Bhopal- A Maze of Art Colleges

Bhopal- I cannot look at this city without a smile on my lips. There are two reasons for it: one, my wife, Mrinal Kulkarni belongs to this city. I have come here with her several times, though I don’t know the geography of the city well. I am a son-in-law here and they take care of my visits. I just need to be here. Two, the people of Bhopal are very straight. They express their feelings without any reserve.

We reach Bhopal city around midnight. We had driven a few kilometres extra as we were not only misguided by the people but also by the deceptive road signs.

The streets are quite alive even at midnight. Somu stops the car in a junction and looks out for some ‘responsible’ people around. ‘Responsible’ is his catchword. He asks for directions only to the responsible people. And at times responsible people turn out to be absolutely irresponsible. They will send you thirty kilo meters away from your prescribed direction.

“How do you get to Habibganj Railway station?” I ask someone.

He looks at me and then he peeps into the car and exclaims, “Woh to bahut dur hai!” (It is really very far!)

I burst into laughter. “Man, we need to go there and we have a car. Distance is not a problem for us,” I tell him.

“Go straight and ask someone else,” without moving his eyelids he tells me. Yes, that is an answer.

Our car drags itself to the next person, who seems to be responsible. I repeat the question.

“Poochke Poochke seedha Jao (go straight and keep asking),” he says sincerely.

Soon we are in a wrong road. Someone tells us that there is no way to Habibganj Station. That is a bit too much. But he adds that we could take another road a few kilo meters behind and go to our destination. Then a young boy approaches us. He is an enthusiast. He directs us properly out of a maze of winding alleys. I know he must be moving around in this part of the city like a Romeo. He seems to know each and every small alley here. But he is also of no help.

Then another person offers us help. He asks us to follow his motorbike. We follow him. Then I have this thought: if he gets into his own thoughts and forgets that we are following him what would we do? But after ten minutes he stops his bike and waits for us to pull up to him.

“Take the left turn and from the first junction take right and go straight,” he smiles with his eyes through his face covering helmet. We thank him and Somu steps on the gas. Again we miss a road and we find ourselves in a narrow road. Couple of boys are winding up their business in a makeshift shop. We ask him for the direction.

“Aap kyon ithar aaye?” (Why did you come here?), one of them asks innocently.
“We lost our way. That is why we are here,” I tell him. I cannot but smile at his innocence. He does not mean any harm. He is expressing his desperation on our foolishness.

The boy gives us the right direction and we reach the hotel reception. Halim, a friend of Mrinal’s sister-in-law had already booked accommodation for us. The person who mans the reception counter exclaims, “I was told that you would reach here by 9.30.”

“Traffic,” I dismiss him with one word. Bhopal’s innocence has already started getting into my nerves.

The room is big enough to make us feel in a crowd. But we sleep without counting lambs. Sleep jumps over the fence and embraces us before the lambs do.

At six in the morning we three are up and at our computers. We take a few hours to finish our work and uploading. We hit the road by 11 am. Our destination is Nutan College, almost a two kilometres away from where we stay. In Nutan College, they have a Department of Fine Arts. It is an all women’s college.

We don’t find any men around. We park our car and walk in. There is a security guard at the gate. Interestingly, he does not ask us why we are entering in a women’s college. We walk into a world of girls. At the office we ask for the fine arts department. The guy looks at his computer, searches for the fine arts department and tells us that it is somewhere behind the college.

I could make out the bureaucratic set up that rules the college. And I have a premonition that it is going to be the same story of Madhava College in Ujjain. At the fine arts department Dr.Rashmi Joshi, the department head receives us.

“Beta, the progress of the department depends totally upon the interest of the teachers,” Dr.Joshi tells us. She does not look that old. She calls us ‘sons’. We feel some kind of embarrassment.

Nutan College is one of the oldest colleges in Bhopal. It has three courses in fine arts. BA, BVA and MA. Like many other colleges in Madhya Pradesh, here too painting is one of the optional subjects. BVA is a full time graduate course and is approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC). There are post graduate courses for painting and sculpture. The department is affiliated to the Barkhathulla University, MP. There are around seventy girls studying in this course.

The courses sound great. But we find no facilities around. The students are not allowed to go for sketching expedition as the city is not ‘safe for girl students’. There are two permanent teachers and three guest lecturers. They say that they try their level best to educate the students. But they know there are a lot of hurdles before them.

The first problem Dr.Joshi cites is the step-motherly attitude that the college authorities take towards the fine arts department. “They don’t understand the value of this course. With a lot of difficulty we got the UGC affiliation. But we don’t know when they would withdraw its support thanks to non-performance,” she says. The other department in connivance with the head of the institution put a lot of hurdles for the smooth functioning of the department.

Intra departmental rivalry is one of the reasons that mar the spirit of the students here. Though Dr.Joshi says that there is a good library in the department, we don’t find one. Then we go to the general library and the librarian, a grand old lady dismisses me (as I go into her office to ask for the fine arts section in the library) instantly. “Go and ask the department head,” she tells me. She does not forget to ask me from where I come to her office. I walk out suppressing my animal instinct to tear her into pieces.

Dr.Joshi proudly displays the sketchbooks of the BVA students. They are not up to the mark. Somu starts an impromptu demonstration on drawing. He asks the students to practice drawing as much as they can. They nod in approval.

Students from this college do go to other big universities to take admission for higher studies. Interestingly, there are girls here who have come to study in this college from outstations. Some of the MA students commute between two neighbouring cities as they cannot find hostel accommodation here.

The department has an overhead projector, lap top and model study facilities. But the teachers seem to lack direction. The pass out students from this department either become housewives or they become teachers. There are a few students who go out of the city to pursue higher studies. Some of them join the art groups in Bhopal and participate in shows. Many of them run private art tuition centres.

“We don’t have the facilities here. We need to depend on Bharat Bhavan Library for reference. But we cannot go there everyday,” the girls say in unison. They don’t know the names of the contemporary Indian artists. Their teachers also do not know them. Dr.Joshi admits that there is lack of information. They have internet facilities at college. But they don’t know how to look for new information on art.

Rani Laxmi Bai college, where we go in the afternoon too has similar problems. May be one can make a stencil of problems and place it on these colleges, it will fit in perfectly. “We cannot purchase books for our library as the official asks for commissions from the purchase,” says Dr.Rekha Srivastava, who teaches the Drawing and Painting course, BA and MA at the department of fine arts in Rani Laxmi Bhai College, Bhopal.

At every level the officials are there to make money. So the funds are either lapsed or siphoned out to other departments. Result is the poor state of the library. No information is passed to the students. They actually do not know such information exists. Rekha Srivastava says that she surfs internet for information and her complaint is that several galleries do not update their websites! We tell her that it is an old story and she must be looking at some defunct galleries, which she obviously does not want to accept.

RLB College is autonomous and is attached to the Barkhathullah University. But nobody seems to care. It offers MA in Drawing and Painting. Girls do MA and as usual they become housewives, art teachers or ‘group’ artists. They hang out around Bharat Bhavan and get frustrated. However, the department head Dr.Anjali Pande says that there are several girls from this department who have made their marks in the art scene. She tells me the names and I don’t recognize their names. May be that is my ignorance.

