4t h Issue, Oct ober, 2012

Samudra Kajal Saikia

Chief Coordinator,
R.A.P.E 2012
New Delhi
What Happened in Guwahati this February...
REPORT ON REGIONAL ART PERFORMANCE AND EVENTS (R.A.P.E)
2012
House: Interior Monologues
Installation Performance by Samudra Kajal Saikia
Collaborating Artists: Anuradha Upadhyaya, Dharitri Boro, Pari Baisya
17 Feb. 2012, GAG Campus, 5:30 PM
Himanshu Prasad Das and
his team performed on a crowded
public bus "Pan-Bandi" an invisible
theatre on 15 Feb. 2012. Working
within the structure of invisible
theatre, the team 'staged' a fight
between a young couple around the
issues of commitment, love, dowry
and money. The chosen stretch was
between ' Guwahati club' and
'Guwahati Commerce College', and
the performance initiated an
animated conversation on society,
noise, privacy and camera. Same day
at Ravindra Bhawan, the Assam
state theater, four performances
happened simultaneously: a free hair
cut, a line of teeth brushers, a crowd
of jumpers and a thick cloud of body
spay in the air by Syed Taufik Riaz,
Melissa Rose Heer, Rahul
Bhattacharya, Dharitri Boro and
Samudra Kajal Saikia with local
participants. And then a few people
began to jump, "just jump!" as
Sumudra Kajal Saikia' s
performative text joyfully
demanded. The poem proclaimed
the ways in which the simple act of
jumping is at the heart of any
motion, as a small group of jumpers
steadily grew into a broader
contingency of reverberating
giggles and shouts that collapsed
with an exacerbated jubilant finish.
The camera also began to jump, the
documentation embodied the
motion, and the performance
persisted in the body's memory as
people left the venue with sore
muscles, tender lungs and perhaps,
paradoxically more life.
Looking for a Public Toilet,
public art installation by Anga
Studio at Panbazar and nearby was
another public interactive major
event took place on 16 Feb. 2012.
Pan bazaar is a shopping place in
Guwahati, also a place where artists
come looking for books and art
materials and they find no public
toilets there. So the young artists
started constructing some public
toilets with some found objects. The
same day in afternoon in Front of
Guwahati Commerce College,
Dharitri Bodo runs a fleeting
roadside parlor named Carefree
Hairfree. Carefree Hairfree a street
saloon, where the artist performed
as a barber in a public participatory
act. This Performance seeks to
explore areas of Violence,
Relationship, Beauty and Intimacy.
The event was followed by another
event "The Everyday of Small
Things: Dust". Kolkata based artist
Sayed Taufik Riaz starts a silent
performance where he collects dusts
from the public places and imprints
them on his sketchbook. He is also
a practitioner of abstract paintings.
This time he chooses dust as his
material to create abstract images on
paper.
On 17 Feb. 2012, discussion
session took place at Guwahati
Artists' Guild on "Changing
Paradigms: Contemporary art in
North East" along the participators
Moushumi Kandali, Jebin Ghosh
Dastidar Rehman, Dilip Tamuly,
Kishor Kumar das, Rahul
Bhattacharya and the students from
Govt. College of Arts and Crafts,
Guwahati. The discussion was
followed by an installation
performance by Kishor Kumar Das
"Wild Rain Under the Mosquito
Net". The entire space was filled
with news papers on the floor. On
the walls he displayed paintings
hanging in reverse, one can only see
the back side of the 'frame' not the
work of art. In the middle of the
space there is a scribbled mosquito
net with a performer cutting news
papers with a scissor. The last
performance of the day was
"HOUSE: Interior Monologues"
installation Performance by
Samudra Kajal Saikia with three
collaborating artists Anuradha
Upadhyaya, Dharitri Boro, Pari
Baishya. Three performers entered
in three transparent life sized boxes
and started writing on the
transparent walls "whatever I write
you read it in reverse". After writing
and overlapping the same thing for
a longer time the transparent walls
become opaque and the figures
become totally invisible at a time.
