Shravanabelagola, the Monolithic Mahavira: The Journey 9

Sharp at four in the morning Leena Chetan comes to the hotel lobby. She is going to travel with us to her husband’s coffee plantations in Sakaleshpur near Hassan District in Karnataka. Leena and Chetan make an interesting couple who came to the art scene as entrepreneurs in mid 1990s. Leena started an art gallery named ‘Tangerine Art Space’ in Bangalore in 2005 and as it was the trend of the time started focusing on the young and upcoming artists. She held a few exhibitions in Bangalore apart from working with senior and mid career artists. This time, when she came to know that Shibu was going to be in Bangalore, she had invited Shibu to her plantation at Sakaleshpur which was around 200 kilometers north to Bangalore. Leena has been a personal friend of mine since her gallery days though she has been maintaining a low profile since the economic meltdown. As she is active today I understand that somewhere the art market is looking up for good days; if not the entrepreneurs must be making use of the time when the artists are ready to make some distress sales. “It is a buyers’ market,” they say. It is a buyers’ market because the artists are ready to sell for the prices that the buyers quote than what they themselves fix for their works of art. On another occasion another gallerist in Delhi had told me that ever since the market meltdown many artists decided to break their contracts (selling through the parent gallery only) with galleries and went on their own ways. Bad blood has already developed between many artists and their galleries in due course of time. It is a ‘there is no alternative situation’. Artists have to maintain their studios and look after their families. To make matters worse most of the artists had developed an upper class life style during the boom years. Now they are hard pressed to make negotiations with the buyers in order to ‘run’ their studios. Same is the case with the galleries; they too are not able to sustain the artists by providing them with regular sales or subsistence to lead a decent life. Many artists have taken up jobs elsewhere. Some have shifted bases. Many marriages have been broken. Many have taken to bottles. In all these while most of the gallerists put up a zen like face as if they are not responsible for any of these at all! The story of correction that everyone was talking about in those days of economic meltdown seems to have lost its edge. And in my opinion no correction has been done in the market. Everyone is waiting for another chance; the same greed and avarice would come into full play once again. Just wait and watch.

We have this policy of starting early; not because the adage that the early birds catch the worms but because it is the only time the city roads look like roads worthy of driving. Bangalore, once upon a time was a city of easiness because of good climate, cosmopolitan outlook, greenery and smooth flow of traffic. Today the scene has changed completely. At times we may take one full hour to cover half a kilometer. We may even think of getting out of the cars and walking towards our destinations. But that too is not possible in the case of this bumper to bumper traffic in Bangalore. We cannot get out of the car because the other car is so close to us. Once caught in such a traffic jam in Bangalore, I felt this huge urge to ease myself. It was so difficult to hold the urine for over an hour. I thought of all those people, young and old, men and women who felt the same while caught in the traffic jams. People know that they are doing wrong to the cities by bringing out cars and other private vehicles in hoards. They all complaint, in any city in India, that the government has not made enough provisions for public conveyance. They say that our public transport system is so bad. In some part of Tamil Nadu, I found that there are no public conveyance systems at all. People always have to walk or use two wheelers. The desperate ones have to hitchhike. But I believe that it is a wrong notion that the governments have no plans to put public conveyance in place. The governments and the authorities are just lazy. They know that people would find their private conveyance systems. If fifty per cent of the city dwellers decide to travel by public transport there would be a pressure on the government to increase the conveyance systems. But people are so selfish that they want to use their private vehicles to overcome the lack of public conveyance. So the roads are chocked always. When caught up in the terrible traffic jams they complain and curse one and all who are in the other vehicles. In fact it is not they who cause the traffic jam but us. We are the traffic and we are the traffic jam makers. Bangalore is no exception. Even there is a rumor that has been doing the rounds for the last one year; there is a doomsday prediction that in another ten to twenty years Bangalore will be a city without a drop of natural water. The city has to be abandoned at some point. People are thinking several times these days before investing in Bangalore. But the diehard Bangaloreans say that the depletion of the water table is a fact but the complete desertion of the city due to it is just another myth.

We get out of the city early in the morning only because that we could cover a longer distance towards our next destination without getting into any traffic jams. People in the cities do not see much of sunrises and sunsets. Those who are tired after a long night must be getting up late. Some people get up only according to their office times. Those people who have small kids to be sent to schools have a different routine. There are people who get up early in the morning and hit joggers parks or gyms. Those who go to gym do not see the natural light and listen to natural sounds. Those who walk in the park are talking to each other about the latest calamities happening to the domestic economy or the problems in the political front. Some are tired of their health conditions and are always complaining. Those people who are doing yoga in the public parks are so immersed in their spiritual cum physical exercise act that they too miss the sights and sounds of nature. Very few people in the world just get up and look at the nature; listen to the sounds of it. Very few people just go out for a walk without any purpose; even the purpose of maintaining health. Very few people tend their garden and water their plants. Instead all of them just get into their cars and drive impatiently to their destinations. I wonder why they are doing this at all. If gaining peace and happiness, health and a feeling of wealth is the outcome of all this, they all forget the fact that in the race to make money to create all these they lose each and every one of it without their knowing. There is no tomorrow to enjoy happiness and health. It is today. It is here and now. The illness that you are undergoing today also has to be taken with a positive spirit so that you understand and feel the illness and once it is over it is over for ever. Same is the case with happiness. It is here and now. You are not earning it for tomorrow for there is no tomorrow. We do not see many cars on the road. The window panes are rolled down already. The morning breeze wafts into the car. The drive is smooth and pleasant. As we have taken bath early in the morning itself each pore in our body and mind are open and awake. Anything could be talked and discussed with clarity in those moments. Anything could be seen, felt, imbibed and made a part of your life in those moments.