“We do a government job and it is transferable. So we don’t know what exactly would happen in each passing year,” says Dr.Pande. I have heard this several times during this trip.

There are several colleges like this in Bhopal including Gitanjali College, Hamidia College and so on. The case is similar everywhere. There seems to be no end to their problems. May be only when we ask whether there are any problems they realize they have problems. They have complaints on the big city galleries. All of them think that the big city galleries do not give any damn to these small town colleges. That is true. But to get any damn from them one should present the talents from these respective colleges, which at this moment seems very difficult. Otherwise, these students should go out to some other reputed institutions to prove their worth.

By evening we go to Bharat Bhavan, one of the prime institutions in Bhopal. I have been to this place several times before. The permanent exhibition here looks seriously ‘permanent’. None has taken the initiative to re-present the works. The famous works of Raza, Swaminathan, Sudhir Patwardhan, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Bhupen Khakar and so on are exhibited here. I see several works done on oil crumbling and cracking.

The sad state of the historical works by Sudhir Patwardhan pains me a lot. I think of writing him a mail. May be once I finish this trip, I would write to him about this.

After Bharat Bhavan, I take the charge of the car. Halim is with us. He directs us to the famous ‘bada talab’ (the big lake). We spend almost an hour there. Somu does some on the spot sketching. Feroze is on phone. Clutching at the fences I look at the lake and the yellow light falling on it from the setting sun.

Memories of home come to me.

Phadke Studio in Dhar

“If you are going to Dhar, you should visit Phadke Studio,” before leaving Indore couple of days back many friends had told us.

The name Phadke Studio at once evokes the feeling of Phalke Studio. Your imaginations run backwards, the digital colours of memory pixels fade into chemically washed sepia tones. You linger somewhere around Maharashtra and look for the studios that made silent movies. Then you remember the works of K.M.Madhusudhanan.

Dhar lies south-west to Indore. Located between Indore and Mandu, Dhar is a transit station and most of the people know where Phadke Studio is. Ruled by Dhar Maharajas, the place has a frozen nature of history.

Though it is still winter, days are really hot here. We reach Phadke Studio around afternoon and to our surprise we see three non-descript sheds, which resemble railway quarters, for the famous Phadke Studio. Somu parks the car under a lonely tree and we walk towards one of the gates.

“Hey there, have you come to visit Phadke Studio?” an old man in pyjama and banyan comes out one of the quarters and asks us. We nod in unison. “Give me a minute, I will join you there at the last shed,” he says and disappears into the house. In a minute he re-emerges in pants and shirt. He is a small man and he introduces himself as Krishna Dev, a retired official from Indian Railways. Now he takes care of the Phadke Studio and doubles himself up as a curator and guide. He leads us to the last shed.

Krishna Dev, painstakingly opens the old doors and the panels opens with a creaking noise. Till then we are bit impatient as we don’t know what is there inside. We don’t have any clue about the things that we are going to visit.

Inside the shed there is a veranda kind of room. It leads into a main hall, which is approximately fifteen feet wide and thirty feet long. We look around and we take a few minutes understand what is in there.

If I look for a parallel of what I see, I would say all the displays ‘works of art’ together look like a Bomma Kolu, the kitsch sculptural ensemble done during the Diwali days in North and Pongal days in South. Here we see the portrait sculptures of recognizable and unrecognizable people. Some are larger than life size, some are life size and some are exaggerated and minimized busts; the kinds that you see in city squares and public places.

But they are different in a way. They don’t look like pure kitsch. Academically perfect, these sculptures have caught the personality of the model in a royal way. I see Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehur, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Ram Mohan Roy and all those recognizable figures from our national movement. There are portrait sculptures of Kings, queens, local chieftains and spiritual leaders.

“These are the plaster of paris copies of all what Phadke saab and his disciple had done,” Krishna Dev tells us.

Things become clear to us. This is one of the famous studios in Madhya Pradesh, which is famous for portrait sculptures.

The history of this studio goes like this: the Maharaja of Dhar was a patron of arts. He invited several artists to his kingdom during the first half of the twentieth century. He came across the name of Raghunath Krishna Phadke, who had received the fame as a great sculptor.

R.K.Phadke was an accomplished portrait sculptor. He had a studio in Vasai, Maharashtra. In 1933, one of his creative sculptures titled ‘Tatva Chintak’ had received the Golden Medal from the Bombay Art Exhibition. Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda had collected this work. Maharaja of Dhar wanted this reputed sculptor as his courtier and he sent the invitation to Phadke.

Meanwhile Phadke was mourning the death of his wife. He was lonely and was contemplating about relocating himself. The invitation from the Maharaja was a blessing in disguise. He decided to shift his base from Vasai to Dhar. The King allotted a small strip of land and three small buildings to start his studio.

Phadke was an accomplished artist. That means, he was well versed in different forms of art including music and literature. Besides, he had got the renown as a great palmist also. With no immediate family members around him, Phadke adopted four boys, who showed artistic talents, from Dhar. These boys were known as Dev Brothers and Mehunkar Brothers.

These four young boys were taught in different areas of art. Two of them became portrait sculptors and other two became musicians. Dev and Mehunkar had trained a few sculptors from the Northern India. Some sculptors from Jaipur were also trained by these brothers, passing the legacy of Phadke to new generations.

Phadke’s studio flourished under the royal patronage till he died in 1972 at the age of eighty eight. His disciples carried on their mission. However, in the meanwhile, patronage for public and commemorative sculptures had diminished considerably. The studio started faring through bad weather.

“Now, the main source of income is from the visitors,” says Krishna Dev. But there is no ticketing system. “The visitors give some money and I never ask for more,” says he.

What about the studio practice? “The studio is almost shut down as we are not receiving any commissions from anywhere,” Dev ruminates.

This studio was once patronised by the business houses like Hukumchand, Mafatlal, Holkar family of Indore and Devas royal families.

Phadke studio used to make sculptures in Marble and Bronze. The modelling and moulding are done in the studio itself. Marble carving also used to be from the same premises. Now fallen from grace, the studio does not have full time artists. However, when a commissioned work comes in they invite artists like Ashok Jaimini from Jaipur. If the commission is for a bronze sculpture, it is done in Kolhapur.
“How much do you charge for a sculpture?” I ask.

“It depends. If it is a two feet tall sculpture, we charge Rs.45000. If it is bronze a few thousands will be more,” Dev says.

I want to tell him that they are abysmally low prices. But he continues, “Now very rarely we get work. If at all we get work, we take the commission and outsource the work.”

The collection of Phadke sculptures need protection, I feel. They may not be aesthetically great. But they have a history of their own. It has a lot to do with the early sculptural practices of Sir.J.J.School of Art. Phadke has affinities with M.H.Mahtre and other sculptors of late 19th and early 20th century.

But nobody pitches in. The city administration seems to be totally unaware of what is going on here. Dev complaints that nobody cares to extend patronage.

Phadke Studio is now run by a five member trust, in which Krishna Dev is a member. The trustees do not seem to have any long time plan for the collection. “It will remain as it is now,” says Dev.