"The Vendor of Masks and Heads",
a public art installation by Siva
Prasad Marar took place on 18 Feb.
2012, roadside at Chanmari, near
GAG. This is a public art project
which is satirical in nature and
addresses public in a very interactive
way. On a footpath in Chanmari
Marar installs a shop to sale human
heads and masks. On the head shop
he puts a tag saying: "all sort of
heads are available here in cheaper
rates". Similarly on the Mask shop
he puts a tag saying: "Sir, you can
exchange your mask here". Same day
"City Garbage" performance by The
Yellow Cab at Shrandhanjali Kanan,
Zoo Road, Guwahati, took place. I
Love You, a performance by
Manmeet Devgun took place back
to back at the same place. Manmeet
Devgun, Delhi based performance
artist starts saying "I Love You"
multiple times until she gets
exhausted. The same place was
explored by Syed Taufik Riaz with
his performance "The Everyday of
Small Things: Melt" where the
artist holds a burning candle and let
it melt on his palm. He plays with
the burning skins, patience and the
very intimate feelings in the
performance.
"The Other Corners", a
presentation and discussion by
Abha Sheth on "Visual Culture and
Politics" took place inside the Zoo
on 19 Feb. 2012. Abha Sheth takes
a session on visual culture and the
politics of the nationalist strategies
in front of the students of Govt.
College of arts and Crafts and the
students from GAG. She also
.Contd to page-3
2
FROM
EDITORS DESK
Fourth Issue,
October, 2012
We humbly express that with
blessings of all, 'Art Echo' is
steadily promoting the healthy
culture through its creative
activities.This is our fourth issue.
In this remote area of Barak Valley,
we feel that this success is also to
be counted. But still we have to
march a long way. Art Echo' has
come into existence under the direct
inspiration and supervision of
'Shilpangan' a renowned institute
for learning art and craft.
'Shilpangan' has been trying
relentlessly to spread the sense of
artistic beauty through its various
colourful activities and thus
achieved fame in Barak Valley
already.We are happy to note that
'Gallery Hue', the first art gallery
of Barak Valley has already been
established at Hospital Road of
Silchar town. We convey our
heartfelt thanks to Gyanada
Academy of Art and Culture for
their outstanding contribution. It
will not be out of place to mention
that North East Region is a treasury
of human resources as different
languages, caste and religion live
here happily. But we are sorry to
fell that a part of this area has
become cloudy as some miscreants
have been creating disturbances for
destroying the atmosphere of
mutual respect and co-operation.
We must stand for peace and
harmony. We must stand for
universal brotherhood. Let this
message be passed through all over
activities. Let all lead peaceful life.
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3r d Issue, June, 2012
4t h Issue, Oct ober, 2012
demonstrates some audio visual
references from cultural festivals and
nationalistic traditions celebrated in
Wagha Boarder. Inside the Zoo
there were two other performances.
In "Life of a Situation" on site
Performance by Pratul Dash he
arranges some found object and
makes the space in a semi-ritualistic
manner. Then he pulls out the threat
out of his shoes and starts tying his
neck and head with that thread.
"Dance Radha Dance"a
performance by Anuradha
Upadhyaya. Anuradha starts
behaving in a very awkward manner
with a pair of ghungru on her feet
and a bindi on her forehead. On a
very important site where people
come and gather from all the sides
inside the zoo, she drags attention
from the visitors. By doing this she
questions the invisible norms of the
site and also questions the norms of
traditional practices that we call
dance or choreograph Apna hi
Ghar Samjho: a mobile public art
project by Samudra Kajal Saikia on
20 Feb.2012, From Kahilipara to
Uzan-bazar across the city was a
grand, spectacular mobile public art
project. Five life-sized houses that
contain references from five
particular themes: sufi houses, urban
houses, house of displacement,
house of social norms and the
Kankhowa's House (or the body
house of an Actor), made up of
several materials like timber, hey,
mud and so on, started a journey
from Jyoti Chitraban (the film
studio) at Kahili Para. Making a
journey throughout the streets of the
city the procession comes to the
bank of river Brahmaputra and
installs them. There some
performative events take place of
singing, dancing and poetry reading.
