A Sadhak8217;s Solitude

WHEN you pick up the phone, do you hear a "namaskaram" at the other end? Have you recently received handwritten notes with a big Omkar on th...

WHEN you pick up the phone, do you hear a 8220;namaskaram8221; at the other end? Have you recently received handwritten notes with a big Omkar on the envelope or an invite to a 8216;Japanese tea ceremony8217;? If the answer is yes, then know that you8217;ve been encircled by the Gadnis aura.

It8217;s been three years since the tonsured, saffron-smeared, wrapped-in-red artist Udayraj Gadnis also known as Shiva, was last spotted in India. There was a hype around his eccentric exhibitions and not too many kind words. But today, the 38-year-old glam guru claims he has changed.

One is greeted by the smell of incense outside the wooden door of his house in Lokhandwala, a Mumbai suburb, and the artist is clad in a simple gold-bordered dhoti-kurta instead of his vibrant robes.

Some habits die hard though, as Gadnis goes into guru mode intoning, 8216;8216;I loved my arrogant and loud red phase. It was much safer than showing my more sensitive side.8217;8217;

A side that is now perhaps showing in his recent paintings8212;a series of 25 works painted in Masters Oils glimmering softly in the harsh noon light. As your eyes fall on soft blue and white lotuses covered in a rain of tears that dangle from a barely visible cloud, you are forced to bite back some of the earlier scorn at his blatant copy works of Paris-based maestro SH Raza. There8217;s clearly been a resolute transformation.

It seems the 8216;change8217; came about while sojourning in Europe. Lake City, Westminster, South of Wales and Scotland. He8217;d done the cathedrals, churches and basilicas and then decided to paint. 8216;8216;When I was completely alone, away from my corporate buyers, his cellphone, Pajero and the pressure to churn out three shows a year, I could really discover myself,8217;8217; says the sadhak, now settled in the UK.

A place where the response to his work ranges from 8216;8216;oh we love your work,8217;8217; to 8216;8216;we love you, can we get to know you?8217;8217; says Gadnis. Is it the dhoti-kurta-clad guru or is it his paintings?

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His 8216;favourite8217; critic, Shireen Gandhy of Gallery Chemould, Mumbai, is still the sceptic. 8216;8216;It8217;s just another foray into pseudo-spiritual art,8217;8217; she says, not believing that a leopard could change its spots.

However, The Courtyard8217;s Ashish Balram Nagpal is a big believer: 8216;8216;I saw the recent work and was pleasantly surprised to see an honest 8216;spirituality8217;8212;something that wasn8217;t there in his early schema. I would publicly endorse him as a spiritual artist. In time to come, his work will hold great importance to future artists following the Razas, GR Santosh and now the Gadnis school of painting,8217;8217; says Nagpal.

Though not everyone is confident about the art aspect of his works.

8216;8216;I wouldn8217;t think of him as an artist in the urban contemporary mainstream. He8217;s talented but I would say he8217;s on the periphery, since his art is only a means to further his search for a higher spiritual awareness. His new project will only serve to take him further in that realm,8217;8217; says curator and writer Anupa Mehta.

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8216;8216;Showing in India is always difficult but now I feel it8217;s something I must do in order to grow,8217;8217; says Gadnis, who has stopped nail-biting for a while and decided to show his works at Mumbai before it opens in June at the Croydon Centre for Art and Design, and Edgware Art Gallery in London.

Mumbai has its barefoot painters sporting large brushes8230; will there be room for a sadhak painter?

Udayraj Gadnis at Nehru Centre, Mumbai, from May 25