These works need to be documented and preserved. Something which has become just a tourist attraction should be given art historical validation.

PS: There is no electricity in Dhar either. We are impatient as we cannot upload the site and blog. Suddenly Krishna Dev tells that the power supply has come back. Somu asks whether he would allow us to use the plug points in his house for sometime and the old man invites us into his house. Immediately we set up our office there. I start working on my write ups and Feroze continues with his photo editing, which he had left in Mandu thanks to power failure. Somu takes a nap and snores away to bliss. In one hour we finish our work and upload all the stuff from there. We thank Krishna Dev for allowing us to work from his home and give him some money, which he receives with a smile.

Mandu- Rest in Love

From Indore we reach Mandu. Perhaps, this site is not a part of our itinerary. But we need to spend a night and part of the day before we visit the fine arts college and the famous Phadke Studio in Dhar district. And above all we need some rest. Though we feel adequate pumping of adrenaline in our veins, we think it is always good to take rest to prevent premature burning out.

Located in the Vindhya ranges, 2000 ft above from the sea level, Mandu could be reached if you travel southwards from Indore. It was the kingdom of the Parmars during the 11th century. Then the Sultanate dynasty kings captured the place and they ruled it till the advent of the Mughal Kingdom during the fifteenth century. Mandu is considered to be one of the most romantic sites in India and now its sprawling forts, ruins, palaces and other historical remnants are conserved by the archaeological survey of India.

We drive into Mandu along with the setting sun. The twilight hue covers the place immediately. Feroze jumps out of the car to click some pictures of a ruin against the fading sunlight. The contours of the ruin look bleeding as the red rays embrace it with the regular pain of parting.

As we climb the elevated fields of Mandu I get this feeling of déjà vu. I feel that I was here some years ago. Yes, I was here almost fifteen years back with a group of fellow students from Baroda. But I was not registering things then as I used to under the influence of intoxicants all the time. If I was not using any stimulants, love was the permanent intoxicant for me.

We check in Hotel Roopmati. This is a kind of resort where we find a lot of foreigners and holidaying families. The manager does not ask us for our identity cards or addresses. Without the usual formalities he checks us in. This surprises us. It is pitch dark in the room. The room boy tells us that there is a major load shedding in the area. He cannot tell us when electricity supply would be resumed.

We are tired. But we feel like working. We request the hotel manager to start the generator and we get our computers charged. Our urge to work sinks in as we look at the valley behind our room and the starry sky above our heads. We take a couple of drinks and go to sleep.

Early morning we wake up to the regular supply of electricity and to our dismay in a few minutes time the current goes off. We start working with the help of the back up charge. Feroze does photo editing, Somu moves around and do on the spot sketching and I write. We work on a mutually understood deadline. There is a blissful feeling when you enjoy your work without the pressures of external deadlines. You work on your own deadline and you know you can finish it on time, provided the power supply lasts long.

It does not last. We are optimistic and we tell each other that nothing can stop us. We decide to upload the website and blog on our journey back to Dhar district.

It is sightseeing time. We change our gears literally and put ourselves into the tourist mode. We drive uphill again.

Somu suggests that we hire the service of a tourist guide so that we need to hunt around for sites and ruins, and the stories related to it. In a junction, a few young guys approach us. They are tourist guides. We ask one of them to jump into the car. He does it promptly and tells us that he would take Rs.250 for the conducted tour. Somu bargains with him and settles for Rs.150.

Feroze understands Hindi. But he needs subtitles in between. I mean, he needs translation and slow talking. The boy says that he would give commentary in both Hindi and English. Soon we realise that his claim to English is only a few English words that he weaves into his Hindi harangue like a master linguist.

His name is Anand Amzeria and he is eighteen years old. But he looks older for his age with his tobacco stained teeth and tired looks. He is an enthusiast and he wants to tell us stories.

Amzeria takes us to Rani Roopmati Palace. Rani Roopmati was the daughter of a local chieftain. She was believed to be the gift of the river goddess, Narmada. Prince of Mandu, Bag Bahadur falls in love with the talented Roopmati and asks for her hand. She tells him that if he could provide the site of river Narmada everyday, she would marry him. Roopmati Palace is built for getting a view of river Narmada from the heights. In some seasons, thanks to climatic changes she was not able to see Narmada from this palace. So the Prince ordered to build a huge tank to store the water from Narmada. This tank is called ‘Reva Kund’.

Royal people have royal fancies, I imagine. The amount of money and human energy spent on building these palaces are amazing. I imagine Rani Roopmati sitting there, looking at Narmada, singing songs, attending the visiting musicians etc. I cannot concentrate on history anymore.

Rani Roopmati seems to be a high maintenance wife, I think.

Amzeria keeps telling us the stories. The whims and fancies of the kings, the invasions, the legendary escapes, the unparalleled sacrifices, unique love stories, fears, fantasies, intrigues, conspiracies and celebrations. In between he keeps reminding Feroze to take pictures from certain angles, which Amzeria believes would give fantastic results. Thousands of people have taken pictures from these angles and it cannot be wrong- that is the belief of Amzeria. Somu tells him that Feroze is a professional photographer and he knows his angles.

“He has a sense of angle. But has no sense of light,” Feroze comments after clicking a few pictures from the angles suggested by the guide boy.

Then we go to Jahaz Mahal. It is made in the shape of a ship. That is why it is called Jahaz Mahal. This palace is built by King Giazuddin of the fourteenth century to accommodate his eight favourite wives. The guide tells us that apart from these eight wives, Giazuddin had 16008 courtesans and often this palace doubled up as a harem.

“He had Krishna complex,” Somu comments. Giazuddin wanted to compete with Lord Krishna who was said to have 16008 women in his life.

Feroze is thoughtful. He takes out his mobile phone and starts punching the buttons. Then he shouts, “Forty three years.”

I look at him. He smiles and then explains. “If the king visits one woman per night, he needs forty three years to visit all these women.”

“Many might have died virgin,” I say.

For a moment we three become silent and thoughtful. We think about the fate of those young girls in the harem.

“This is a f****ing whore house. Let’s go from here,” I tell my friends, partly joking and partly serious. Enough of history.

Anand Amzeria’s stories seem to have no end. He tells us about the music competition between Rani Roopmati and the legendary singer, Tansen sang a song that attracted a bee into a flower and he sang till the flower closed its petals and made the bee a captive. Then Roopmati sang a song till the petals were opened and released the bee.

Sexual innuendoes. Desires covered in aesthetics. Covert invitations to love.

Tansen sang Rag Deepak. Lights came to life with it. Roopmati sang Rag Meghmalhar. Rains rushed down.

Carnal love embroidered in velvety words. I love this. I feel a burning pain in my bloody brain.

Anand Amzeria recites a few poems for us. One of the poems is about ‘rocks’. If rocks are not there, there are no monuments, if there are no monuments, there is no love, if there is no love, there cannot be Taj Mahal. It is something like that.

Silly me. I could not think nothing but the Hindi film song, ‘Aao sikhaun Ande ka funda’. If there is no egg, there won’t be any chicken. If there is no chicken, there is no marriage, there is no marriage, there is no love. Period stuff.