Finally the houses and all the
materials are left on the bank and
some of them donated to the
"homeless" families on the river
bank. This particular public art
project was granted by the "FICA
public art Grant 2010". Next day,
Daze Does performance by
Mandykins Galore, streets of the
city, evening. Mandykins Galore
walks and travels across the city with
a blue wig holding a huge flower tub
on hand. She personifies the big red
colored flower and keeps talking to
the flower and also introduces it to
all the acquaintances on the way. A
Get Together on 22, Feb. 2012,
Borpathar, along a series of cultural
festive events takes place on the
hillside of Borpathar in
collaboration with Alok Pathak.
The events include magic shows,
juggling, Bhortal Dance, Satriya
Dance and Bihu Dance officially
concluded the series of events. Then
there remained a newly started
performance venture as the
"postscript" of entire series on 28
Feb. 2012, Behali, Sonitpur District,
a theatrical evening by Satphool
Theatre in the rural
Chariali visits a village in a remote
place called Behali and starts
performing at the courtyard of a
household. This onwards they start
a venture named as "Hoonsori
Theatre", to perform at the
courtyards in multiple rural areas as
an ideological choice of place of
performance against the auditorium
or confined cultural production
system. Total twenty seven events
took place within February
innumerous artists from Assam and
outside participated and it reached
thousands of spectators across the
classes. When Regional Arts,
performance and Events, 2012 was
conceived it became clear that while
seeking for a volunteer practice
based festival, there was a need to
sit down and take stock of the
situation through discussion and
dialogue. The dialogue was
multilayered in experience. Public,
artists' subjective presence in a
public realm, spectatorship and
Politics were the key words in the
entire happenings.
CONTD. FROM PAGE- 2
villages, an intimate experience with
theatre and performance. A group
of young thespians from Biswanath
CHILDRENS ART : AESTHETICS, IMAGINATION & SOME SUGGESTIONS
Munindra Narayan Bhattacharyya
Lecturer. of Art Education, in District Institute of Education & Training (DIET) Mirza (Kamrup)
Thoughts, feeling, aesthetics, imagination... these are
the qualities that ensure naturalness in the overall
development of a child. In this respect, a painting is a
special medium through which children, right from the
start, can express themselves and develop an aesthetic
taste with the help of various creative images, lines, colours and shapes.
Modern psychologists have analyzed the upper limit of childhood in
various ways. It is important to note that this limit does not remain static
at all times. Yet, it is true that childhood exists till that stage when
impression remains the principal component. When observation replaces
impression and the mind begins to analyze, then it can be assumed that
the child has grown up. During the period in which impression is primary,
there is nothing much to teach the children at this stage, giving them
encouragement and an opportunity to express their feelings and images
in a simple manner is the sole responsibility of the teachers and guardians.
When a particular sound, movement or colour creates a peculiar
sensation in the mind of children, they begin to recognize that very sound,
colour or movement. At this stage, the mind of a child remains full of
wonder. Curiosity is still not the major trait. Instead of a static and
inanimate scene, a lively image attracts a child far more easily. When a
child sees an elephant, then his attention is drawn more towards its moving
trunk and the tail. The same applies to colours. Usually deep bright colours
are more attractive for a child. Mention may be made here that initially -
from the 24th - 25th months - children start scribbling all over the places.
