Swinging Tales

The bronze figures are all small,12-odd inches tall,but communicate a lot because of the obvious love and detailing that has shaped them. “Some 40 years ago,children did not need any expensive toys to play with,nature was their toy. They would find a tree and swing by its branches. What I have tried to do is capture the movements of the children. The dialogue happens through their body language. There is a lot of drama there.” The sculptures portray children in full impish glory – they are dressed in shorts and little skirts,atop thelas ,gesturing to their friends below; running along streets spinning a bicycle tyre; drinking water straight from a pipe; or simply whiling away time with a “doggie” in tow. “A thela and a dog are constants in my sculptures. If you notice,all kids’ groups in any small town’s galli / mohalla will have a dog trailing them,” he says.

Ketkar’s preoccupation with presenting childhood imagery has stuck by him for four years now. “I really don’t know where to finish,” he chuckles. The work is physically and technically demanding,and smaller the work,the more tricky the detailing gets. Ketkar caught the sculpting bug early on in life; “The walls and floors of the house were my canvas,” he recalls. But the sculpting solidified into a profession 20 years back. Over the years,he has perfected the technique of producing complex,single-cast sculptures. “Many casters have come to my shows and checked the sculptures this way and that to see where they welds are. But none of them are welded together,it took me years of trial and error to get the single-cast right. Anyone who knows the trade now acknowledges that it is a rare trait,” Ketkar reveals. This is only Ketkar’s second exhibition in Pune,but he couldn’t be here for it because he is finishing work for a January exhibition in Delhi. Even though he sees Gwalior as a city of artists but low artistic awareness,he has always lived in the historical city. “ Bahut socha kaheen aur jaane ka,par Gwalior chhoot ta hi nahi hai ,” he laughs.