Down there in the plain, there is a Juma Masjid. I want to go there. Amzeria takes us there. Feroze tells me about the architectural parts commonly seen in a mosque. But Amzeria would like to tell us that it was a Hindu structure and it was converted into a mosque by the invaders. I don’t want to buy that argument. Nor do I want his services to be continued.

“Another Babri Masjid in making?” Feroze asks jokingly.

But it is not a joke. Out there, in front of the masjid there is a sing board which says, “Shri Ram Temple”. An arrow in it points to a village alley behind the banyan tree. That is our culture. We need polemics to survive.

“iske-peeche-se-photu-nikal-sakte-hai,” Amzeria tells Feroze, pointing at a white tomb.

Feroze looks at me for explanation.

“Iske….Peeche…..se…..photo….nikal….sakte…..hai….” I tell Feroze in Hindi, but in a slower pace.

“Ok…” says Feroze. He understands slow speed Hindi. In between he hums Hindi songs.

We leave the old city of love behind. It would be looking great in rainy days as it has a lot of valleys and undulating landscapes.

While driving towards Dhar road I remember the song of Harry Bellafonte. “I am sad to say but I am on my way, won’t be back for many a day.”

But my heart is not down, my head is not turning around. Because I have to meet little girl in Delhi town.

Devlalikar Fine Arts College, Indore

At the Sasakiya Lalit Kala Sansthan (Fine Arts Education Institute), Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a group show of seventy six artists is on. A hoarding outside the hall says that the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh dedicates this gallery to the people of Indore on 9th January 2009. We are here in Indore on the last day of the show. Inside the gallery that reminds you of a little theatre in two floors, seventy six works are displayed. Most of them are abstract in nature but do not look naïve or amateurish. Skill and profession are visible. An urge for experimenting with different techniques and abstract styles is quite palpable in these works. Out there in the front courtyard, the students of Devlalikar Kala Vidhika (Devlalikar Arts Centre), which is the famous fine arts education institute in Indore, display their works in a long makeshift gallery. One can see the affiliations and stylistic continuity in these works too.


This exhibition, which is titled ‘Aarambh’ (The Beginning) has a lot of energy. Perhaps, we have not heard these artists’ names before. They are all the alumni of the same institute. Many have established themselves as full time professional artists in Indore itself and elsewhere in the country. We are here on a Sunday, still we find a few artists sitting and discussing several things at the veranda of the gallery. Local people and tourists come and go. Unlike the other cities that we have visited earlier, here we find a different ambience. People are interested in art.


Devlalikar Kala Vidhika may not be as popular as Sir.J.J.School of Art or Santiniketan. However, those people who are deeply involved in the Indian art scene definitely know the name of this institute. It is here the legendary artist M.F.Husain spent his formative years. He was trained under Guru Damodar Dattatreya Devlalikar, who started this institute as a private art teaching centre in 1927. He taught artists like N.S.Bendre and D.J.Joshi. The institute became famous as these artists earned their names in due course of time. M.F.Husain became the most famous painter in India. N.S.Bendre helped establishing the Fine Arts Faculty, M.S.University, Baroda.


These artists took Devlalikar’s name all over the country. People in Madhya Pradesh, irrespective of their ‘city-loyalties’ admire the contribution of D.D.Devlalikar. Devlalikar to Indore is what Rabindranath Tagore is to Santiniketan.


Amit Gupta, a young artist in his early thirties who currently works in Delhi is in Indore for participating in the ongoing show. He is an alumnus of this college. “Devlalikar started this academy in 1927 in a small building right across the road,” he points at the other side of the busy road where all kinds of vehicles ply flouting all the possible logic of traffic.


“Later, Maharaja Holkar gave this building to Devlalikar to continue with his institute,” Amit continues.


The Holkar kings of Indore were seriously interested in art and they patronized many artists. Artists, writers, intellectuals and bureaucrats from Maharashtra region came to Indore to receive the Holkars’ patronage during the 19th century itself.


Right in the middle of the gallery, you see a bronze bust of Devlalikar. I remember the bust of Tagore done by Ram Kinker Baij. The reverence and energy of the artists who had done these busts are quite palpable.


The architecture of the gallery is interesting. It has two storeys. The ground level gallery is a neat white hall with slender pillars supporting the high ceiling. The second storey is just a balcony space that runs above the three sides of the hall below. I find a row of steps running along the balcony space. It obviously looks like a theatre.


“This building was the Navagraha Temple built by the Holkar family for the public of Indore. There used to be a lot of theatre and dance performances conducted during their reign. Basically it was a space for worship and art,” Ismail Lahiri, an alumnus of the institute, who now works as a cartoonist for the Dainik Jagaran newspaper.


Till 1980s the Devlalikar institute functioned from this building. Later with the state government taking charge of the institute, it got a new building just behind it. Since then this has been used as a gallery. A few years back, the structure of the building started showing weakness. Architects were brought into reinforce the structure. It took two years to renovate the structure. Now it is a full fledged gallery and the people in Indore seem to be quite proud of this cultural wealth.


Devlalikar Fine Arts Institute offers BFA and MFA in painting. There are around seventy students studying here in different batches. Till 1965, when the Indian states were not marked out with linguistic parameters, the examinations for this institute were conducted by the Sir J.J.School of Art, Bombay. In 1965, it was affiliated to the Khairagarh University. The Government of Madhya Pradesh demarcated Dhar, Indore, Jabalpur and Gwalior for four fine arts institutes to teach painting, graphics and applied art and sculpture respectively.


Interestingly and ironically, Devlalikar Fine Arts is now administrated by two different establishments. The first year examinations are conducted from Gwalior under the state government’s ministry of culture. MFA is still affiliated to Khairagarh University.


“This causes a lot of inconvenience. Students have to run between Khairgarh, Gwalior and Indore,” says Amit Gupta. “We want all the examinations to be conducted by the cultural ministry or the Gwalior University,” Amit continues.

Artists and intellectuals in Indore have been campaigning towards this for the last few years. And Amit is sure that in the recent future itself Gwalior will be the administrative centre for his alma mater. “Things are now moving fast and we are hopeful about it.”


There are four teachers in Devlalikar fine arts college and this includes the principal Sasikant Mundi also. Karan Singh, Braj Mohan Arya and Kamal Verma are the other teachers. They are all serious about their teaching and inspire the students to work hard. However, there are enough roadblocks for them too.


“Library facilities are minimum and there is no internet service in this college. Whatever books available are looked after by one of the teachers. There is no librarian and there are no annual purchases. We want the library facilities to be enhanced,” says one of the teachers requesting anonymity.


Later I speak to a few students from the MFA course. They are full of energy and optimism. Small town complexes do not seem to hold them back. They come forward to talk and most of them travel quite often to the big cities like Delhi and Bombay.


“Yes we know that our library is poor. But we are exposed to the contemporary art scene through internet and catalogues. We don’t have internet facilities in the college, but we use it outside. And we get catalogues and information through the city based professional artists who travel quite often to the cities,” says Ashish Tiwari, a MFA first year student.