They may do it with their finger on an empty plate after meal, or with a
twig on the sand, or with a pebble, chalk, pencil on a wall or a paper. This
act of scribbling does not merely help in muscle movements or mental
development; it also creates myriad visual conflicts with the help of lines,
which we have referred to as the primary stage of drawing. It is important
to remember that Rabindranath Tagore, towards the later
.Contd to page-4
stage, also created some weird but expressive images by scribbling. Of
course, it would not be right to compare Tagores scribbling, behind which
there was a vast reservoir of knowledge and scholarship, with those of a
child; yet his art emerged from broken rhythms and the caressing of the
paper with the tip of his quill- without any prior knowledge about drawing.
Be that what it may, children, with the help of scribbling, get attracted
towards colours and it is due to this eagerness to apply colours that they
enter the world of painting. To express themselves children always prefer
applying vibrant colours to using pencil. In this context, if we allow them
to draw and paint according to their liking, we will see a tendency to draw
hills, rivers, the sun and the sky, and then other constituents.
It is because natural beauty appeals to children easily and to display an
imagined idea of what they see they use bright colours of oil pastel-like
soft media and derive a wonderful pleasure from it. If they are deprived of
the sheer spontaneity and thrill of colouring, they will easily lose interest
in art. The same applies to studies as well. Children instinctively take out
that lesson or subject which appeals to their natural vivacity and emotions
more easily. It is important to note that children do not want to reproduce
what they see- they try to draw that they think or imagine about a particular
thing they see, or an incident they hear about. In this context, it would be
more natural if we do not see any attempt on their part to make an out-
and-out reproduction. It is as if the house, the man or the hill that a child
draws are a kind of an abstract, semi-abstract or stylized idea of their
respective realistic bases, which, with various ideas of planning, lead to a
wonderful aesthetic sense. On the other hand, when children express their
thoughts in the manners we have discussed above, then any attempt by
impatient teachers to teach them by analyzing them is most likely to fail.
This spoils childrens natural desires and it begins to mislead them. But if
a simple atmosphere can be created, if teachers do not draw the childrens
attention towards things like measurements and model drawing, then
children will be thrilled to draw two-dimensional objects. Some of them
will draw a winged man,
Samudra Kajal Saikia
3 3
4t h Issue, Oct ober, 2012
CONTD. FROM PAGE- 3
Munindra Narayan Bhattacharyya
a yellow sun as bright as his or her face, or a flying train or ship... someone
might draw a blazer-and-hat wearing and stick-wielding gentleman, an
electric lamp post, a car, a policeman, a mela, a marketplace, so on and so
forth. This is because the sense of beauty and imagination sprout
spontaneously in the mind of a child.
Learning about old or contemporary incidents from their seniors also
plays a significant role in childrens art. For instance, a strange thing was
witnessed in a paining done by a dumb five-year-old, who had never gone
to school... A female goat was shown to be in a tigers stomach, and three
lambs inside the stomach of the goat. In front of the tiger, a child holding a
pistol stared at the big cat. Art critics might call this painting surrealistic
with various analyses. The tiger was brilliant yellow, the goat was black and
the three lambs are brown, white and black. As an observer and after talking
to his father, it was not difficult to understand why it happened: a few days
ago a tiger coming down from the hills killed and ate the pregnant goat
named Kali (for black) whom the child loved very much. It was as if the
child, after hearing about the tragedy from his father, expressed his anger
through the painting. Similarly, in another painting it was seen that a child
drew his mother as very big in size, and his father as very small. When
asked, pat came the reply: his mother loved him more than his father. Hence
his mother was not only very big in the painting, but brightly coloured too.
(To be contd. to next issue)
Anjan Sen
Kolkata based Art Critic
MOTHER AND CHILD
INCEPTION ::: The picture originates in the belief
that the tree is the symbol of the father. The setting is
of a Bengal village: a leaf hut, the darkness of the night,
a bird perched on a young tree, the luminosity of the lotus bud emerging
out of a dark pit (pond). Mother and child are introduced in these
surroundings.
