Street Smart

You always thought Delhi was defined by its people,but artist Rohit Sharma insists it’s the vehicles that make the Capital unique. “No other city boasts our kind of snobbery about cars,the autocracy of autos and the consistent presence of cows amid heavy traffic,” he says. The 30-year-old graduate of the Delhi School of Arts paints the vehicles of Delhi in his first solo show called ‘Romancing the Roads’,being held at the India Habitat Centre.

The 40-odd watercolours on paper,of which six have already found buyers,tackle various themes — vintage cars that hold memories of an era when the city moved at an elegant pace,autorickshaws with the driver asleep on the backseat,road signs that point every which way,and a fourth,recurring image of a milk van juxtaposed against the silhouette of a cow. “Though cows roam the streets,it is the Mother Dairy van that brings us our daily supply of milk today,” says Sharma,whose previous works includes painting the world map on the Ambassador car of the Hungarian Embassy.

Unlike the Delhi roads,Sharma’s canvases are uncluttered and generally have one large central image. He uses symbols like bold red backgrounds to depict road rage and street maps of Connaught Place to show the dilemma of a city that moves in circles. One work is a self-portrait,showing Sharma pushing an auto from behind. “Autos in Delhi are notorious for refusing passengers. They have to be pushed to move. This happens only in Delhi,” explains the painter whose works hang in the PMO and are part of collections in India and abroad. Another large canvas shows the map of Delhi as a jigsaw puzzle which a child tries to solve.

The exhibition is part of a project that the artist began a year ago. “Next,I will paint rickshaws that share road space with zany cars in plush localities and the covered boxes that ferry schoolchildren to and from school,” he says.