In Indore, by evening most of the artists, writers and other cultural enthusiasts come around the college. As usual they discuss art, art politics and share anecdotes and gossips. But these activities keep the art ambience proper and energetic. “We hang out with these seniors and that is quite important for us,” says one of the MFA students.


We meet another alumnus of the college, who has come to meet his friends here. He works as a full time artist and he is confident that he can pull off things by doing art alone. At times he does commissioned works and earns money to pursue his individual career as an artist. “This city is not expensive. So I can lead the life of an artist,” he smiles.


One need not spend a lot to be an artist. One just needs to have the attitude. I am surprised at the energy level shown by the Indore artists and art students. Ujjain has more facilities as a city. Ujjain is the cultural capital of Madhya Pradesh. But the students and faculties are lethargic there. In Indore it is a different story. Each student shows a future promise. And all of them are ready to launch themselves to a full time artist career.


Lack of library facilities and departmental apathy have created some kind of hurdles to the smooth functioning of this institution. “We need more facilities and circumstances to have more intellectual discussions. We teach them technical skills. But that is not enough for the students. Their thought process needs sharpening. They need to get into reading and thinking. They should understand the changing contemporary world,” admits Braj Mohan Arya, who is a faculty member.


The proportion between the boys and girls are almost fifty fifty. Girls in this institution do not shy away from art activities. They participate in exhibitions and debates. They travel in and around the city with the teaching staff. Study tours are conducted regularly here.


“The things could be improved if the Central and state lalit kala academies take interest in bringing exhibitions here. They should be conducting camps and workshops regularly in Indore so that the city and its people along with the students would be benefited,” opines Amit Gupta.


Indore artist community has a demand. It asks the Central Lalit Kala Akademy to start a research centre here at the Devlalikar Institute.


This is a valid demand, I feel because you don’t have any written material available on the life and times of Damodar Dattatreya Devlalikar. Research and documentation centre is a must not only for Indore but also for any other city/town in India where people have sacrificed their lives for establishing art institutes.


Indore fine arts students give us a lot of hope. They are taught only painting. They don’t have any facilities to do cutting edge art. However, they practice to think out of the box. Many students have cameras and modern gadgets. They indulge in making video art and photography. “We don’t know how strong we are, but we have the aspiration to do things,” say the students.


Indore makes me happy as I am reminded of my Trivandrum days.


PS: In the exhibition hall at the Devlalikar Fine Arts Institute, I come across the works of Mohan Malaviya. He was an alumnus of this institute. I met Mohan Malaviya along with another artist Siraj Saxena (again an alumnus of Indore) in Delhi in late 1990s. Mohan had a strong abstract language. Siraj worked in ceramics. We used to bump into each other in openings and at times at the K.S.Radhakrishnan’s studio in Delhi, where they used to come to show the works to the master sculptor. Mohan was picked up Delhi’s Art Alive Gallery and he was doing quite well. Last month I came to know from Siraj that Mohan had died in an accident in December 2008. It was a shock for me. His motorbike collided with a truck and he died on the spot. He was on a vacation in Indore, his home town. Mohan’s work here suddenly brought all those memories back to my mind. I stood in silence before his works for sometime. Mohan’s friends later told me that they were planning to do a commemorative exhibition.


Damodar Dattatreya Devlalikar brings another picture in my mind. His son, Manohar Devlalikar was in Delhi for a long time. His mind was imbalanced. He used to spend his time with the students of the National School of Drama and the regular visitors in Central Lalit Kala Akademy. He sang well and talked to young people like an enthusiastic art lover. He used to go really mad at times. There was nobody to take care of him. Finally he died like a destitute in the Delhi streets. I think, his death was mourned only by a few youngsters. Artists like Inder Salim Tikku, Shantanu Lodh, Sushil Kumar and so on were his friends. Whenever I go to the Lalit Kala Akedmy canteen, I look for this man even today. But he is dead and gone.

A Crumbling Institution thanks to Neglect

At the age of 81, Mrs.Wakankar looks alert. Her body is fragile as the old photographs framed and arranged on the decoloured walls. But her mind is very alert. She has some difficulty in speaking and you need to sharpen your ears to listen to what she is talking. She welcomes us to her humble room. Against the blaring sounds of brass bands down there in the street, we tell her why we are in Ujjain.


Almost eight years back I had come to this place, Dr.Wakankar Sodh Sansthan (Wakankar Research Institute), a three floor building near the heart of the Ujjain city. The landmark is a decorated clock tower building and the place is known as ‘Tower’. The clock shows seven o clock and we are standing before it at 12.30. The city administration seems to have no interest in preserving its heritage. Life goes on around it without heeding to the plaints of an ailing clock. May be people like us only would notice it as we are strangers to the city. Some one tells us about a petrol pump, which is next to the research institute. But the petrol pump turns out to be as unnoticeable a thing as a pan shop. It has two small vending machines; one for the petrol and the other for diesel. No big vehicle can fill gas from here. Feroze likes it and he clicks his camera away to bliss.


First time when I visited this research institute with my wife Mrinal Kulkarni and her brother Manoj Kulkarni, Mrs.Wakankar was looking healthier. Time has ploughed through her body by now. Mrinal and Manoj had studied painting under Dr.Wakankar, when they were kids. Now as we are here, I remind Mrs.Wakankar whom everyone calls ‘Vehni’ (elder sister in law) or ‘Thai’ (elder sister in Marathi), about my former visit. She smiles at me and wonders how we three, me from Delhi, Somu from Vapi and Feroze from Kochi got together to conduct a tour like this. Now it is our turn to smile at her. She is motherly and benevolent.


The discoloured walls of her two room apartment on the left side of the first floor of the Dr.Wakankar Research Institute tells us the story of the neglect that she faces for the last few years. Dr.Wakankar Research Institute was the dream of Dr.Wakankar, one of the most daring archaeologists and art history researchers in India. He found the Bhimdedka caves in Madhya Pradesh. Being a strong RSS follower, he was not supported by the central or state government, which were mostly headed by the Congress leaders. Against all odds Dr.Wakankar worked towards his goal. He became a part of the Vikram University and set up a museum of his findings there. He worked with the Oriental Research Institute of India for several years.


Dr.Wakankar’s intention was to set up a full fledged research institute in Ujjain and he was successful in establishing the centre in the middle of the city. Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had asked Dr.Wakankar to shift his loyalties, which he refused to do. She was reluctant to acknowledge his services. However, the Congress government had to confer him with Padmashree during 1980s. He passed way in 1988.


The decline of the research institute started in 1990s. The institute now houses the research materials of the late scholar is opened for the scholars who do research in the concerned areas. One of the family members mans the institute, which is losing its attraction fast. There must be reasons for this decline. The Wakankar estate is now family property and with no one to heir this adequately and professionally, it has just reduced to a lucrative real estate. Mrs.Wakankar is the last woman standing to protect the legacy of her late husband. But once she fades from the scene, there are all the possibilities that this golden treasury of research materials going into wrong hands. The neglect that the building faces is out of the lack of interest from the decision making people. Mrs.Wakankar says that she gets no grant from the government or from the university for which her late husband had worked selflessly.