Bangalore has gone behind and we hit the Bangalore-Mangalore highway. We have not made any plans to visit any places on the way or anything. We have to reach the Coffee Plantations at the earliest and if possible Shibu has to do some sketching and myself some writing. As the drive is smooth and we are energetic, Leena asks certain questions regarding art and alternatively myself and Shibu answer her questions. It continues till the first tea stop which is in a nowhere space and could be anywhere in India where the long stretch of new highways have come up. Mostly run by a husband and wife pair such tea shops are small enterprises with limited items and very limited flavors of teas. We have a cup of tea from there and again get back into the car. And there our plan for the day spontaneously comes up. Shravanabelagoa, one of the greatest Jain Shrines in India is there. And on the way to Sakaleshpur two other important historical places are also there namely Halebedu and Belur, two Hoysala temples. The huge and tall monolithic sculpture of Vardhamana Mahavira is in my mind and we want to go there. We ask for directions and find the left turn towards Shravanabelagola. Shibu stops the car and he wants a flower garland for the car. We buy one and tie it on the front grill. The car looks happy. Then we proceed and slowly from a distance we feel the ambience of a temple city. Shravanabelagola is here. I look for the tall Mahavir statue which I have seen only in picture books and postcards. Shibu parks the car near a pond, which at that point of time do not understand is so important to the place for the place has got its name from that pond. Belagola means white pond. It is right in the middle of the two hill ranges; Vindhyagiri and Chandragiri. We get out of the car and go into a small tiffin shop from where we have the usual fair of idli and sambar.

Vindhyagiri Hills is the abode of Vardhamana Mahavira. The hills have been famous even before the Birth of Christ and many kings who had taken to Jainism had come here to do penance. Even today several Jain Sadhus come here to do ‘Sallekhanam’ or ‘Prayopavesham’ (fasting unto death as a part of their deliverance). We have to climb around steps made on the slanting rock. There are two such stairways one is made for ascending and the other is for descending. Each stairway is partitioned with a steel railing which looks like a recent addition. There is a narrow path between the two railings and some of the old nuns climb through that narrow strip, in between sitting there holding the railing as if it catch the breath. Before we start the climbing we go to keep our footwear in the cloakroom. There is a urinal adjacent to it. Myself and Shibu go there and as we come out a young girl who is ‘manning’ both the urinals ask for four rupees (two rupees each). I give her ten rupees and she says she does not have change. Then I ask her to keep the ten rupees. She refuses to take the money. She says we could go without paying. Is it the saffron clothes that I am wearing, I wonder. Anyway that gesture of that girl seems to be praiseworthy. Apparently it is a lowly job but she looks pleasant and without any complaint or bitterness. Bare feet touch the granite floor that is getting heated up in the morning sun. We start our ascendance. At some point we see two naked Jain sadhus climbing down the hill with a few devotees in attendance. They look absolutely normal with sky as their clothing. I have eye contact with both of them. They do not betray any other emotions. I notice that their male organs are insignificantly small and shriveled up. We stop for catching breath and again we climb. Under the huge granite boulders we could see some young couples seeking some shelter for their private moments. Interestingly they look indifferent to each other. They must be sulking after a fight, I think.

The climb seems to be never ending. Finally we reach the top and still we have not seen the 58ft tall monolithic statue of Mahavira. I look around and up for it, but in vain. Then suddenly from one angle I see him! His face. He stands and looks across the town to the Chandragiri Hills and beyond. The statue itself is the idol of the temple that we enter. There is a scaffold around it and some chemical treatment undertaken by the archeological survey of India is going on. In a month’s time there is a ‘Mahaabhishekam’ and the preparations are on. The statue is dated sometime in 10^th century CE and it is one of the important pilgrim centers for the Jains and a touristic attraction for the other people. The rock cut statue seems to be so fresh as if it has been just made and erected there. I stand there and look at the statue. There is a discussion in hushed up tones going on just behind me as Leena is quite animated about the seeming disproportion of the lower body of the sculpture. It is true that the portion below the hip is comparatively shorter and from the knee the legs seem to have suddenly stopped growing. Shibu also says that there is a proportion problem but there must be a reason for that. I say that it could be because of its position on the top of the hill and the people always get a ant’s point of view (a lower angle view) which would make the shortened portion of the leg elongated. I also cite how the old hoarding and billboard painters did such deliberate distortions to make the image look perfect from a low angle. Leena seems to have convinced. We take a few photographs. Some people are already there sitting a few feet away from the feet of Mahavira and read something from the scriptures. The statue of Mahavira seems to be beyond all kinds of worship and reverence. It is there to generate awe and wonder in the minds of the people. It should generate bhakti via its sheer size, poise, stillness and tranquility. We come out of the shrine and take a few photographs from around the temple where we could see the head of the statue popping out of the temple façade as if Mahavira was a truant young man looking for some fun.

We climb down. Ascending is easier compared to descending. In life ascending is difficult while descending takes no time. When you descend the thousand steps your whole body weight is on the thighs and knees. Each step pulls the thigh muscles pull up and hold the weight of the body. It is a good exercise if one does it every day; one could have very taught muscles. But one has to be careful too. I hold the railings and climb down. I remember the thigh pain I experienced once in Hyderabad after ascending and descending the stairs of the illustrious Charminar building. It took many days for me to get rid of the pain. At some point Leena decides to run down the stairs and she does it. Though it looks easier and avoid longer pressure on legs, I find it a dangerous proposition. If you slip you are going to break a few bones. I hold the railing tightly and descend slowly and steadily. After running down for a few steps Leena also seems to realize the danger involved in it. She slows down and starts descending step by step. We come down and collect our footwear. We go to the urinal again and this time I give the girl guarding there ten rupees and she returns two rupees. With a smile she tells us that the total is eight rupees including the pending four rupees earlier. She has the same smile on her face; absolutely trouble free and no bitterness. It is not yet ten o clock in the morning. The book shop there remains closed. So we decide to go to the Chandragiri Hills across the pond. In the meanwhile we see the spectacle of an old white man being carried inside a palanquin propped on the shoulders of four men, not so heavy looking yet trained in climbing with this load on their shoulders, up the hill towards the monolithic sculpture of Mahavira.