ELEMENTS ::: The metaphors of the mother and the child are
respectively Durga and Balagopal. The icons of worship are often given
folk-forms. The familiar form of a rustic mother - in a red-bordered sari -
and child are imposed upon the picture, but the sacred connotations are
enforced by the use of bright colours. The festive designs (alpana) are
drawn not on the steps but on the wall of the hut itself.
FORMS/STRUCTURES ::: The painting is essentially symmetrical.
The main structures - the two trees, the contours of the hut - all have an
upward sweep. But this movement of the straight lines is tempered by the
use of circular and semi-circular motifs.
COLOURS ::: Deep brown, black, bright yellow and orange, whitish
yellow; many shades of green.
MOOD ::: Fear and silence. The beauty of the surroundings is focussed
on the panic stricken eyes of mother and child.
DISCUSSION ::: The traditional conception of mother and child has
been used in this work by Ganesh Pyne. Celebrated alike in primitive art,
sacred architecture, miniatures, terracotta, in different ages European art,
in the paintings of Jamini Roy, this motif has found shape in various phases
and modes of artistic representation and has been formed variously in
accordance with the time and the individual artist. But this painting,
"Mother & Child" originates from the great tree whose trunk is visible on
the right hand side of the drawing. On the left is a young sapling. Within
the structure, the old tree and new signify the father and the child. The
forms of in the centre - no matter what we call then Durga - Balgopal or
Jashoda - Nandadulal - are essentially significations of the mother and
child, seated on the steps of a hut. To the left we see a bird perched on the
sapling - a symbol of the Nilkantha. The wall of the hut is embellished
with a decorative design. So much for the external elements of the painting:
we may now attempt to enter into the deeper structures of the picture.
The painting presents two conceptions, that of father and son and mother
and child, simultaneously. The forms typical of folk art have been broken,
in other words restructured, by Pyne and presented in his own pictorial
idiom. If the structuring of every day language is characteristic of literary
language, the reshaping of familiar forms is a
sign of pictorial language. In the drawing above we see that the appearance
of the "mother" is similar to the familiar forms of Durga and Jagaddhatri.
When the artist started work these popular shapes were in his mind. But
in the course of his painting the shapes were re-formed and changed and
the individual mother - figure takes shape - in the process of structuring.
The same is true of the figure and face of Balagopal. We may attempt to
understand the work in terms of the tree and the human form, the
arrangement of parallel lines, the parallel placement of forms.
As poets break the sentence, the structures of language, and arrange them
in different ways, Ganesh Pyne too, has in this picture broken and
restructured known forms and scenes, and rearranged its elements in a
different and individual manner. For example, the alpana has moved up
from the ground to the wall of the hut. The familiar, everyday motif takes
its place in the artistic placement of lines.
The red of the sari and the gold complexion, characteristic of the
pratima, the bright blue colour of the child reminiscent of the infant
Krishna are possessed of iconic significance. If the Nilkantha is the
harbinger of joy, how do we explain the apprehension on the faces of
mother and child? Is it time? Why are they afraid?
4
Such thoughts are generally termed mental or psychological. In India art
also, we find the superior drawn as very big in size, while others are shown
to be much smaller. We cannot judge such art from purely a grammatical
point of view. Although they seem incorrect, it is through such faults that
the world of their imagination also becomes apparent.But the inexperienced
lot who think that drawing/painting is all about using pencil, paper, compass,
measuring scale and eraser, might feel the need to correct the child or to
explain things to him or her- because the four wheels of a car are not seen at
once, a goat devoured by a tiger does not lie in the stomach like that, a car
cannot fly, and because a man can never have a bright red complexion!
The fact that we do not see all four wheels of a car in normal view, a
goat cannot remain in a tigers stomach in complete form, or this should
have been like that, and that should been like this... the white is not applied
well there... the drawing is not correct... all these we have come to know
with the help of our power of analysis only. But children express quite simply
and fearlessly the thoughts created in their mind by a particular subject or a
thing. Then how can such drawings be called incorrect? As a result, nothing
much can be done in such cases.
