This is a very readable interview. Of course, I think India's modern artists are far more indebted to Ramkinker and Rabindranath Tagore than Hussain. Both were way above Hussain as creative artists ( including Ramkinker's paintings such as Shillong series).
Sadly true, no so-called progressive forum for art, literature etc paid tribute to Ramkinker's centenary nationally. I don't spare the mass fronts of CPI, CPI, CPI(M), CPI (ML) Liberation etc- and this is shameful. Ramkinker came up from the subalterns.
Sankar Ray
'Husain's exile makes me ashamed of my culture. . . the state hasn't expelled him, mob culture has' 7 Apr 08 (http://www.indianexpress.com/story/293365._.html)
Painter, sculptor, architect-Satish Gujral has been all that, and with amazing versatility. In his paintings and sculptures, he adopts new styles ever so often, surprising those who follow his works. Past eighty, he still continues to create. In an interview with The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7's Walk the Talk, Gujral talks about how he has learnt to live with silence, how he finds his creativity, and about his brush with communism.
•My guest today is not only one of India's most creative and most durable artists, he is also a wonderfully warm human being, the finest man to have as a friend in any city, particularly in this one — Mr Satish Gujral, welcome to Walk the Talk. And helping us in this is your talented son Mohit. I know very little about art. As you know, I'm a philistine. You've known me for many years now. From where do you find this creative energy? Every few years you produce so much work, and always something new. What is the secret?
It's not a matter of the source of energy. It's like . . . you don't ask where I get the energy to breathe. Similarly, my energy to create is automatic. Without it I cannot live.
•Sir, hum toh pachaas sal ki umr mein buddhe ho gaye, but you carry on in your eighties.
When you are consistently in creative activity, it fills you up with a regime, a life, and a zest to live on and on. I cannot think I'm going to end. Only when I think this creativity may end, that will be the end of myself. The reason, I know: because I'm forced to live in a silent world. When there's silence around you, the consequence is that you doubt your own being. You want to find proof of whether you exist, because nothing brings you proof that you are. Then I create, and when I create something out of nothing, it gives me proof that I'm a being, I'm there. But if I create the same thing again and again, it will be like inhaling what I have just exhaled. . . so every time, I want a new breath, a new style, a new thing to work with.
•You talked about living a life of silence. Now, living a life of silence is a big challenge. But sometimes, is it also a creative asset?
Silence works both ways. One is that I have already explained to you, that it will make you doubt the depths. On the other hand, it will make you listen to yourself. Poet (Mohammad) Iqbal once said, 'Is khamoshi mein jayee, is khamoshi mein jayee, kitne barande na lein, taro ke kafilen ko meri sada daya ho.' How high could my life rise that it provided guidance to the stars! When silence came, I started to live with it when I was eight years old. My soul forgot . . . I did not know it was also a gift. But about 10 years ago I had a (cochlear) implant. This implant brought back hope. Once this hope came back, at first I was excited, but soon I started to feel miserable. I had lived in a world of my own. Like a blind man, I was searching alone for life around you. Every face, he has an idea . . . he might think of a very ugly woman as very beautiful. Then if you bring him his sight back, it will uproot him from where he has lived. So it is with sound. Sound also makes an effect on the image around you. And you start living in that world. When my hearing came back, I (realised I had) made not what I thought they (others) have made. That was very disturbing. I could not reinvent things. So I got the implants removed.
•Because for nearly 70 years you were used to silence.
Sixty-five years. It was a long time. So much that when I approached the specialist in Sydney, Australia, that I want to have this implant, he was a bit uncomfortable. He thought that at this age, and after so long, he was not very sure that I'd have the stamina to take it. He warned me to be ready for a world I do not know. But I was excited, I wanted to have it. But then I do not regret I had it. It gave me no new vision for what I have lost. Now I think it (the silence) was a gift. Before, I thought it was a handicap.
•Your stamina nobody doubts, all of us envy you.
As I told you before, I myself did not know where my stamina came from. When you are able to listen to yourself, you discover a world unprejudiced. So I got ready for it. These last ten years have been the happiest for me. Because now I think it (silence) is a gift; before, I thought it was a curse.
•The silence. Your works, I see so many of them, and I say I know very little about art. There's so much, so much empty space. Are you talking about silence — all this empty space?
Four years ago, I started to develop this style. The large spaces. I see the thankhas of Tibet with very large spaces, empty.
•Tibetan thankhas?
Like man alone in the universe trying to find his place through these large spaces. Gives meaning to these small things. So they are a discovery . . . also a part of the same process.
•Now tell us a little bit more about what is different with your new work?
I cannot explain how it came out of me. It is a process. The things that inspire me are mostly objects. Like I talked about thankhas. Similarly there are things like . . . years back, I was sitting next to a burning log. It burnt slowly, turned into cinder, a new colour, a new texture. I was excited and I wanted to recreate it. So my project on burnt wood began. Similarly these thankhas, and at the same time my return to silence, provided me an inspiration to create these spaces.
•When you looked at a burning log and the cinder, you decided to recreate those colours, those hues (in) . . . the burnt wood series. Why don't you explain some of these paintings and sculptures to us?
That will be a difficult question. We often ask the artist to tell the meaning . . . like a musician hears the meaning in melody, not in words. Similarly, the artist thinks in form not in ideas. Artists are not men of ideas, they are men of feeling, and feeling cannot be spoken, it can only be created into form itself. . . ideas convert, but art liberates. I don't give titles, I don't give ideas, so that you have to find your own truth. It will liberate you. It is like saying, 'Two men look out from the same bar, one sees the mud and one the stars.'