Chandragiri Hills have around fifteen Basadis (Homes) of the kings and Jain monks. Some of them are made out of the donations contributed by the merchants and some are created by the kings who believed in Jainism. These hill abodes are more spiritual and less touristy than the Vidhyagiri hills. There is a sense of loneliness and death looming largely in these temples. Most of the temples have Thirthankaras as their idols and these homes/temples are quiet and peaceful. The smell of ancientness lingers on in them. Behind each shrine one could see squirrels and rats playing and fighting for some food crumbs. These Basadis are misused by the local lovers therefore the watchmen are a bit vigilant and chances of they themselves misbehaving with the female visitors are not rare either. I walk into each Basadi and I feel this immense urge to sit there for a long time. But we have to reach the plantation today itself so I curb the urge. Once again I believe that people should travel alone. Having a company is always a hindrance. If the other person/s have different ideas about spending time, you may be in trouble for you must be having a completely different idea about spending your time. These are the places where the Jain monks who wanted to gain deliverance from the entanglements of the physical body sat in penance and did Sallekhanam (fasting unto death). Inside the temples and on the rocky surface outside we see small curves resembling the seat of the people who had spent a prolonged time there. But one cannot have the impressions of the bums transferred on granite even if he sits there for ten years without moving. Those depressions in the surfaces must be created by something else, which none could come up with a satisfactory explanation. The sun is already up and it is eleven in the morning. Our bare feet feel the heat of the sun and the eyes just cannot stand the glare of the sunlight reflecting from the smooth rock surface. We start our descending and it is time to say good bye to the ancient shrines. It is a journey and there could be more temples whether their locations are chartered or not. We would visit them as time comes and as the karmic piety pulls me towards them.

The Birth of a Self Portrait: The Journey 8

Slowly and steadily the hotel room that we occupy in Bangalore turns into an artist’s studio. After meeting the CKP management that has organized the art camp and illustrated lectures it has been decided that Shibu could work from the hotel room. He collects some art materials from the camp site though he has enough work equipments and materials stocked in the car for a prolonged creative journey. Any art material is a great supply for him for Shibu remembers those days in the Trivandrum Fine Arts College in early 1980s when he had joined there as a graduate student in the painting department. Money was the first thing that needed for any fine arts students to procure working materials and money was the last thing happening to all of them. A few lucky classmates were there in those days who with a good provision from homes used to use art materials lavishly. One of them was very liberal with his oil paint tubes. After the initial squeezing he used to throw them away. The other students use to wait for him to discard those tubes so that they could start working on their canvases. Though Shibu was never forced to that level of waiting, he knew the supply was very difficult to come by and the practice of preserving art materials became a habit. Even today, looking at him working on his canvases, using oil paints or on paper with water colors, and later cleaning of the foldable easel, one would understand how meticulous he is with his art materials. He squeezes very little paints on the palette and then does the second helping only when that is finished. I have noticed this character with many serious painters; a couple of months back when I visited A.Ramachandran in his Delhi studio, I asked him why he always painted two canvases, one large and one small, at the same time. He smiled at me (the wise smile of an eighty two year old artist) and said, “Each time I need to load the brush with colors and by the time I finish one stroke satisfactorily on the large canvas, I see still some paint is left on the brush and I just do not want to waste it, so I use it on the smaller canvas. It gives me two things at once; I save myself from not wasting paints which are precious and I get two paintings each time I start one.” Shibu too belongs to that classical Spartan thinking.

The moment an artist like Shibu decides to do a work of art, the whole energy level changes in them causing a total change in the energy level of the surroundings. I have experienced with many artists including Shibu. Once they are at it, the world ceases to exist for them. They may be talking to you or listening to some music but they are just used as surround sounds or ambience; they are not just there. In the world of painterly creations only the artist and his work exist. I have heard a lot about artists working from hotel rooms. In the lore pertaining to the Progressive Artists like F.N.Souza and M.F.Husain who had been itinerant savants in certain sense sojourning in various cities across the world used to paint in the hotel rooms often not really thinking about the future of those works. The patrons who used to pay the hotel bills collected those works and such benevolent patrons today sit on vast treasures as these artists have become the favorites in the auction market. Though Shibu enjoys painting from within the studios as much as he enjoys painting in the outdoors, he does not really like the idea of painting as collectives; as in the case of camp. The decision to paint from within the hotel room was to keep himself off from the set of artists working from large halls from their respective corners. Shibu as a recluse in nature prefers to be alone when he is working; only thing is that he enjoys people looking at him working when he does it in the outdoors. But the reason for such enjoyment is that none of them are his peer group artists who would perhaps compare their practice with his. Shibu has a performer in him and he enjoys that very much. When people come around and give him admiring looks he feels the happiness as an artist more than that he gets when he shows in an urban gallery. Shibu believes that painting is a language without having the limitations of a verbal or scriptural language. A painter or a singer could be appreciated easily by people because they are the people who create a space, a form and meaning without too much supportive paraphernalia. They are treated as people who could literally create very similitude of emotions via forms. And each onlooker wants to be a part of the whole picture making. They are not only envious of the painter but also of the model. Each one wants to be a model. Each one wants how he or she turns out to be when mediated via the mind, heart and skill of the artist. Shibu being a traveler and painter of landscapes has enjoyed the awe and reverence that people show when he does a landscape in the outdoors.

Ever since we are back in the hotel room Shibu looks out for something constantly. He is looking for something as the model for his painting. He sincerely wants a model in the room; a male or a female. But he feels that it would be rude to ask for a model from the organizers. For the time being he contemplates making me the model. He expresses this idea to me and I tell him not to do so because they may not expect my portrait for their museum collection. Besides, such an attempt would be a bit arrogant from Shibu side as they would think that he has taken an easy route of painting his fellow traveler (perhaps, they would have been happy had his fellow traveler been a woman and is a stranger to the larger art scene). As a writer I know how an artist feels like. I am too familiar to Shibu in this trip and making me the model of his painting would amount to the breathing of closeness; when two people travel together there is something called the unbearable lightness of being too close for a long time. The attraction for the human form that happens out of strangeness and distance may not happen in that case which would render an attempt on the portraiture a bit drab and dull. Rembrandt has painted his consort Madam Saskia several times. Dali has done the paintings of Gala innumerable times. The relationship here is more sexual. There is a sexual titillation in the creative portraiture. The artist is constantly objectifying a model here. His gaze actually measures up the model. The model is passive and is subjected to that gaze. Shibu has observed that many a times the models who sit for him (especially the woman models) complaint about their brooding looks or pensive looks in the portrait. They just do not like them being portrayed with a sad countenance. Shibu explains that it happens because when they start modeling, they are all conscious and gives the best happy expression possible. But by the time the artist finishes the initial outline, the model develops a passive resistance of the gaze of the artist. It is a meditation time for the model. He/she goes into a sort of stillness and the posture loses its artificiality. The real self of the model comes out. What the artist sees it in the face of the model is his or her mental journey. However, by the time the work is finished what the model looks for is what he/she remembers about the posture that she/he has given at the outset. What she remembers is the smile on her face at that time. She has forgotten the fact that she has gone into a different trip after that. What she sees on the canvas is the self reflected on the face. An artist like Shibu does not feel it important to make the model ‘beautiful’. After sometime, the painter too falls into a sort of trance. Even the initial controller and the controlled relationships also wears off as the time proceeds and he too gets into a sort of state of mind where what he sees is only forms, light, volumes. Even the emotions that we see the resultant portrait is just an aggregate of all these aspects that the skilled painter captures in his brush strokes.