Mrs.Wakankar, however is not desperate. She does not lose her grace while discussing the matter with us. This former Magistrate of the Juvenile Justice court knows how to deal with the situation. But she does not have the energy to fight with the establishments and deaf bureaucracy any more. So she leaves it there. But she is sad for one reason. Dr.Wakankar, a pure Spartan in his life style, used to impart art education to the young people in Ujjain. He taught many youngsters who later became accomplished artists and scholars. Mrs.Wakankar feels sad for the disinterestedness shown by the ex-students of Dr.Wakankar. She had treated all of them like her own children. But now the mother in distress is not attended by any of her famous kids.


The institute was flourishing as an art training centre during 1970s and 80s. Everyone in North India knew about this art training institute. The students from this institute were allowed to sit for state level examinations that gave them diplomas. These diplomas were sufficient enough to get a job or a get an admission for higher studies. Self less people gave their services to the institute by contributing in several ways. But with Dr.Wakankar’s death things changed considerably. Mrs.Waknakar feels that the government should now take care of the institute.


“I don’t complain. But nobody helps. May be people have lost interest in this institute,” Mrs.Wakankar says. But that is not true. People still take interest in this institute. Some parents in Ujjain send their children to study painting in this institute. But their attendance is sparse and irregular. There is no regular teaching system either. One huge institution is withering away here and nobody would like to look at this side. Mrs.Wakankar at the dusk of her life looks at us and tells us to go and visit Vikram University Museum, which her husband set up. “I don’t know they are interested to show it to anybody or not. But if you insist they would,” she says.


While saying good bye, I bend down and touch her feet. She blesses me. Feroze trains his camera at one of the pictures of Dr.Wakankar framed and kept their on the wall. Mrs. Wakankar comes to him and asks, “how do you three guys from different parts moving together?”


Feroze smiles and clicks a beautiful picture of this grand old lady.


Later we visit Kalidas Akademy. Ashok Vajpayee, who now heads the national lalit kala academy was the person behind the establishment of this institution. Supported by Madhya Pradesh government, things look smooth here. R.P.Sharma, the exhibition co-ordinator talks to us and informs us that the Akademy is not interested in modern art as its focus is on crafts and tradition. We see several sculptures and paintings done by traditional artists in and around the building. Some are in the neo-classical academic style. That has become a part of our art tradition!


We start our drive towards Indore by evening. We reach Indore by six thirty. We move around the city, negotiating the traffic which is in snail’s pace. We look for a decent accommodation in one of the hotels. But all the hotels are full as the marriage season is on. Some hotels offer accommodation but they want us to check out at 9 am. That is strange. Twelve o clock is the usual checking out time in all the cities. But in Indore it is different they say. That is really funny.


We drive to the outskirts and find a so so hotel, which has a big rooms and a lot of power plugs. We are happy and but to our dismay we find only one plug is functional out the many. But we don’t have any other option. We have a light dinner and we sleep in no time.


Our next stop is Dhar district.


PS: Looking at Feroze in the morning is very interesting. He keeps working on his computer or camera. If not he is looking at his mobile and finding new properties and features of it. Feroze is a ‘mobile workshop’, I comment. Then Feroze tells me the story of another photographer who always repairs things. This man one day invited his friend for a photo shoot together. They were supposed to go on his motor bike. When the friend arrived, he found two wheels and a skeletal frame of the bike. Rest of the bike was in two iron vessels. But the friend told him that the bike would be ready within ten minutes. And to the friend’s surprise, the man fixed his bike in ten minutes by assembling all what was scrambled up in the two vessels to the skeletal frame. And they did go for the shoot on the appointed time.

Madhava College, Ujjain

Ujjain, the city of famous Mahakaleswara Temple. We reach here during the Mahasivaratri days. The festival is just a couple of days away and the town is already full with visitors. Besides, it is marriage season. Brass bands play in the streets. Horse driven carriages and the ‘suar’ autos take people around. There is bustling business going on in the shops.


Signs of modern life are everywhere. However, Ujjain drags you to the past. It evokes a sense of mythology in you. In the old part of the city, there are crumbling buildings. The new architectures try to imitate the old glory of buildings. You feel a certain amount of stillness everywhere. Within this stillness this hybrid city grows like an amoebic organism.


Madhva College, one of the oldest colleges affiliated to the Vikram University is our destination. There is a fine arts section in this college. In Madhya Pradesh undergraduate colleges have fine arts as one of the papers. Even if you are a commerce or history student, and if you are interested in art, you can opt for the fine arts paper. Many students study fine arts because it is easy to get ‘passing’ marks.


But there are two colleges here in Ujjain that offer full fledged post graduation in Fine Arts. When I say fine arts, you don’t think that these MA courses offer everything that comes under the term fine arts. They call it MA in Fine Arts though they are offered a course in painting. Madhava College and Government Girls College have these post graduation course.


There are ten students in each year. The admission starts in July and the course finish by February. Practical exams are done during January and February. Theory examinations are conducted during March-April.


The first year MA has History of European Painting, Portraits, Landscape and Composition as its subjects. Final year has Mural, life study, history of world art, history of eastern art and criticism of art.


“How many teachers do you have in this department?” I ask Alok Bhavsar, Professor in Government College, Ratlam, which also has a similar course in fine arts. He is in Madhava College as an external examiner. When we reach there, practical examination is on. Those people who look responsible are reluctant to talk to us.


Like the officials in any other institution with defined hierarchies, these teachers do not want to make any comment on their institute. “The principal is in a seminar. And our head of the department is on leave. Please come another day, we will talk then,” says one lady. I ask for her name and designation. She does not want to reveal it.


I have faced such situations before also. You need to gain the confidence of the interviewee. You need to make him or her feel that you don’t mean any harm to their person or profession. You should offer them anonymity. You need to extract information using soft persuasive techniques. They should not feel that they are imparting vital information. A mutual warming up is needed to continue the conversation.


I explain our mission to them. We want to do a survey on small town art colleges. We need to know, how these institutions are functioning. We are going to come out with a report that would ultimately help the small town colleges to improve their conditions. We are sincere in our mission. But we don’t know what would happen to our report.


Now Alok Bhavsar takes up the responsibility to talk to us. In Madhya Pradesh, the condition of the fine arts colleges is more or less the same. There are no competent teachers and facilities. However, all of them try to keep their neck out. Students come from middle class and lower middle class families. They don’t have higher ambitions or aspirations. Many of the boys who come from remote areas of the state study art to earn some money by working as poster and banner painters. Some of them join in small advertisement firms. Those students who come from middle class families aspire to become art teachers in schools. Some of them, when they are in college, desire to become full time artists and they do some exhibitions in Ujjain.


“She is Dr.Neeta Thomar and is a guest faculty here. She recently did an exhibition at the Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur. But she does not have the ‘himmat’ to do a show in Delhi or Mumbai,” says the lady who seems to have the charge of the ongoing examination.


I look at Dr.Neeta Thomar. She smiles. She approves of her lack of ‘himmat’ which could be translated as the lack of ‘courage.’


So nobody becomes a full time artist here. Even if they want to, circumstances are not conducive. They don’t have exhibition halls. They don’t have the names of successful Ujjain artists so that they can look up to their reputation and desire for the same success.


