A brush for the nation
RANA SIDDIQUI
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Dhiraj Choudhury has always been driven by his passion to contribute to humanity. His works mounted at Art Konsult are an abiding proof.
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For me worship means being useful to young people.
FOR THE PEOPLE Dhiraj Choudhury.
In 1971 when the Indo-Pak war broke out, veteran painter Dhiraj Choudhury reacted through his oil paintings titled "Happenings" and "In Aid of Bangladesh". So much was the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi moved by them that she wrote the catalogue! Choudhury was 34 then. He raised Rs.5000 through the sale of these works and handed over the money to the then Bangladesh High Commissioner to be used for the war victims. He made some compositions in pen and ink in 1976. Again the PM was impressed and she bought one for Rs.700. Those were days when barely any painter would dare to exhibit art works in pen and ink!
In 1962, Lalit Kala's Rabindra Bhawan was set up in New Delhi's Jaipur House. Choudhury made paintings based on his favourite book by Rabindranath Tagore "Aamar Chelebaila" (My boyhood days). The gallery was inaugurated with these paintings.
In 1988, Roop Kanwar allegedly performed Sati in Rajasthan and soon after, three young girls committed suicide in Kanpur to save their parents from marriage expenditure. A depressed Choudhury dedicated a whole series of works titled "Women" to these unfortunate women. Mulk Raj Anand was so touched that he wrote the introduction for its catalogue.
In 1960, he sketched Coffee House, College Street, Madras, and in 1991 he sketched The Hindu office. In 2005, he showed them to N. Ram, The Hindu's Editor-in-Chief. "He said to me, `This sketch took me back to the days when I used to have coffee here. Your sketch is exactly what the Coffee House used to be.' And seeing the old building of The Hindu, he asked me to draw the whole of Madras for which he arranged for a photographer to shoot important sites," recalls the veteran.
Not for sale
One of his works.
On the eve of the 50th year of India's Independence in 1997, he asked his artist friends to paint their vision of Independence. No one responded. So he dedicated a series called "Mother India" portraying a crying motherland, mauled women, shooting soldiers and more. "Looking at these paintings Karan Singh asked me, `How will you survive if you don't sell your paintings?' I said, "These are not for sale. They should be displayed at the National Museum to remind people of the Independence so painstakingly earned'.
Many such stories come up as one meets this Kolkata-born 70-year-old painter with the reputation of an activist. Choudhury's retrospective works (drawings, paintings and bronze sculptures) from 1957 to 2005 were recently shown at the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi. Choudhury's works told a tale of human lives at different times. The show was a great success because of its touch of humanity in this industrial age.
Even today, he aspires to "make this world a beautiful place" by carrying a flag of idealism. "For me worship is being useful to the young people of today," he says with a stoic smile.
Latest in his endeavours to help humanity are the art camps in different parts of the country in which he invites people from all walks of life to paint what they like, under his guidance. The money received from the sale of these works is distributed to the needy.
The show continues at Art Konsult, Hauz Khas, and can be viewed till May 15.
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