Tombi Singh

With this innate ability, Shri Thoidingjam Tombi Singh was born in 1936 and exhibited all the symptoms as he grew older. He actually began drawing very early in his academic career, when he was still a day student at Imphal's Elangbam Leikai Lower Primary School. He was a precocious lad who was prone to extended stretches of stillness and appeared to be lost in thought as a child; in other words, he grew up to be a serious boy. Even now, he is extremely mild-mannered, the exact opposite of outspokenness; all of his ill will, rage, and regret are repressed in a secret area of his heart. His paintings exhibit this capacity of taming the passions. As a result, his work generally exudes a subtlety and muted expressiveness that have come to represent him as a painter. Regarding Tombi's characteristics as an artist, it has been stated that when he was a little child, he was constantly preoccupied with drawing pencil sketches of the natural surroundings. His late father Thoidingjam Amuba Singh worked as an assistant teacher at the renowned Johnstone High English School in Imphal at the time. He was also well-respected for his abilities as a teacher. He was by nature a devout Manipuri Vaishnavite who practised stringent discipline. As a result, he had previously translated Dharma Tatva, a well-known book on Hinduism by Bankimchandra Chattopadhya. Additionally, it is reported that Tombi's grandfather played the conch during religious rites and was a carpenter.

Th. Tombi Singh is the only member of the five brothers and three sisters who is committed to the arts; his three brothers are police officials. The person older than him is both a writer and an advocate for education. Of course, his father preferred that he be more sincere in his general education. He didn't interfere too much with his son's passion in painting, though.

In the process of creating artists, some extraordinary events frequently occur that provide the uncommon sparks necessary for creative expression. Th. Tombi Singh too experienced one of these unforgettable childhood events that ultimately influenced his career in the arts. Back then, religious and mythical figures were frequently depicted in paintings that adorned mandapas. With the paintings of the famous artist Ningthoujam Bhadra Singh (1861–1927), this tradition gained prominence. He was one of Manipur's first realist painters to work with both poster and oil paints. Th. Tombi now had the chance to watch a live painting performance by Shri Mangsidam Kalachand Singh, who also happened to be a brilliant pupil of Bhadra Singh (1893–1954). Thangjam Bon had a mandapa there, and it was very close to his residence. His little heart was fascinated by seeing the great painter's brushstrokes up close. In his mind's eye, the sight is immutable. After then, he never missed a chance to witness similar events.

Sincerity draws like-minded individuals. Khumukcham Joykumar Sing, a native of Thangjam Bon who was roughly four years older than the child Tombi, observed the young Tombi's attention. He had the foresight to introduce Th. Tombi to H Shyamo Sharma (1917–1979), a prominent artist and the principal of the acclaimed Imphal Art School, which he founded in 1949. This school has a strong connection to the development of the fine arts in Manipur. The state's modern arts movement was founded by its students. The founding principal of this school, with his romantic undertones and expressionistic felicity, is without a doubt the father of modern art in Manipur.He reinforced Manipur's artistic base. He holds a unique position as the father of modern art in the present era. Th. Tombi Singh's adi master is the famous artist H. Shyamo Sharma. Many years later, Th. Tombi wrote H. Shyamo Sharma: A Monograph, which is obviously a true tribute to his great instructor. In 1992, he also started teaching at this institution himself. The institution has since been promoted to The Imphal Art College, which is officially associated with Manipur University, Canchipur.

Th. Tombi Singh had glad confusion and exhilaration when meeting H. Shyamo Sharma for the first time.His older brother Kh. Joykumar Singh told him about the amazing tutor who inspired him to learn to paint. H. Shyamo Sharma, on the other hand, was secretly overjoyed to get a bright young person. Th. Tombi was subsequently admitted to the school with the stipulation that he could study painting there only on Saturdays and Sundays and attend lessons the other days at the L.P. School. His father had also given his approval to this arrangement. He had only turned fourteen at the time. In those days, Shri Khongbantabam Ibetombi Singh, a retired session judge from Uripok, Imphal, served as the home base for the Imphal Art School.

Th. Tombi talks nostalgically about his earlier years in the art school. In the entire school, there were three to four classes with seven to eight kids apiece. They were told to do study of both human figures and natural items. It was a four-year diploma programme.

It's possible that the sensitive feelings Shyamo Sharma felt for Th. Tombi were brought on by the latent ability he discovered in the young pupil. Tombi carefully followed the principal's instructions when he gave his favourite pupil a sketchbook with roughly sixty leaves and ordered him to draw scenes of forests, animals, clouds, and people.
The works pleased H. Shyamo very much and he said to other students in the class – “Look, you who attend regularly can’t draw as satisfactorily as Tombi does. He attends the class twice a week only.” This was Tombi's first ever praise and blessing from a professor like H. Shyamo Sharma. While he was studying painting at M.S. University of Baroda between 1975 and 1977, his revered professor and renowned artist Prof. K.G. Subramanyan bestowed upon him the following blessing and complement of such significance. From early in the morning until midday, the kids were instructed to paint and draw at their own pace. Later, Prof. Subramanyan made an important observation. He mostly kept his mouth shut. Following that, other pupils gathered in Th. Tombi's studio and asked him to review their individual sketches and paintings. Since he was not the teacher, hearing such bizarre requests gave him the shock of his life. On seeing his discomfiture they said, “Subramanyan Sir had asked us to show our works particularly.” At that moment, the thought of his guru's blessings energised him from head to toe. The artist's companion is a sketch or drawing book. It is necessary to capture the artist's present-moment attitude, feeling, and impressions before they vanish into oblivion. The initial, unplanned stroke of a sketch is a distinct entity from a piece of art that has been painstakingly created in an academic manner. The drawing books' emotions are then recreated on the canvas. Around the world, notable artists' drawings and sketches had been published, including Picasso's. Th. Tombi began keeping sketchbooks in 1950, and as of today, there are roughly twenty of them, each with at least sixty pages and containing about three hundred sketches. Let the sketches one day appear on canvas.

Th. Tombi received competent instruction from H. Shyamo Sharma throughout his four years of study at the Imphal Art School. Villagers Repairing a Damaged Barrage, Landscape, and The Moon Rising are a few notable examples of the period's artwork; they are all clearly realistic paintings. In his last year, he created a painting called Shamu Khongyetpa based on the Manipurian Khamba-Thoibi mythology. This picture has been a feature of Thangjam Madhumangol Singh's mandapa at Keishamp in Imphal for many years. However, it has since vanished. Th. Tombi's mentor H. Shyamo Sharma had a big impact on him in the beginning.