However, R.P.Sharma, the exhibition co-ordinator of the famous Kalidasa Akademy has a different opinion about that. “We have a decent enough exhibition hall here. Artists can rent out this space to do shows. We do annual shows of traditional art. But we are open to the modern contemporary young artists. But nobody takes interest in doing shows. When we invite these boys and girls to participate in our shows here, they do not even respond to our call,” Sharma says.


Sharma, though he handles a lot of traditional art and crafts in Kalidasa Akademy, a beautiful building designed by the Mumbai based architect, Hema Sankalia in 1979-80, is not happy with the situation of the modern art scene in Ujjain. “Nobody understands modern art here,” he says pensively. To escape from the trap of lethargy, he and his five friends have formed a group of ‘Six’ and do shows every year.


“That gives me some kind of happiness. But I am sure the artists who work from Ujjain are destined live here and die here,” he sounds fatalistic.


We look around in Madhava College Fine Arts section. The works of MA students are displayed there. Most of them are landscape sketches and portraits. Some of them are ‘affected’ modern paintings. Mural is one of the strong fortes in this college. But they do experimental mural on ply boards pasted over with jute clothes. Teachers show us the mural works with great enthusiasm.


I am sorry to say that all those works, including the murals, portraits, still life, and sketches, do not rise above the class works of a second year BFA student. Do these students lack talent?


They do not lack in talent. They have good sense of drawings and colours. But they don’t have any clue to move forward. Are the teachers responsible for this situation?


“We are not responsible. Most of the teachers are guest faculties They don’t know whether they are invited in the next academic year or not. The department does not have any interest to make them permanent teachers. So nobody gives his/her hundred per cent to it,” opines a faculty who request anonymity.


Besides, the teachers as the government servants are having transferable jobs. If the government asks them to go to another college, there is no chance of objecting it. So no teacher belongs to any one particular institution. They are always under the threat of replacement and transfer. So what they do mostly is protecting their jobs.


Do the students get reference materials? The teachers claim that they have a full fledged library, which has ‘History of Art’ books. We visit the library. Two small shelves filled with old books are kept in a corner. None seems to touch the books. Though the teachers say that they get the art magazines like Art India and Kala Dhrigha regularly, the students do not seem to have any access to those journals.



Somu takes out the names of a few contemporary artists and asks the students whether they know the works of these artists. The students look at each other. “Subodh Gupta, we have heard his name somewhere,” one of the girls says, though she is not sure where she has heard his name.


“Do you access internet?” Feroze asks.


The students know about internet but none is ‘familiar’ with it. One of the students asks for our ‘passwords’ as we give them our email id. We are surprised. He thinks that to send an email one needs to know the password of the addressee also. The college does not have internet access.


Government funds all the activities in the college. The teachers say that many students come from very poor backgrounds and they don’t even have money to buy painting materials. So some kind of scholarships is given to the students. Teachers also do not have any clue about internet.


In short, these students and teaches do not have anything to motivate themselves. But the problem could be seen from a different perspective also. Why don’t these children take initiative to educate themselves in art? Most of the successful artists including Subodh Gupta come from rural backgrounds. But all of them have worked hard enough to become what they are today.


We tell the students about the success stories of the Indian contemporary artists and ask them how many of them have charted their future lives as artists. One girl comes forward to say that she wants to become an artist. But what to do, she asks. The usual explanation is given by the other girl students. They will get married and new responsibilities will come over them. Period stuff. Ujjain is a place where there are a lot of theatre activities and literary activities. But what about art?


There are couple of art discussion forums here. But the students do not go there. The teachers do not encourage them to speak about art. And they are reluctant speakers mainly because they find their language inadequate. As I mentioned in one of my articles last year, English is the problem. The experts should seriously attend this problem.


A few months back in Chandigarh there was a seminar on improving the syllabus of small town art colleges. Alok Bhavsar says that nothing has happened so far. The discussions are regular at the department level. But nobody addresses the real problems.


Looking around the city, Feroze registers his objection for the term, small town art college. “It is not a small town. A full scale city ambience is here. It is not different from Delhi or Bombay. I think, they are complacent people and they find happiness in being called small town people,” Feroze says.


That is true. If they want they can be competent like any thing. But for that they need to get sufficient direction from within the institution primarily. And they should be able to absorb the ambience of the contemporary life.


The students even today paint village scenes in the lines of Jamini Roy. They still paint the pictures of temples in Ujjain. They do model studies. They do the run of the mill still life. It is surprising to see that not a single student has painted a city scene or a street scene, which right there outside the college.


The problem is really serious. I am afraid that these art students would never make it. They want to go to Mumbai and Delhi. But that is just a romantic thought. For small town art colleges, the course is just a cosmetic addition. Not even cosmetic addition, may be a painful reminder of a cosmetic experiment, which has gone seriously wrong.


These colleges look nobody’s responsibility. Madhava College fine arts faculty started in 1960. It is there now because it was there. It is a maze constructed within two rooms.


At sharp one o clock, one guy comes in and nods his head at the students. The students pack their things up and walk out. It is lunch time.


That shows the attitude of the place. They go by rules.


Later, one of the students comes to us. He says he can do wonders if he gets support. I like his attitude. But Somu cuts in.


“Do wonders, support will come to you,” Somu tells him at his face.


I think there is a lot of sense in Somu’s comment.

Fauji Daaba and a Flat Tyre

Lesson one: When you are on the road, dont drink too much at night. In Partapur we had a good party with the visiting artists and I had drunk quite well. Hence, yesterday morning I got up with a heavy head. Then and there, I decided I am not going to drink during the travel. Let me see whether I would be able to stick to my decision.

It was time to say good bye to Partapur. We had an important place to visit there: The Living Museum. So we go there accompanied by a friend from Sandarbh. Somu asks him not to tell the directions so that he could recollect the way for himself. We reach there and I too remember the place very well as I had gone there coulple of times before.

Living Museum is a concept developed by Chintan Upadhyay. A small village, almost a kilometer away from the Partapur main market, is where the Living Musuem is located. The word ‘museum’ might give you certain ideas about the building and location. But this does not have anything to do with those common notions. It is a double storied shack formerly used as a village community centre and at times it doubled up as a classroom. It was lying abandoned for long time and when Sandarbh started in Partapur, Chintan decided to activate this abandoned space.

This museum has got a lot of house hold utensils and other living tools. These are the actual tools used by the poor villagers who eke out their daily sustenance from farming and cattle rearing. They all wear minimum clothes and work throughout the day in farms and dairies. A couple of buffaloes respond to our arrival with a harsh sort of mooing. Skimply clad women look at us with some kind of amusement in their eyes. The Sandarbh boy who accompanies us opens the doors of the museum for us.

Living Museum functions in an interesting way. People can keep their traditional and living tools and utensils here as in a museum display. Whenever they want to use these tools they can take it away. Once the work is done they bring it back to the museum. However, what you see are the old and rusted tools, which have interesting shapes and structures. Many of them have gone out of use thanks to the change of pattern in life. While seeing them one can connect to a time when these tools were really used for carrying out daily chores.