•So each one has to make up his own mind?
Yeah, that's it. Yes.
•Par itna versatile kam kiya aapne, painting kiya, sculpture kiya, architecture kiya, sab kuch kiya. Sabse jyaada maza kisme aaya?
I am often asked this question, but there is no answer. Liking something depends upon a mood. In a given mood, I wanted to build. In another mood, I wanted to paint. Now, for example, when I was surrounded by architecture, when I wanted to build, I did not paint. But my whole being was dissolved in building. I wanted to do it. But once the mood was gone, I came back to paint. Recently I wanted to build a studio for myself, and I asked my son Mohit to design it for I'm not in the mood for architecture.
•It is easy for you. You have the finest architect (Mohit) sitting at home.
After all, I produced him.
•One more of your very creative offerings. We can see that. (Laughs) Tell us a bit more. You know, many of us have read your autobiography. But tell us a little more about your early years. We know that you know went to Mexico to study.
When I lost hearing I came very close to my brother (Mr I.K. Gujral). He wanted to curb my sense of loss, this handicap. He started to bring to me leftist literature and poetry. Once he brought to me a poem of Faiz Ahmed Faiz: 'Main ghamgi hoon, to phir kya hai, ghamgi hai yeh duniya sari. Yeh gham tera hai na mera. Hum sab ki yeh jaagir hai pyaari.' It is the heritage of the whole world. In this way he tried that I should feel less down. I became a leftist, I came to communism thinking it would provide a (new) world.
•You joined the Progressive Artists Forum?
No, it was a different school. They took their name from progressive literature. Their aim was to introduce western art. I was in another mood and I had begun painting the tragedy of India's partition. Exactly at the time, progressives were introducing French art. And doing this, I came across the famous Mexican poet Octavio Paz. He told me that I have an affinity with the Mexican artists and he helped me go to Mexico. I made friends of our great communist artistes, like Fareeda Khanum, but, at the same time, I started to get disillusioned with communism.
•Why?
I met Russian artists. They showed me the type of art that was being created in Russia. It disturbed me that if a society creates such art, that could not be fine with me.
•What was wrong with that art?
It was simple illustration of slogans. It was saying Inquilab zindabad. This does not please me, so I went deeper into it. I asked those Russian artists if they could tell me why they did it. Incidentally, few of the Russian artists went (to Mexico). They were accompanied by a guide who was otherwise a policeman. In Mexico they thought most people were leftist. When these artists came to see me, they were not accompanied by a guide. They told me, 'You are stupid to idolize Russia. It has made us a prison. We want to paint what we like, but they want us to illustrate what they want.' This made me disillusioned.
•So you went to Mexico a communist and you came back disillusioned with communism.
Totally. Another point. After independence, all Indian artists were traveling to Europe, United States, western countries. These countries taught them to reject their own past and adopt the precepts of the rulers. So most adopted western art. But Mexicans have suffered and they taught me to discover India. So sitting in Mexico, I discovered India.
•You always listened to your brother?
My brother has been a part of my being. In fact I owe him so much, building me up intellectually, physically, and artistically, that without him I would not have reached where I did. Everywhere I went, he used to accompany me, like you see my wife Kiran and my son doing now. So everywhere he interpreted what anybody said. When Indira Gandhi asked me to paint Nehru's portrait, my brother used to go with me. Every morning, she sat, he sat, and I painted. When I painted, my brother and Nehru talked to each other and there began his political career.
•But many family members have taken the political route.
My mother, father. My mother's adopted son, who was otherwise my cousin, was arrested with Bhagat Singh. At first he was sentenced to hanging, but once Bhagat Singh and his three colleagues had been hanged there was so much uproar that others were given life sentences. He spent 80 years in prison.
•Have you ever had political argument or differences with your brothers, say Mr Inder Kumar Gujral? When he was prime minister?
There were no arguments, but once I complained to him that things were not moving and he listened to me and took my advice. Otherwise, we love each other and debated not like two opposite sides, but like those who think alike. It's amazing for me that for such a long time we both thought alike. We both loved poetry, we both loved art, so I brought art to my whole family. My son, my two daughters took to creativity, my wife is a trained artist. All these four provide me constructive criticism. And you ask me how I change so much and achieve, I am indebted to all the four. Whenever my style becomes stale, they tell me to drop it.
•Tell me about you contemporaries. Now, you have seen three generations of Indian artists and art is now big. People make a lot of money. These paintings, all of them together, is the GDP of a small African nation. Some little story, some memory. Tell us something about Raza, Souza, Anjolie, Husain.
I think modern Indian art is indebted to M.F. Husain. One may not like his later work but without him the beginning may not have been made. Presently he is in exile, which makes me ashamed of my own culture. That we have made such a great man live abroad.
•And would you say that he should come back. He should not be afraid.
It's not the state that has expelled him, it is our culture. My brother spoke to the prime minister about Husain and the PM said, 'I have not expelled him. For me, he is most welcome.' That is the problem. State is not a party to it, the mob culture is.
•So after this wonderful work, what new frontiers are you going to conquer?
Someone asked me this question: After this work, what's next? I said, 'If I know it, I will do it today.' One thing is that this is not to continue for long, I have to refresh it and soon drop it and find something new. Something different.
•Well I think that is the wonderful spirit that keeps you going keeps you young forever. Such an inspiration to all the rest of us not as young as you. Thank you very much. Such a wonderful experience to have you on the show.
Thank you.
(The transcript was prepared by Debesh Banerjee)
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