Before we retire for the day Shibu has two ideas in his mind. One, he wants to paint the bed in the room. Two, he wants to paint the tablets strip from which the tablets have been already extracted. For both of us tablets have become constant companions; though we use only a minimum of them. He has seen his mother taking a few tablets and the discarded strips of foils have been an attraction for him. He asks me whether I have got such strips with me. I find one in my bag and gives to him. He looks at it under various lights and goes to bed thinking that he would paint the medicine foil. In the next morning we go for our usual morning walk around the golf course and as we almost reach the main stretch of the course that runs along the main road, at a distance I find someone who looked familiar walking opposite to us. I am surprised to see the person as he comes closer. He too must be having the same doubts and as he recognizes me he calls out my name with all warmth and rushes to hold my hands. He is Dilip Tripathy, the program officer of the National Lalit Kala Akademy. He has been a friend over two decades. I introduce Shibu to him. Surprisingly he remembers Shibu quite clearly and he recounts one particular incident happened in the year (2003) when Shibu had received the Triennale Award for painting. Tripathy is in a good mood. I ask him about the translation works that he has been doing of late which has given him even the national award from the Sahitya Akademi for translation. Tripathy translated Oriya literature into Hindi. Besides, he is a painter. Tripathy is there in Bangalore for setting up the National Exhibition which is to be held at the NGMA, Bangalore. With the Administrator of the National LKA, Chiru Krishna Shetty is from Bangalore now a few national activities are decentralized which is a good move. Tripathy has been staying in Bangalore for the last two weeks and he seems to be craving for some company. As we say good bye to him and continue our walk, he decides to come with us. He takes us to the NGMA premises, I show Shibu my favorite tree there and as it is just seven o clock in the morning, it is too early to see anything inside the buildings. Tripathy buys us tea and we say good bye to him in front of the old Hotel Chalukya where he stays and I too have fond memories of staying in this hotel a couple of years back.

Back in the hotel we have our breakfast at the dining. Anusha Koirala is in her uniform to receive the diners. She exchanges pleasantries and we return it. We have an early breakfast and go back to the room where Shibu is going to start the work. In the room, he wears a light yellow-green kurta, wears a bluish black cap and a red apron. The easel has been already set in front of the mirror. He announces that he has dropped the idea of painting the bed and the tablet strip. Now he is all set to make a self portrait. Self portrait has been a favorite artistic expression ever since the human beings have started painting. In the cave walls they painted not only the animals but also painted themselves in the hunting scenes. Even in emblematic and cryptogrammic form they have been incorporating their selves in the pictorial expressions. When art became purely a religious expression, in most of the votive paintings, artists too started putting their selves or surrogated selves as a part of the group of worshipers among the divine scenes. During Renaissance of any part of the world, artists started placing themselves as esoteric practitioners and it became a pre-requisite for them to paint their selves as shamans, priests, scientists or god themselves. With the private patronage coming to support individual artistic practices, self portraiture got more an independent status and there are no enough evidences to see that these self portraits were commissioned by the patrons. Hence we have to understand that in the newly developed scenario of independent art practice, artist himself might have developed this idea of looking at the self that watches all the other selves around him and portraying them in various guises. The self portraiture must be an evidential parameter against which the artist makes all the assessments about the portraits that he makes on others. It is not only self indulgent but also a spiritual seeking. It is a sort of documentation and registration in the physical level but at the same time a marker of the spiritual progress that the artist makes. Self portraiture is not simply the love for an egoistic self. But it is an attempt to see the eye that sees all. It is an inwardly look and reversed gaze. Self portraiture is the desexualization of the artist himself/ herself. An artist does not feel the need to sexualize his appearance in any of his portraits. From Da Vinci to Rembrandt, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Gaugin to Krichner we do not see any effort from the artists to make themselves sexually appealing to anybody, not even unto themselves. These self portraitures are incisive, intrusive, clinical and dispassionate. Though the artist could take a lot of fancy when he paints his self portrait, there is always a philosophical distance. It is not just about capturing the likeness. It is all about capturing that mood of meditation. It is about registering a philosophical state of being. When you are making your self portrait, you are the most immobile person in the world. You are two while being one; one is the model and the other is the painter. The model is not the painter and the painter is not the model. But they are one and the same when the portrait is manifested in the canvas. This is a journey from dvaita to advaita, duality to unity. Shibu says that for portraiture the best model is the self because only the self has the patience to be the same throughout the painting session.