We have become too much depended on the modern technology. We have almost become slave to these gadgets. If the mobile phones show poor connectivity we get disturbed. I am supposed to write a blog. We come back to the Sandarbh office. I open one of the lap tops we are carrying and suddenly its display is scrambled. I dont feel challenged as we have a master lap top with us with the latest softwares. It belongs to Feroze. We call it Pentagon and the other computer FBI.

Feroze opens the Pentagon computer for me and suddenly it crashes. Virus? Feroze is suddenly gloomy. He calls up his son and takes a few tips from him. This 19 years old young engineering student is a computer wizard. He can fix any modern gadgets just by looking at it. He has an eye for technology.

Some people are like that. They can fix the machines easily. Bhavin Mistry is a young artist friend and he can fix computers using any available tools. Recently he repaired a computer using one small kitchen knife as his sole tool! I am not a technical person at all. For me computer is ‘Microsoft Word’ and internet. Anything goes wrong, I call the lifeline numbers. While Feroze fixes the computer, I remember A.J.Cronin’s essay titled ‘Overhauling’. Some people keep overhauling their gadgets all the time. Give them a cycle, they will overhaul that also.

I finish my blog in Feroze’s computer, which is ready by now. After lunch we leave Partapur and drive towards Ujjain. On the way we visit two acres of land recently acquired by Sandarbh near Partapur. Sandarbh is planning to start its permanent residency programs here. Will it go against the founding ideals of Sandarbh, I wonder. Sandarbh is all about moving. But one cannot be a rolling stone all the time. Sandarbh too needs its permanent headquarters.

Landscapes change around us. Inside the airconditioned car we dont feel the heat outside. In central India, it is already summer, though the early mornings and evenings are cold. The rural Rajasthan landscape is predominantly brown in color. The sky is sharp blue today. It soothes the eyes. It has the freshness of a teenager. The rigor and vigor will increase as the summer months would progress in the coming days. I look at the changing colors of landscapes. Somu drives and Feroze takes a nap at the backseat.

In Gujarat we experienced the quality of roads. Throughout Gujarat roads are in a good condition. The public transport system is more or less good. May be that is the reason why many people want Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India. Recently someone commented that India need Naredra Modi as Prime Minister and central government should be led by the Congress Party! People are so desparate as they are caught between vying ideologies and their innate demands for progress and development.

As we enter Rajasthan, the roads change in quality and complexion. Pot holes appear in regular intervals. Palak Raval, who was with us during the first day had proudly commented on the quality of the Gujarat Roads. “Roads tell you where you are,” she had said.

That is true in a way. As we enter Madhya Pradesh, suddenly we find our vehicles running on a rough path. Optimism is the best tool when you are on the road. We hope for this bad patch to finish and get into a better road. But better roads never seem to come. Tossed and bumped inside the car we feel like pieces of fruits in a juice machine. Some kind of alertness come back to us.

For the last few days we have been eating vegetarian food. Suddenly I tell that we should eat some non-vegetarian food today. Somu is not a non-veg person. But he too wants to eat some egg today. So we wistfully look for some restaurants or dabas that sell non-veg food. Most of the wayside restaurants in Madhya Pradesh do not sell non-veg food. Finally we find one person standing with a few trayes of eggs and a stove.

We approach him and ask for omlets or scrambled egg. He smiles.

“I sell only boiled eggs,” he says.

His expertise is in boiling eggs. He may not knowing how to make scrambled egg or omlets. But there must be another reason. A business is operated according to the demand of the people. Here people are not asking for scrambled eggs. People are comfortable with boiled eggs. Then there is another way of making a business successful. The person can create a demand for scrambled eggs or omlets. But this guy must be lazy, I think.

“Go two kilometers from here and you find ‘Fauji’ daaba. There you get non-veg stuff,” one boy who sits on his cycle carrier lazily tells us. He almost sounds dismissive. He does not like our presence there.

Fauji Daaba, suddenly the sign board appears on our right side and we feel as if we had found an oasis. Fauji in Hindi means soldier. Soldiers are supposedly eating non-veg. We are happy for the oasis, which eventually turns out to be an oasis. It is just a mirage. This fauji who doubles himself up as the cook and cashier tells us that he does not serve non-veg food. Finally we settle for the usual vegetarian food.

Fauji looks really a soldier in his well built body and crew cut. He has a straight moustache. And his voice has a commanding power. Even when he spells out the menu for us, he relives his parade ground days. He shouts the names of the items. We order our food. We feel that we have a strong appetite at that moment and order for larger portions.

If someone wants to know about the food, this is what we order, Dum Aaloo (two plates), Dal Tadka (two plates), Bhindi (two plates), salads (two plates) and tandoori rotis. Once he gets the order the Fauji gets into action. He moves fast as if he were moving through trechnes and enemy terrains at the border. Soon the place is filled with different kinds of aromas.

The cool breeze touches us. We hold ourselves together. I lie down on the charpoy and look at the starry sky. I look for some constellations up there. But the sky suddenly looks like a modern gadget. I dont understand anything. I leave my effort.

The tandoor is ready and the stove started glowing. We go close to it and feel the warmth. On the other end, we find a television playing the Zee TV Sa Re Ga Ma program. Fauji’s family members, a wife and a daughter sit on the floor and watch the TV. We too watch the TV for a while. Sonu Nigam and Suresh Wadkar speak to the competing kids with compassion. Canned laughter and canned tears jerk out of the television.

Finally food comes. We think that we can eat a lot. But we dont eat. The appetite has gone. We eat the food in silence. Each of us has withdrawn to the private world.

Ujjain is forty five kilometers from here. After food we are considerably energized. Somu reves up the engine and we jump into the car. We leave Fauji behind.

We are now very close to Ujjain. A huge archway with sign boards and directions welcome us. We read out the distances loudly. Suddenly our car shakes and shivers. It is ten at night.

Yes, we get a flat tyre. The rear left tyre is punctured. The car wobbles and comes to a halt. Right in front of us there is a check post. Huge trucks queue up to get an entry into the city. Only by 11 o clock they are allowed to enter.

We dont feel challenged. We take out the tools and start working towards changing the tyre. We put the jack under the car and lifts it. Suddenly the jack fails and the car comes down with a thud.

I walk into the night and look for a puncture fixing guy and luckily finds one near the check post. He is reluctant to walk a few meters to our car. I request him to come along. Finally he relents. After two hours of harrowing struggle (thanks to the complicated structure of our car) we get our tyre fixed. The young man who helped us do not charge us too much. The tube has got four holes in it thanks to the usual suspect, a sharp nail. Nails are the worst enemy a traveler can confront when he is on the road.

Exhausted by now we somehow want to reach a hotel. Finally we get a decent hotel and we fall down on the beds.

Before sleeping I think of this temple town. I have been here before. I had visited the Mahakala temple, one of the most famous Shiva shrines in India, with Mrinal, long back.

With some sense of happiness and contentment we sleep.

PS: While driving towards Ujjain, I came up with this idea of making a short film once we reach in Bastar. I conjured up a story quickly. It is going to be a very simple moive. One man comes to visit Bastar. Another person starts following him. Or he thinks that he is stalked by somebody. The film is about of stacking and surveillance. I am sure it is going to be an interesting experience.