HINDUSTAN TIMES,NEW DELHI THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 09

Impact on the arts

PHOTOGRAPHY Mahatma in a single frame

Paroma Mukherjee respect, didn’t wear sandals for a graphs of him. n [email protected] year. That explains the difference, but his “In this relaxed atmosphere of Gandhi desire to be photographed in the same man- with his followers, Bosshard recorded Gan- eing one of the world’s most revered ner remained,” said A Annamalai, director dhi drinking soup, shaving, laughing at a photographers did not earn Marga- of the , which has, satirical report in The Times of , and B ret Bourke-White the right to photo- in its collection, over 7000 photographs of speaking on the act of spinning with his clos- graph . In 1946, she Gandhi. est confidantes,” said Gayatri Sinha, who had to also learn how to work the charkha Gandhi was also keeping track of his pub- co-curated an exhibition of Bosshard’s pho- before being allowed to photograph Gandhi lished photographs and news mentions tographs of Gandhi and Mao Zedong last year doing the same. In notes that accompanied across the world. A payment receipt of a hefty at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi. the film rolls sent to LIFE magazine’s New £110 dated June 15, 1900, from Woolgar & Rob- In the late 1930s, Gandhi’s grandnephew York offices, she wrote about how she erts’ Press Cutting and General Information began photographing the thought of both the spinning wheel and pho- Agency in London in Gandhi’s name, con- Mahatma extensively. He was given access, tography as handicrafts, but Gandhi’s aides firms his subscription to press notice clip- but on the condition of not using a flash, or told her that spinning was the greater of the pings for a year. In the 1920s, during the Row- having Gandhi pose. By this time, Gandhi two. Gandhi, though, seems to have engaged latt Act , Non Cooperation move- was also signing his photographs for auction- with photography rather seriously from his ment and the , local ing, so that money raised could be used for early days in South Africa. There are several photographers were making hundreds of the Harijan movement. “Do rupiya ek bar”, posed portraits of him as a young lawyer, photos of non violent protests, marches and he [Gandhi] would say, the floor price is two with , as well as with mem- public meetings. What the international rupees,” writes Ramachandra Guha in Gan- bers of the in 1895. press wanted to see was Gandhi in private. dhi: The Years That Changed The World. In January 1908, Gandhi was imprisoned Swiss photojournalist, Walter Bosshard, Gandhi used the medium strategically to for two months in South Africa for passively was commissioned to travel across India by benefit India’s freedom struggle such that all resisting the law that discriminated against the German magazine, Münchner Illus- non violent movements, marches, political Indians. There is a photograph from 1914, of trierte Presse, in 1930 to cover the social and public meetings were constantly in pub- a young Gandhi standing barefoot, wearing unrest and photograph Gandhi. “I have lic memory via the publication and personal a sling bag, holding a stick and staring into sworn to never pose for a photographer! Try circulation of his images. While still being the camera, with both fists tightly clenched. your luck, perhaps it might even turn out rigorously photographed like perhaps no Similar in resolve is a portrait of women well,” Gandhi told Bosshard when he met other figure of that time, Gandhi had con- resisters who spent three months in prison, him. In Bosshard’s book, Indien kämpft!, sciously stepped out of the photo studio and all looking solemnly into the camera, one published in 1931, there is mention of this into the public imagination. n even carrying a child in her arms. This kind conversation — possibly the first written When the celebrated French photogra- (Anti-clockwise of powerful imagery subverted the conven- record of Gandhi’s now changed relationship pher Henri Cartier-Bresson met Gandhi from left) MK tional use of posed photographs of that time, with the camera. The posed, studio portrait barely half an hour before Gandhi’s assassi- Gandhi, 1914, which were commissioned largely for poster- was now a thing of the past. A day after Gan- nation, they spoke about photography. wearing white to ity. Gandhi probably realised the power of dhi broke the Salt law in Dandi on April 6, “Death, death, death” is what Gandhi last mourn the death photography then, for he used it strategically 1930, Bosshard made some endearing photo- said to Cartier-Bresson upon seeing his of Indians killed during India’s freedom movement image of the poet Paul Claudel walking in police firing in later. past a hearse. In his book Tempera- South Africa; A Not averse to posing for the cam- ments: Memoirs of Henri Cartier-Bres- payment receipt era in his early years, as is obvious son and Other Artists, Dan Hofstadter of £110 dated from a series of studio portraits of recalls Cartier-Bresson speaking about June 15, 1900 him in 1915 in Mumbai, Gandhi can the encounter. for Gandhi’s be seen posing against a backdrop Ironically, the most reminisced subscription to wearing his turban, dhoti-kurta and image of Gandhi by Cartier-Bresson press notice a pair of sandals. Some months later, was one without the leader in it. It was clippings; a similar photograph was recreated, of Nehru’s address to the nation Gandhi resting with Kasturba next to him. The only mourning Gandhi’s death as he spoke, in a train on his difference being that Gandhi wore no “The light has gone out of our lives and way to Assam, footwear this time. “After Gopal there is darkness everywhere.” Just photographed by Krishna Gokhale’s death, as a mark of like a photograph before it is made. Kanu Gandhi; Henri Cartier- Bresson’s iconic image of Jawaharlal Nehru announcing Gandhi’s death in 1948. NATIONAL GANDHI MUSEUM

