In my class, stone was more than a hardball of minerals; it represented a step forward in learning sculpture. Many were keen to try working with stones and on a rather languid day an impromptu plan took shape to see stonework in Rajasthan. Sleepy eyed people started their journey some through the bus, some by bikes and some by car. The drowsiness went off in five minutes as babble took over the bus and I witnessed the delight of a picnic done years ago .
I was stunned by the snack section in a tiny bus where everything from rice dhokla to cake to mathri was passed on in a jiffy and we had enough to eat for a day, the stomach would certainly not complain. Every two minutes our DJ friend accommodated us with songs that were followed by Kosal sirs’ jokes. Music of the 70’s ,80’s and 2024 played to entertain everyone from twenty to seventy.
As we left the city the countryside emerged, after Neemrana fort. The smell of fresh air, farmland , chirping of birds and clear blue sky . The mind inevitably quietened but the “Niagara fall” deafening chatter of women who overwhelmed the men by sheer numbers continued. We arrived at our destination after four hours. Time had winged. We were here to see the studio of Vipin Sir, an eminent sculptor who had started his journey in art as a child in his village in Bihar, then studied at Banaras and finally moved to Rajasthan to find the flow and space most artists entreat .
The entrance of the studio had glass bottles and as we moved indoor art , earth, pottery sculptures emerged. The work being created was far beyond our imaginations as artists and everyone understood they had a lot to acquire in this sphere .
As the group looked at sections of pottery, sculpture and shop, something in me wanted to become quiet to absorb the light coming through the brick walls, the high ceiling, the smell of earth, the ready and undeveloped art material . The psyche stopped swirling as I stood alone in this magnificent studio. In life we have a montage of moments we gather. Most of us restrict those moments to important incidents in life: the birthday, the marriage, the death, the marriage of one’s daughter or son yet it is in the tiny moment that glimmer arrives . The studio in that moment brought a sense of armistice as indoor and outdoor amalgamated the sound of birds and animals outside, the flow of creation inside Little did I know just as I saw life at its most beautiful, I would soon witness death.
The next stop was the stone quarry to understand where the stones come from. I had heard about the rape of Aravalli’s for years and here it was in full form. The great mountain was being broken piece by piece for greed and money and I had to remind myself that in my own house the same marble or stone was on the surface of the floor. Incredible sadness took over as I sat and looked at the magnificent mountain taken apart like a ragged human person whose every organ meant just one word: money.
As people walked and took photographs, I chatted with the “Munimji” of the quarry . The poverty of people working in the mines barely getting ten to fifteen thousand after back breaking labour was not unsurprising, yet it touched my soul . Yet, even here amongst demise was existence, the birds fluttered in a swoon and gathered, the tiny tree still hung in balance amidst the rock , the wind blew a wasp of cold air to my skin . The silence took over as I waited for the group to gather. We walked some more and then everyone collected stones for their work . The earth perhaps rejoiced that something beautiful will come of its existence soon. In life everything is cyclical. What decays is transformed from life to death, from learning to unlearning from one stage of life to another.
The city breeds were by now hot and puffy as we sat in our bus, everyone complaining of the heat. We made our way to an ancient “baoli” and my hands twitched to photograph . Long before sculpture came into my life, I was a keen photographer and learnt with OP Sharma a master photographer at Triveni Kala Sangam’s art department. His exhibition running at Triveni calls me inside each time .I took a few and felt the magic in my hand and wished time would stop and the sun would not be so bright again.
We all made our way to the bus tired and hungry, wanting for “Jain Shikanji” stop. In our tiredness on the way back despite my telling people it had come no one listened, five miles down everyone remembered it . We stopped at Haldiram and I gorged on pavbhaj and decided to split with the group in a car toward south Delhi. The chat amongst artists in the car reminded me of the brutal business of selling art and living through it. The intersection of politics, business, personalities, money and galleries. The gamut of emotions from resentment to pride to despair that artists go through to making a living. As we made our way to the city, tiredness soon took over, I was restless to get home .
We finally reached the destination and when I die, I guess there will be a flash back to this beautiful day for which I profusely thank my teachers Kosal Sir and Kavya Ma’am , fellow sculptors and Triveni Kala Sangam.
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