journeys, constantly offered material. The only frustration he recalls was during periods when family responsibilities limited his time at the easel, not because ideas had dried up.
Over time, Biswaal began to define himself as a realistic, representational artist, someone who paints what he sees but infuses it with quiet narratives. Markets, villages, railway stations, platforms wet with rain, travellers waiting with tired patience, these scenes recur in his work, not as spectacle but as lived experience. His background as a railway employee offered him a unique vantage point: he was not a distant observer romanticising travel but someone deeply embedded in its rhythms.
The Railway Platform as a Turning Point
The turning point came almost by accident. Around 2010–11, while waiting for a delayed train at a rain-soaked platform, Bijay Biswaal noticed a lone woman sitting on the platform as puddles reflected lights like liquid mirrors. With hours to spare, he painted the scene in watercolour right there. Later, he recreated it on a larger canvas in his studio. When this painting was displayed at the India Art Festival in Mumbai, it drew immediate attention and sold.
That moment brought a realisation: his everyday surroundings, especially the railways, were not merely backdrops to his life, they were his artistic language. From then on, Biswaal consciously began painting railway-centric scenes. The response was overwhelming. His works travelled widely on social media, resonating with people who recognised themselves in these familiar yet tender portrayals of Indian travel — a mother and daughter sharing luggage, tea vendors and passengers from different faiths sharing space, strangers coexisting briefly before moving on.
Biswaal often describes railway compartments as “a miniature India.” They are spaces where religion, class, region, and language temporarily dissolve into shared experience. This sense of fleeting community became central to his work, a quiet celebration of everyday coexistence.
Recognition followed, including international exhibitions and awards. But one moment stood apart: in 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned Bijay Biswaal on Mann Ki Baat, acknowledging him as a railway employee who painted India’s railways with dedication. “It was my Oscar moment,” Biswaal admits. The validation strengthened a decision he had been contemplating for years. With the support of his wife, he opted for voluntary retirement and embraced life as a full-time artist.
Life as a Full-Time Artist
Today, Biswaal travels extensively across India from Varanasi to Konark, from small villages in Odisha to bustling cities, painting on location whenever possible. He believes that being physically present matters. “You can find a thousand images online,” he says, “but you cannot feel the place unless you are there.” For him, on-location watercolour painting is about capturing the soul of a place, while larger mythological or cultural narratives, drawn from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and Indian temple architecture, take shape later in the studio.
There is also a spiritual dimension to his practice, though he resists defining it too rigidly. When painting, he forgets everything else, worries, noise, time. “I am completely present,” he says. “That calm, that absorption — maybe that is spirituality.”
Despite his openness to observing different art forms, Biswaal remains committed to realism. Abstract art interests him intellectually, but realism, for him, carries a human touch — imperfections, texture, personality. “A painting should look like a painting,” he insists. “You should recognise the artist without reading the signature.”
Bijay Biswaal’s Advice for Emerging Artists
As someone who has built a sustainable career in art — something still considered unconventional in India, Biswaal is acutely aware of the struggles young artists face. His advice, though simple, is firm: work on your skill relentlessly. Avoid shortcuts, resist the urge for instant fame, and respect the discipline of drawing and observation. “Every sincere artwork has a buyer,” he believes, “but sincerity takes time.”
In the end, Bijay Biswaal’s story is not just about art, it is about patience and persistence Between platforms and puddles, He reminds us that sometimes success comes not from chasing the extraordinary, but from truly seeing the ordinary.
