On R-Day, calligraphy exhibit shows country’s strength lies in cultural diversity

The inauguration ceremony on January 24th saw the presence of Amélie Weigel, Alliance Française, Pune’s Director, calligrapher Sanjeev Joshi, and several enthusiasts of calligraphy and French.

Two lineages, centuries apart

Indian calligraphy spread when traders, monks, and missionaries dispersed the Indic script across Central Asia and Southeast Asia. One of the earliest scripts that evolved from the Indus Valley writing was the Brahmi script. It became the foundation for nearly every major script on the subcontinent, like Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, and others. France’s calligraphic history is rooted in the Latin alphabet rather than indigenous scripts. Beginning in the medieval period, French calligraphy was almost exclusively the domain of monasteries.

As Europe emerged from the medieval period, French calligraphy evolved. The Gothic script and eventually the Ronde, remained in official use until the 20th century. It was always a script of power and institution, refined and standardised.

At this Pune exhibition, these two lineages speak to each other. The exhibition spans eight artists and 23 calligraphies, each engaging with seven scripts and eight languages. They blend Indic and French influences, exploring cultural narratives, poetic fragments, philosophy, history, architecture, and design through different schools of Indian calligraphy.

Devanagari, the script most closely associated with Sanskrit, Hindi, and Marathi, becomes the playground for artists like Sudeep Gandhi, Nikheel Aphale, and Achyut Palav. Palav, a Padma Shri recipient, has become synonymous with a modernized Devanagari practice that honours tradition while breaking its rules. Suresh Waghmore’s practice with Kannada represents a more contemporary shade. Historically used across the Deccan plateau, his work employs experimental approaches through freestyle and traditional variants that feel simultaneously ancient and urgent.

Combining Hindi and Urdu scripts, Qamar Dagar represents a particularly nuanced school shaped by the Mughal influence on Indian writing. The tradition descends from Persian and Arabic calligraphic practices.

Similarly, Gurumukhi (the script of Punjabi and Sikh), Tamil, and Bengali calligraphies bring additional regional perspectives through artists like Tarun Girdhir, Rupak Neogy, and Sanjeev Kumar. On the backdrop of Republic Day, these works show that India’s greatest strength lies in allowing the cultures to converse, collide, and create anew.

When Sanjeev Joshi, an architect by profession and a serious hobbyist of calligraphy, speaks about his work, he insists, “These are paintings first.” “They’re deliberately abstract, even illegible. But that’s the point. They ask you to experience, not just read.” Calligraphy, Joshi argues, has been wrongly classified as commercial art for too long.

“It’s a fine art, and to a fair extent, a performing art too,” he says, implying that the act of creation is itself the experience. Joshi also conducted a calligraphy workshop at the exhibition, where participants were taught the basics of Devanagari and Roman scripts.