The room is lit with a strong spot light which has been there as if willed by the providence. A portrait always looks good in the spot light but the actuality of the portrait making is felt when it is taken away from the spot light and seen from a normally or partially lit corner. That is the natural light against which we see the portrait. The light from the outside is so strong therefore the window is closed with a double layered curtain to keep the room cool. For sometime Shibu keeps the curtains opened but soon closes it as he feels that the spot light is enough. On the white canvas he makes a rough shadow like figure with one single stroke with some sort of ochre color. Then he takes it off from the easel keeps it in a dark corner and looks at it intently. He seems to have seen the whole portrait in it. Now only thing is left to do is to get the portrait out of the canvas with a swishy smudge that he has just made. Then he takes it again to easel and fills up the background with a muddy color. I see a shadowy figure standing in the middle of the canvas. It is an island in a muddy sea. A self portrait is an island, I realize. He keeps working on it. And in one and half hour I could see him standing there looking intently back at him. But there are so many things that need to be added and discarded so that the final portrait would come out. What is there to add and what is there to discard, I look at it and ask myself. I could make out certain areas that need more work but eventually I would see them getting corrected automatically when he adds a patch here or there away from the place I have been looking at. What stand prominently for the time being is the red apron and the semi-yello-green kurta and the cap on his head. He takes it off from the easel and keeps looking at it.

One day has passed. The painting needs a second session and it waits patiently at the easel. Shibu wears the same clothe once again and takes up his magic wand in his left hand that helps him as a support to rest the right palm while he does the detailing. Now it is the time to do the eyes and correct the lips and jaw. Shibu seems to be a master of faces. With a few touches here and there the jaw is corrected and it aligns with the jaw line along the cheeks and to the chin. The eyes are slightly tilted now and he gives a magical touch there and they become in the same line and the counter gaze is intensified. In the meanwhile the artist couple (Sohni and Abhishek Dasgupta) who had taken us to Koshy’s come. Looking at Shibu’s work the girl wants to do a painting. She picks up one of the sketchbooks and does a watercolor. The young man being a photography artist himself picks up the camera and keeps making portraits of Shibu making a self portrait. The room becomes a maze of mirrors with an artist looking at the mirror and making a self portrait, with a self portrait coming out in the canvas, and the reflection of the artist and the portrait in the mirror, a man taking a photograph of the artist making a self portrait, his reflection in the mirror along with all other reflections and so on. By evening the other camp artists come there; T.V.Santhosh, Reji KP, Sarad Kulagati, Mahesh Baliga, Sujith SN, Murali Cheeroth (who happened to come to Bangalore for another work) and so on. They are all happy to see the work. Shibu takes out the painting and signs verso, puts the date and someone comes and picks up the work and go away. The hotel room becomes a hotel room once again. It has been a studio till then. The paint smell is still lingering. So is the spirit of the self portrait.

Taste of Memories: The Journey 7

Koshy's Bengaluru

A traveler is always asked to go to certain food joints in a new place so that he could get a 'taste' of the place. A genuine traveler whether he is asked to or not definitely would check out certain culinary specialities in new place not only to titillate his taste buds but also to understand the nature of the people in the new place. I am not talking about the highly recommended restaurants in the star hotels but about the small little shacks and inns, the places where the natives as well as travellers haunt to eat food and share stories. One need not necessarily be a great foodie to test and taste the food of new places. These food joints tell the traveller how the ordinary and extra ordinary people fare there. Let's forget the people who go by the text book and often end up eating small portions of decorative food items for some unearthly prices. 

It is so true that when people recommend a place to eat they also lament the vanishing of another food point which they would have definitely preferred the traveller to go and taste had it been there. At times those people who accompany the traveler to the food places tell him that the quality of the place has come down so much in time though the ambience remains the same. A restaurant is always a requiem to itself or a better one once existed in the same place or elsewhere in the same city. A food joint is often enjoyed not just for its food and ambience but for the memories attached too. That's why you are taken to such a place your friends prefer to sit in the same table that they have been sitting since the first day of their visit to the place. You too tend to sit in the same seat if you happen to be there for a second time by chance or by deliberation, with friends or without friends. A food joint comes to you before you go there; it comes in the forms of anecdotes and stories. Ask someone who recommends you the restaurant whether he has been there himself or not, at times you may be shocked to listen that he has never been in the city let alone the food joint there. But he has heard about it from friends and read about it from books. He has been dreaming of sitting there in one of those chairs and enjoy a snack.

Koshy's Bengaluru

In Delhi as one rises up in the socio-economic ladder the recommendations change from parathawala gali in old Delhi to the Pandara Park restaurants to Hauz khas villages. As I am not into the night life in Delhi I do not have any clue about the night haunts. In Mumbai everyone suggests Leopold restaurant in Colaba which has been bulletholed into the history of the city. In Kolkata coffee house is a must. But in Bangalore everybody talks about the famous restaurant Koshy's.  When T.J.S.George writes the short biography of Bangalore in his book titled 'Askew' for the Aleph publishing company, he gives a flowery description about Koshy's restaurant. If the biography of a city cannot be completed without talking about a restaurant then it must be really important. There is another side to it. Food and the ambience that the place provides have already made Koshy's an inextricable part of the make up of the city; hence a biographer cannot avoid describing it. If a biographer does not then the bards would. However poetry and history cannot be as charming as they are once taken out of the pages and experienced directly. Koshy's is a similar case.

Koshy's Restaurant

In Bangalore we visit Koshy's with a young couple. I had visited this restaurant once before with some senior artists and this time we are with a Bangalore based young couple. Surprisingly I find myself moving towards the same table that we had occupied in the first visit. It has old furniture and old waiters. Some of them are Malayalis and some are kannadigas. All of them talk in something similar to Tamil. Koshy's ambience is that of the Indian coffee house; a coffee house chain started by A.K.Gopalan one of the pioneers of Indian communism in order to provide jobs for many people. Now it has become a covetable brand with diehard fans and clients. Koshy's also has similar clients who appear at a particular time at a particular table where they are served their favourite food or snacks without placing an order. Some of the clients are specially treated with a new table cloth and a small rose to go with it. Someone told me that one of them has been coming and sitting at the same table for over three decades.

