Sharp and Sweet

March 2001
A bunch of arty types stand around in Renu Modi8217;s 8216;Gallery Espace8217; in Delhi, prior to her big show 8216;Kitsch Kitsch Hota Hai8217; scheduled to open on the Ides of March, at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre. Various works have landed from elegant, eminent painters. But we8217;re watching the unwrapping of a huge cutout that8217;s just arrived from Bhupen Khakhar.

Excitement mounts as blistersheets unpeel. Who knows what Bhupen has chosen to unleash now? As a huge image of Mahavishnu appears, Madhu Jain, the curator, heaves a sigh loud enough to be heard in Baroda. But her relief is premature. On the reverse of a blandly smiling Preserver, is an oldish desi man in a dhoti so sheer that you can see his unmentionables painted with wicked visibility. A collective wail from ten nabhis: 8220;O God! Now there8217;ll be a Hindutva protest!8221; After much cogitation, someone comes up with the chilling Victorian notion of painting more white dhoti over the 8216;offensive8217; bits. It8217;s done, the show is a huge success without one Bajrangi whimper to mar proceedings and a splendid party is had by all. In the hullabaloo, however, Bhupen8217;s poignant cultural point seems lost. It is not sacrilege but a spiritual lament that he embodies in that cutout. The grubby man is the way we are, the 8220;vaasna ka bhandaar8221; as common man Sakharam Binder puts it Bhupen is big on the common man. But in him, in each of us, hetero/homo/bi, is that spark of Godhead, the Ultimate Self, for which Bhupen used his longtime leitmotif of calendar gods. I now think that it was Dhotibhai, the overt reality, who was supposed to face 8216;front8217;, not Mahavishnu the hidden Divine. Or was Dhotibhai meant to depict Shankerbhai Patel, the 20-years-older widower from East Africa? Bhupen, says film-maker-writer Sunil Mehra, was passionately attached to the seth for 15 years and was devastated when he died in 1975. But I couldn8217;t ask Bhupen8230;

September 2001
At Renu Modi8217;s haveli on the Ganga at Hardwar, it8217;s fun listening to Bhupen bitch in precise, irrefutable points about installation art. 8220;Goras did installations to break museum formality. But all of India, every subzi-redi is already an installation. We just uthao things blindly without thought of context!8221; I snicker, and win a big grin from Bhupen, who flowed self-taught into colour and form without seeming to haul the Brown Man8217;s burden of Western baggage. The moral? Why, London, Sao Paulo, Washington, Berlin caught on at once to his original work whereas India8217;s great art critic Charles Fabri merely curled his lip at Bhupen8217;s first show in 1965 at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. Bhupen seems most excited about the silent sadhus adorning the ghats in sundry levels of padmasana and begins work in a sun-dappled riverside room. But come evening, Bhupen gets into a Gregariously Gujju huddle with fellow painters Amit Ambalal, Atul and Anju Dodiya. Hostess Renu Modi, Sunil Mehra, dancer Navtej Johar and I feel rather left out. We leave them to snack and drink in their sitting room below and virtuously sip jaljeera upstairs. A call from Delhi throws us into frenzy. 9/11 is happening, the Twin Towers are crumbling on a spotty B038;W TV as everyone we shriek down for them gathers, jaws open. 8220;Look at the Ganga. She goes on like nothing happened!8221; someone says. 8220;Every moment, something is happening,8221; rebukes Bhupen gently. I don8217;t think he saw 9/11. Going by the Hardwar paintings exhibited in January 2003, it was Atul who saw the towers.

Bhupen was all Ganga. He never did see her again.