when uday talwalkar frowns barack obama starts to smile it is a toothless grin at first just lips and eyes then as if possessed talwalkar furrows his brow severely and makes a series of obsolete sounds with his index finger till the us presidents pearly whites appear lips develop contours and face gains that trademark cheery expression talwalkar relaxes his brow and returns obamas smile the most challenging part of his portrait is over the mouth is the trickiest bit even if i miss a single dash or dot the expression can change says the 54yearold seated behind his grey manual typewriter talwalkar a dongripada resident is one of barely seven to eight typewriter portrait artists in the world for over 23 years this humble secretary has been hitting the keys of his godrej typewriter furiously until they yielded a famous face the first face belonged to smita patil in 1989 when talwalkar was a stenographer at mtnl with a typing speed of 50 words per minute he chanced upon an interview of a typewriter portrait artist on tv i had no training in fine art but liked the idea of drawing with a typewriter says talwalkar who decided to trace out a magazine photo of late actress smita patil on a piece of paper with a pencil he later made a fair copy by typing over the outline filling out her neck scarf and eyes with a series of letters soon this stenographer began seeing english letters and punctuation as atoms of celebrities he filled out bal thackerays pores with the letter k sachins bushy hairdo with m and ramdev babas beard with n all of them in small case the equalto sign multiplied to form warts moles and eyebrows so far his typewriter has yielded 35 portraits of celebs some of whom stare from the living room walls in the form of a smiling sachin a pensive asha size sheets they bear different parts of lata mangeshkars anatomy that together form a giant portrait which saw him enter various record books i made it during my posting in russia says the secretary of the managing director at mazgaon dockyard ltd referring to the portrait that took him over five years today each portrait takes seven to eight hours but not necessarily at a stretch i go into a sort of trance says talwalker adding that his hobby demands an almost meditative focus from him while he doesnt trace out anymore he divides each original celeb photo into a series of squares and later imitates each grid on a blank page before inserting it into the typewriter i cant erase mistakes says talwalkar who has used a blade on occasion but as a rule simply abandons the portrait in case he isnt happy with the result i wasnt happy with aishwarya rais expression in one portrait so i left it says talwalkar while other artists twist the direction of the paper this secretary merely rolls up the paper