Koshy's is started by an affluent Christian family from Kerala in Bangalore and has been there for over half a century. Those people knew the father Koshy have children who know the Koshy sons. With the city they too have grown up and eating out in Koshy's has become an extended family affair for many. When Koshy's came into business Bangalore was not the Bangalore that we know today. It was not an IT city and the mall culture had not gripped it. Nor were there any franchise eateries serving international tastes. Koshy's set the cosmopolitan tone in food by serving vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods till the taste was replaced by the brand value of the place. Of course the diehard fans of the place would say the food still tastes the same as it used to be. However for the city hoppers it is not just food but a slice of history that makes an eating session in Koshy's more memorable. If you are a selfie freak then you will be disappointed as there is nothing to show off in the interiors. The same spartan look and I doubt whether the stewards have gone a bit slow in their feet with time. The most agile waiters I have ever seen are those work in the Indian coffee house outlet just outside Trivandrum bus stand. The building is spiral and a waiter has to do the uphill-downhill run several times a day; still they serve with a smile. In Koshy's I find the waiters a little bit sluggish than the last time. It gives away an impression that the waiters know that even if they don't rush people would wait patiently because it is not the food that they serve that matters any more.

Anusha Koirala and Johny ML

The stay in the hotel is good. The breakfast buffet is capable of washing off the memories of Koshy's food last night. The breakfast dining is managed by a group of young boys and a middle aged chef keeps coming back to check the fairs that have been laid out by the boys. I meet the artist friends in other tables but I prefer to sit separately. I pick up two glasses of juice everyday; one for me and the other for Shibu. The head restaurant manager is a young lady. She grows curious and comes to the table and tells me that she finds it so cute that I pick up one glass of juice for my friend too. Cute is the word that could be used everywhere for any purpose. She is very talkative. As we eat she keeps asking questions. Learning that one of us is a painter and the other a writer she is excited to say that she is a singer. Her name is Anusha Koirala. She hails from Bhutan and she has come to Bangalore to pursue her degree in English literature. She attends an evening college and works as a restaurant manager during the daytime. She is just two and a half months into the present job. 

Anusha Koirala speaks through our breakfast. I ask her whether Bhutanese people also have Koirala as surname. She says that her father is from Nepal. She seems to be compulsive cell phone user. She opens the gallery of her phone and shows her family photo- a Nepali father, Bhutanese mother. Her sister is in the US and is married to a white man. Anusha says that her Hyderabadi boyfriend and herself want to settle down in the US and pursue restaurant business. While chattering into our breakfast she says she is just twenty one years old. But she looks a bit older. She even says that she has been offered roles in Kannada serials. I just make a mental comparison between the waiters at Koshy's and this girl in the hotel dining. The reason is clear; she is enjoying her job as she is new to it. Besides she must have been asked to be friendly to the guests. As years pass she may also become grumpy and would be relegated to backroom jobs. Or she may even leave the field and migrate to something else. As we go out she moves to the next table and start chatting up with them. However something comes back as a bad reminder of our colonial legacy and value systems. As I walk back to the foyer one day wearing a saffron dhoti one of the staff members comes to me and ask what am I looking for. I say, my room. He looks unconvinced. "If you are looking for a restaurant that's another side," he says. I live here, and I show my room key card. The commotion attracts the front desk people. I reach my room. The phone in the room to rings. "Sir, how is your stay?" A very polite and soft female voice asks me. "Yes, its going great except what you just saw at the foyer," I say. "We apologise sir. We are really sorry. On behalf of the management we apologise sir," she says. I hang up the phone.

Portraits of Artists in Bangalore: The Journey 6

Mahesh Kummar, Shibu Natesan, Latah Kurien, Johny ML

This is an interim chapter in a possibly never ending travelogue. It is not necessary that I travel from one place to another; I could be stable at one place and could see the world pass by or even let people come to me. When they come, they bring a different world to me. When I sit in a religious shrine my meditation is also on people and the possibilities of the stories that they are carrying with them. The other day I was sitting with artist Anil Janardanan at Ramana ashram in Thiruvannamalai where he had come to attend the Shivarathri festivals. A middle aged couple passed by us. Anil said he could see two huge wings on her shoulders almost touching on the floor that made her incapable of flying away. Soon he added that her husband was a gentleman happy with what he had got as dowry along with the bride. Perhaps he wanted to ask for more but he was afraid of his father-in-law. We laughed enjoying the story thoroughly. If one could come up with such flights of fancies what could really be their own stories! 

In Bangalore I meet a few friends and suddenly I feel that they are mobile and I am stable for they have come from different places and are going to different places soon. But I know their stories partially; I want to recount them briefly and feel how much I remember not only the stories but also the people around whom those small anecdotes are built.

N S Harsha

N.S.Harsha: When I met him first he was painting some expressionistic organic interiors and the large canvases looked ambitious for a student in early 1990s in Baroda. Harsha had a backache; his grandparents and parents had asked him to write certain chants repeatedly in order to alleviate himself from the pain. He had shown me some of his chat inscriptions. It seems to have persisted in his works even in his matured period as an artist. Everything came in multiples; sleeping men, eating men, married couples, sewing machines, flags and what not. Harsha paints intricate patterns that resemble the intricate network of underground roots or the branches of innumerable celestial trees that grow dreams. In Bangalore Harsha has just come from Tokyo. He went straight away to the CKP students. He tells me he is suffering from jet lag.

Anilkumar HA

Anilkumar HA: I don't remember when did I meet him first. But I remember him writing in the magazines that I used to edit. The market was booming, artists were making art, galleries were mushrooming, new designations were being created in the art field and along with all these art critics were writing. New art writers were coming up everyday; like a magical picture that looked different from different angles art writer's were becoming curators, gallerists, consultants and party animals. A few in the tribe stood firmly closer to the ethics of art history and criticism. Anilkumar was one. A crusader for vernacular art history and criticism he has also translated certain seminal texts like 'ways of seeing' in Kannada. Anilkumar likes to pep up his articles with quotes and footnotes. As it is CKP rule he too has served as the principal of the art institute. He makes a graphic journal about the city of Bangalore in his leisure time. I see him this time in black shirt and jeans, with a notepad in hand he runs around conducting the illustrated lecture sessions smoothly. He is a smooth talker. 