A R T SCULPTURE MUSIC Artists who’ve kept Gandhi alive on canvas, in raga & with bronze

Deepanjana Pal been shot dead reached Pandit Ravi Shankar, n ‘Mahatma Gandhi entering GD Birla’s n [email protected] he was about to do a recording in All India Packard’, a 2016- 2018 oil on canvas by scenarios and including kitschy busts of Radio. He created — reportedly, on the spot artist Atul Dodiya. COURTESY THE ARTIST Gandhi in his installations, Dodiya has been n 1924, musicologist Dilipkumar Roy met — the Mohan Kauns raga, a variation on the sifting through what the leader symbolised Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in raga Malkauns with elements of the raga Jog. above a smooth bronze sheath; or any of the in our changing society since the 1990s. I Pune. Hearing Roy was a singer, Gandhi Twenty years later, Pandit Kumar Gan- cheap Gandhi-themed souvenirs on sale at Whether as a laughing face that appears like requested the younger man to perform dharva was asked to compose a tribute to tourist spots. They all play upon the contrast a brand on the rolling shutter that indicates for him. Roy arrived the following day with Gandhi and he composed the raga Gandhi between the frailty of Gandhi’s visible form that this shop is not open for business or as a his tanpura, sat at Gandhi’s feet and sang Malhar. Gandharva’s daughter, Kalapini and the strength of the man who stood up to wisp of watercolour, the Gandhi of Dodiya’s bhajans that made the Mahatma’s eyes glis- Komkali, wrote that he wanted to create and outwitted India’s colonial rulers. art is the conscience keeper surrounded by tened with tears. When Roy met Gandhi a few something that would “do justice to the mem- It’s ironic that a man who was so stead- the chaos of the past and present. months later in Calcutta, the Mahatma’s eyes ory of the Mahatma and the values of truth fastly against consumerism has today Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi and Raj- were again glinting; but this time, it was with and fearlessness that he espoused”. In the become a brand, with elements like his kumar Hirani’s Munnabhai films may be the mischief. “Where’s your instrument of tor- 1990s, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan would compose glasses or the neat curve of his bald head most famous on-screen avatars of the ture?” Gandhi asked Roy. He was referring to raga Kauns and chitraveena maestro, being used as logos, but this has also made Mahatma, but Gandhi was a favourite of film- Roy’s tanpura. N Ravikiran, would create raga Mohini as Gandhi a constant presence in our everyday makers long before Ben Kingsley made him Besides his love for bhajans and a brief tributes to Gandhi. world. In contemporary art, Gandhi being a household name. In 1921, Kanjibhai Rathod period during his early years in England It may seem odd that four ragas were com- reduced to a symbol has been used cleverly made Bhakta Vidur, a film that was ostensi- when he took ballroom dancing classes, cul- posed for a man who listened to just a handful by several artists, often to articulate a sense bly about the character from the Mahabha- tural activities seemed to be an indulgence of bhajans, but rather than the reality of Gan- of despair. In a painting titled Mirror by rat, but featured a Vidur who wore a Gandhi that had no place in Gandhi’s austere world dhi, what has been inspirational for artists Nityan Unnikrishnan, a key detail is the por- cap (which Gandhi himself wore only for a view. The Father of the Nation was unim- are the ideas that he embodied. The man who trait of Gandhi hanging on the wall. His smil- short spell despite the literal hat-tip in the pressed by films and once described Charlie dismissed paintings as an indulgence was would characterise practically every sculp- ing face is recognisable but disfigured by a name), had a charkha and urged peasants to Chaplin as a buffoon. He decreed there would immortalised by Nandalal Bose, whose black ture of Gandhi, whether it’s the famous dark patch. The people in the room have not pay taxes. The British banned the film. be no paintings hanging on the walls of his and white linocut print of Gandhi — grim- Gyarah Murti by Devi Prasad Roychow- turned their backs on him. News and images Gandhi may not have had much time for rooms and when asked why, he said, “I do not faced, strong-limbed, stick in hand — on the dhury that stands at the intersection of Sar- of religious violence fill the room. the arts in his life, but 71 years after his death, need them for my inspiration.” Yet his life Dandi march was one of the first iconic dar Patel Marg and Mother Teresa Crescent The most striking artistic explorations of his ideas are remembered not by politicians, and his work have been inspiration to count- images of the leader. Bose’s bold and precise in New Delhi; or the highly conceptual Monu- Gandhi and his relevance in contemporary but by those who practice the arts. Immortal- less artists of independent India. lines highlighted Gandhi’s simplicity, stead- mental Gandhi sculptures by A Ramachan- times have been by Atul Dodiya. From paint- ised in sculpture, re-imagined in paintings, In 1948, when the news that Gandhi had fastness and strength. These same qualities dran, which show Gandhi’s head rising ing portraits to imagining Gandhi in surreal invoked in music, Gandhi is alive.