The Tribune: Sunday, March 20, 2011

The grain of daily life

There is much delight in the portraits of the most ordinary of characters picking up
the rhythm of life as it must have been lived in the bazaars of Patiala

WHATEVER little attention has gone to the art of the Punjab Plains in the 19^th century", I once wrote, it has "tended to focus on what was happening at the Lahore Court". There were reasons for this. The glitter, the excitement, the ‘savage splendour’ of that court, as recorded by so many foreign visitors to the territories of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, was too much to resist; some documentation on the arts had come down in the records of that court; a number of paintings, some of high quality, had survived.

However, in the process what was happening in the field of painting in other parts of Punjab, particularly in the cis-Sutlej states — as the British designated them — was receiving remarkably little notice. To some extent even this was understandable, for the materials for that study were not over-abundant and the general perception was that the ‘Phulkian’ rulers, especially those of Patiala, were interested in little else than leading, personally, lives of luxury and indolence.

Fortunately, much of this has changed with passing years. Some documents have come to light and been published, and a number of remarkable paintings have come to light. To take the example of Patiala alone, one knows now how artists from three different directions — Alwar and Delhi and the Pahari region — converged upon the state and were employed there; in fact, even the names of some artists — Deviditta and Ude Ram Jaipuria and Muhammad Sharif among them — have come down. One can also still see the remnants of some fine murals on the walls of the Qila Mubarak, the Qila Androon, and the Sheesh Mahal. And there is, of course, that magnificent procession scene of Maharaja Narinder Singh on elephant back that is the glory of Patiala painting: the resplendent mounts with the Maharaja and Kunwar Sahib upon them making their way while a whole host of courtiers and soldiers and footmen walk by their side and ahead of them another elephant carrying the sacred book, the Guru Granth Sahib, moves on its stately course.

In the midst of all this, what draws me especially is what intervenes between the ceremonial work of this nature and some late, formal likenesses of the Maharajas and the nobility of Patiala: those informal, sometimes remarkably intimate, portraits of the most ordinary of characters — ‘men of no consequence’, in royal terms — which one also finds in Patiala.

I recall, having chanced upon them years ago, in a dusty pile of papers of varying sizes that formed part of a private collection in that city. In that pile were these brush drawings in black upon paper: many water-stained or bearing marks of mildew, others stuck together or frayed at the edges.

Still later, I happened to see another group of these studies, once again in a state of utter neglect, in the collection of the Sheesh Mahal Art Gallery at Patiala. There is nothing pretentious about these studies but here, in them, one sees a whole gallery of the kind of men whom one would have met in the bazaars of the city in the 19th century: shopkeepers and astrologers, syces and peasants, peons and torch-lighters. There is something moving in the honesty of these studies: a young man, barely out of his teens, and completely unaware of the world, dressed in coarse, rustic apparel; a peasant, wearing a roughly tied turban: open face, uneven eyes, full lips, a touchingly honest set of the mouth; a pandit, tilak mark on the forehead, eyes a little tired, shades of anxiety flitting across the face, withdrawn gaze. And so on.

These are, one needs to emphasise, not photographic likenesses of the kind that had started coming in at that time: these are painters’ notes to themselves, as it were. And seeing them, in all their artlessness, one can sense a whiff of fresh air brushing past the cheek, feel honest grit between the toes and smell the fragrance of the earth.

From the bazaar again come other works, many of them falling into what is generally called ‘Company work’: images of traders and craftsmen and those plying different professions. One series from which a painting was published some years ago — that of a well-fed halwai or sweetmeat seller sitting inside his shop surrounded by platter upon platter of silver leaf-covered delicacies and whisking flies away — had accompanying verses written in Gurmukhi characters on each same page.

Of a higher order in terms of quality, although devoted to similar themes, is the painting that accompanies this piece: that of a kasera — utensil maker/seller — selling his wares seated inside his remarkably well-stocked shop. There is much else going on in the painting at the same time and the work, subtle and delicately finished as it is, deserves being looked at with care. For there is finely observed detail in it and many a hint.

In his open-fronted shop which, to keep the sun out, has a boldly striped awning at the top, the old kasera is occupied with weighing a round metal-pot with a fluted design in a balance which he holds aloft with one hand, elbow resting on raised knee. The pan, with the pot, is being balanced with weights, which lie in a flat basket by his side, metal pieces and other objects. The richly dressed buyer is seated comfortably inside the shop, legs crossed, eyes sharply trained on the balance, while a tall but more simply attired retainer or attendant sits directly behind him. At the back, there is row upon row of brass wares but also among them some that look tarnished, possibly because of the silver content in them. There is concentration on every face: the buyer, the retainer, the old shopkeeper and, even more naturally, the young man, who sits behind him, for he holds an account sheet in hand, ready evidently to make the necessary calculation for the sale.

While this is going on inside the shop, there is much action, and interest, outside. A middle-aged couple approaches the shop, the sparsely dressed bearded man holding an old pot in one hand, possibly to offer it for sale to the kasera, while his wife holds other objects in hand, those that she has probably just used in some ritual. Brought in with uncommon care, and bringing the painting still closer to life, is a madari or ‘monkey man’ — face painted black, long straggly hair, patchwork quilt draped round his shoulders — seated on the ground, begging pan on the floor in front of him and his performing companions, a monkey and a langur, frisking about. There is so much delight in this vignette, the performance, the expressions, the ordinary goings-on picking up the rhythm of life as it must have been lived in the bazaars of Patiala.

While one is going about taking these details in, one must not overlook the two framed paintings that hang from little hooks on the back wall of the shop. For all their minuscule scale, one can almost recognize the themes they treat of: episodes, in typical Pahari manner, from the Gita Govinda that celebrates the love of Radha and Krishna. What is the painter sneaking in here, one wonders? A hint of the shopkeeper’s refinement of taste? Or a reminder of who the present painting is by?