Latha Kurien

Latha Kurien: Enthusiasm incarnated, that's how I qualify Latha. With formal education in art history from Santiniketan she is someone who did not practice art history or criticism and only worked everything around it. Latha does not visit places; she just happens. With a special ability not only to make friends but also to maintain them pleasantly Latha is welcomed wherever she goes. She established an art cafe and an art gallery in Trivandrum. She had a funny landlord in her gallery who did not allow the gallery visitors park their cars anywhere near his home which was in fact the adjacent courtyard. Like a giant miser he came out often shooing away the visitors till either the lease expired or Latha's patience. With Rajeev Kumar, one of the talented film directors as her husband Latha has dabbled in film making not only as a producer but also a maker of her own short films. I have written a script for her which is yet to materialise. In Bangalore she is a familiar presence for she not only knows the artists but also the city like her palm for she had spent her school days here. By surprising all of us she eats a chocolate ice cream while rest of us drink tea. When you see her next time Latha will be enthusiastically working on something without bothering much about the outcome.

Manjunath Kamath

Manjunath Kamath: I remember meeting Manju (I call him so while rest of the world calls him Kamath) at the foyer of Delhi Lalit Kala Academy sometime in mid-1990s. He had come back from London or some place. I had heard about him from other friends who worked for newspapers as graphic artists. Manju with good graphics skills was also working in one of the major newspapers. We glanced at each other but did not say hello as we never had been introduced formally by anybody. Then I saw his work; the video art was the latest in Delhi and Manju's was a video art piece. He was inside a tele screen reclining on a pillow, sleeping and winking once in a while at the viewer. This image later he used in several of his paintings. Slowly we became friends. I started liking his quirky paintings and personality. His style was imitated by many after the mediatic realism style. He makes sculptures and graphic art. He has trained two fine designers in his studio; Sarath Nayak and Krishna Nayak. Perhaps Indian video art from Delhi owes a lot to Sarath and Manju's then studio at Hauz Khas. One day Manju did a quirky series with a tonsured portrait of mine. He turned me into a lascivious monk in the company of sensuous men and women. Manju's studio in Delhi fed me with tea and art stories. In Bangalore Manju is at a canvas. He tells me that he has made more clouds than images but he is going to make a different work for the museum. And his laughter and warmth has not reduced a bit though it has been long that I visited him in his studio.

T V Santhosh

T.V.Santhosh: I met him in 1994 when Santhosh came to Baroda to pursue masters in sculpture. By that time he had already spent around ten years in various art institutions including Thrissur fine arts college and Santiniketan. Santhosh started off as a cultural activist in his native place often helping the left activists make placards and hoardings. He did a few street theatres before going into full time art studentship. Throughout the student period and later in his matured period too, in his own admission he has been oscillating between hardcore leftism and strongly felt spiritualism. Looking at his oeuvre so far one could say for sure that the social commitment of art informed by the leftist ideology has taken over his spiritual inclinations. Santhosh had felt this oscillation exhilarating but today he finds it cumbersome. It is high time that he settles down in a different zone of art making or setting himself free from all those ideological commitments. In Bangalore when I attend his illustrated lecture surprisingly he comes off as a very eloquent person contrary to the popular image of him being a shy and reticent artist. The commotion in his mind as well as in his works is palpable. There are full of terrorists and revolutionaries in his works. Life and death play chess in them. He speaks of animal and human suicide bombers. He switched from one medium to another. Then finally one asks why this calm and contained artist seems to be so agitated in his works. Santhosh too seems to have realised it. I am sure he is on the path of a total makeover.

Sujith SN

Sujith SN: Before major galleries had picked him up, in mid 2000s I had seen this young artist making good paintings along with his peer group artists namely Sujith Sudhakar, Anil Thambai, Reji Arakkal and so on. Then the market boom happened. Sujith shifted to Mumbai where he found success through various private galleries. He paints misty landscapes and city scapes. He thinks about unfinished languages and visual images. Vast landscapes come repeatedly with huge buildings at the horizon line. There is something mysterious about his works. Sujith used to be a lover of wine. He goes ballistic when he drinks. A gentle guy becomes a little monster. But in Bangalore I see a mature Sujith. He tells me that his child has started attending play school. I feel happy about Sujith. He had done a lot of works by now and some selections from it he shares with us. His eyes, I notice, are red. Why is it so, I wonder.

Mahesh Kummar

Mahesh Kummar: I first met Mahesh in Facebook. Then in Pune Biennale in 2015. He came specially to meet me. He too was a participant in one of the shows in Pune Biennale. He said he was blessed by my presence. He lives in Bangalore and he likes to meet me whenever I am in Bangalore. His liking for me is so great that he started wearing a Rudraksha when I was wearing one. His wife, Maitri and son Ricky are very fond of me. One thing they don't like in me is my influence on Mahesh. Thinking that my Rudraksha practice might have made me stop eating non-veg Mahesh stopped eating non-veg and even stopped drinking beer. One day they invited us to his home in Yelahanka. It was a year back and upon seeing me eating non-veg and drinking beer Mahesh was scandalised. But his decision is strong. He remains a staunch vegetarian. Mahesh is a self taught artist with a great skill. He used to paint typical Indian romantic portraits, festival seasons and landscapes. Now he does a different kind of painting as he teaches himself of various contemporary concepts and techniques. Mahesh is a great friend whom you could rely on for help. Whenever I visit Bangalore Mahesh comes to meet me. Now he has a special edition Maruti Swift Decca in which he gives me a ride. Recently he humbled me: he sent me a message saying that he had sent me some money. I asked why and what for. He said he sold a painting and that he believed because of my blessings. I accepted the money not because I have fancies about my blessing power but because Mahesh's belief in me and his ability to give. If I wouldn't have shown my ability to accept he would have been sad. I don't want anybody sad in the world. Now Mahesh is on his way to his solo exhibition which I have told him to conduct only in 2018 end or 2019 beginning.

"Want Girls? I have Models." The Bangalore Way- The Journey 5

Shibu Natesan

Waking up from a comfortable bed could be a desirable experience for a traveller than finding one. In Bangalore we wake up early morning from a very cosy double bed which had been given to us by the receptionist with an apology around midnight; sorry we don't have a room with separate beds but you have been upgraded to larger room, the receptionist who looked as fresh as a day even at that odd hour had told us. The booking has been done by Chithra Kala Parishad, Karnataka and Shibu is their guest and myself in this phase of the trip is just an accompanying friend with no particular role, which I find a great job itself which has been paid handsomely with good accommodation, food and a lot of productive time in hand. On the previous night we had driven a long way. Somewhere along the road that went on like a soulful symphony with toll plazas for pauses we had found Bangalore a mere hundred and fifty kilometres away. A quick calculation yielded an average of three and half hours driving time. We had our sleeping gears ready in the car but we found it futile to spend a night in front of a way side in inside the car when we had a standing booking in a hotel three and half hours away. Shibu stepped on the gas and when he got tired I took the charge of the wheels. A well travelled artist though it was Shibu's first visit to Bangalore. Somehow for me Bangalore was just another art city that I had visited several times.

A rigorous and vigorous morning walk is like a doze of rejuvenating medicine for both of us. We hit the side walk of the road  along the golf course where we see a lot of old men hitting small white balls hard and  young men carrying the old men's clubs tediously. I have never understood this game. Like many other games that simply killed time for the rich and powerful golf too appear to me as a sheer waste of time. But someone who enjoys a game and someone who watches it without knowing it's rules and points from outside the fence and net the game should be felt differently. I have walked the same sidewalk many times in my various visits in the city. Surprisingly I find out that I have stayed in almost all the hotels in the area. As we walk further we come across the CKP and the artists Sujith SN and Mahesh Baliga walking towards the building from the other side. We wave at each other but I am not sure whether they are waving at me also or exclusively at Shibu for I am not an official guest here which Shibu is as they are. I know both of them as they had started their artistic career professionally in the shows curated by me between 2006 and 2009. 

Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath

Shibu hardly attends camps as his temperament as a person and as an artist does not suit to the general boisterousness of the art camps where artists prefer to do a lot of merry making than doing real work. In fact art camps are good relief for artists from their regular studio practices and family situations. And most of the camp organisers do not ask artists to work in the camp because everyone knows that creativity cannot be productively used or manipulated within the stipulations of art camps. Most of the organisers encourage the participating artists either to relax and enjoy or help them travel to important and historically relevant places in and around the camp site. Camps are also occasions for the artists living in different places to catch up with their contemporaries working from elsewhere. Camps if used positively are such platforms where artists could mix up in real time. But all the artists do not have camp tolerance- they prefer to be aloof. Shibu is one such artist and hardly go for camps therefore his rare appearance has been seen with much excitement and anticipation. Besides the news of him driving down to Bangalore seems to have  been discussed already by the other artists. I could see it in the face of Sujith and Mahesh. When we reached the dining hall of the hotel for the multi course complimentary buffet breakfast some other camp participants have already been there. Shibu exchanged pleasantries with all of them and I noticed one of them pretending not to have seen me. I went upto him and said hello. With practiced expression on his face he said he was surprised to see me there. 

Johny ML  - extreme right

Though I am not supposed to go to the camp site which lay spread in the CKP galleries I accompany Shibu and meet the other camp participants; Abir Karmakar, Prashant Sahu, Sunoj D, Reji KP, T.V.Santhosh, Manjunath Kamath, G.R.Iranna, Sarat Kulagatti, Devaraj and so on. As the organisers have already told the artists that though their works would go to the permanent collection of the CKP museum they want to make the camp beneficial to the students of the CKP fine arts college. So they expect the artists to work in situ and inspire the students. I see most of the artists working quite diligently with their own mediums and engaging with the students and visitors. As many artists work in the same location with a lot of walking ins and outs (though the organisers have made public hours only after 2 pm) the works well into the fourth day of the camp still look half finished or haphazardly finished. Soon I am told that almost all the artists would get these half done works back to their studios and would return a finished work to the organisers from their studios. As it is for the permanent collection of the forthcoming CKP Museum everyone wants to give a good work though the remuneration is comparatively less. 

Shibu does not want to paint in the gallery. At the same time he does not want to deprive the students a chance to see him working on canvas: so he derives a compromise formula- he would work from the hotel room, later he would speak to the students in their classrooms and would give a live demonstration if need be besides doing the illustrated lecture for the general public which he has already agreed upon. The organisers are happy to go by Shibu's suggestion. They give him a canvas and he collects the colours that he needs. As it is natural with the camps many friends come by to say hello to Shibu and they are all surprised to know that it is Shibu's first visit to Bangalore. They all welcome him with a great warmth. They are not surprised to meet me for they have been seeing me around since 2010 when I had come for a seminar at CKP itself. There has been no looking back ever since and I find it quite karmic. My first visit to Bangalore was in 1990, twenty seven years back and I was with my college friends and the pack was led by Ajayaraj. The purpose of my visit then was to wear a jacket, drink beer from pubs, eat corn and experience unbridled youthfulness away from home. Then I came back to the city several times after two decades. I look at the galleries where the artists work. It is here in these galleries a year back I had curated one of the biggest shows that the city has ever seen: It's Big was the show and the artist's were from the Po10ntial group that operates from Mumbai. Galleries when used for working purpose look differently from what they are in the context of an exhibition; in a show they look like brides and otherwise tired housewives devoid of all decorations.

There is party tonight. But we are not going. We are not going because both Shibu and myself do not drink or smoke. The socialising has already been done in the day time. Now what we need is some sleep. But when Shibu and myself are together we do not sleep that quickly; we have a lot to talk, about art, about people and about life in general. But tonight Shibu talks only about the work he is going to do. He needs a model. He needs something to work on. He is faintly restless but contains it. Soon a city friend calls me up. He is in the party. Why we are not there, he asks. I tell him that we are too tired to attend a party. He says we should make it for his house party next day; I promise. We go down to the car to pick up something for Shibu's work. We see the bottles of unconsumed toddy. Shibu asks me to keep it somewhere outside in the darkness. We are not going to use it anyway. Nor do we know any potential users of it there. So I keep them near the back tyre of the car, beside another car so that it is partially visible. As we move away from the car a young man walk upto us and asks where we are from. We say, Kerala. "Want woman? I have models with me. Good choice." We are shocked as we are not anywhere near a seedy place where we could expect an offer like that. "No," we give him a curt answer and walk off. He recedes into darkness; we into the hotel lobby, towards the lift and to a balmy sleep.