Therefore, is it that there is nothing for the teachers or guardians to
consider and suggest in childrens art?
4t h Issue, Oct ober, 2012
SILCHAR'S FIRST- EVER ART PROFESSIONAL
SAGA OF A MISFORTUNE-ECLIPSED ARTIST
It was the thirteenth year of 20th
century. A boy from a humble Brahmin
family of a remote village of Sylhet
district of Assam had passed his
matriculation from Calcutta University.
Transcending his ordinary background
the boy's eyes were set beyond his
family profession of Sanskrit teaching
and priesthood. From his childhood he
was influenced by his mother, Uma
Devi, a well known Kanthha Shilpi of
late nineteenth century. A large piece
of her artwork was an exhibit in an art
show in Madras which was said to have
been opened or visited by the Emperor
George the Fifth during his visit to India
at the time of shifting of British India's
capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911.
The Kanthha was also said to have won
the Emperor's special prize and was
taken to an art gallery in England as a
permanent exhibit from British India.
The boy faintly remembered the story
and narrated to his juniors at a much
later period of his life, although he did
not have any way to authenticate or
elaborate the story. The boy,
Kumudnath Dev Sharman with the
ancestral priestly title of Bhattacharyya
had been nourishing the burning desire
of becoming an Artist but he did not
know how to. He had heard about
Abanindranath Tagore and was
dreaming to be a disciple of the great
artist. It was, however, only a dream for,
his family was too poor financially to
bear the cost of his art education in far
away Calcutta. Kumudnath had nothing
to do but pray for a windfall. As all
sincere prayers are answered, his
prayers also were granted not through
a windfall of financial resource but
through an art competition organized by
the Director of Public Instructions
(DPI), in the provincial government of
Assam, Mr G.A.Small in the school
from where Kumudnath passed his final
exam a couple of years ago.
Kumudnath, by then a youth in his early
twenties, took part in the competition
and stood first. Thereafter the things
moved rapidly. A government
scholarship of Rs.25 per month was
granted to him for a period of five years
to study art in the Government School
of Art in Calcutta. Nevertheless, Mr
Small asked Kumudnath to give an
undertaking that after his Calcutta stint,
he would go to England for three years
for higher study and thereafter back
home would accept the post of the
Principal of the Assam government Art
College at Shillong or Gauhati which
would be founded within the period of
his study and would have to be made
functional as soon as he would return
from England. It was an overwhelming
windfall for Kumudnath. God gave him
much more than what he prayed for. He
readily accepted the scholarship terms
and conditions and left for Calcutta. For
Kumudnath, Calcutta was no less than
England. He was overwhelmed all
over again by the magnitude and beauty
5
Shantanu Bhattacharya
of the city and magnanimity and grace
of his art teachers - Mr. Percy Brown,
the principal and Abanindranath
Tagore, the vice principal and others.
The typical Sylhetty Bangaal (Bangaal
was the Calcutta term for anyone from
the eastern bank of river Padma. It is
still in vogue.) boy was at once
endearingly accepted by the teachers
and students alike, particularly his
seniors such as Nandalal Bose, Jamini
Roy, Sarada Ukil and few others and
class fellows like Hemen Majumdar,
Protul Banerji, Durga Shankar,
Sukumar Ray and others. All of them
together constituted the first batch of
Indian students learning art directly
from as great a master as
Abanindranath. Kumudnath joined the
roll and soon proved his mettle. He
became well conversant with the wash,
gouache and other water color
techniques and while surging ahead
towards mastery in the art, began side
by side with his seniors publishing his
watercolors in the famous Bengali
periodicals like Prabasi, Bharatvarsha
and the likes. Kumudnath had by then
gotten into the third year of his study.
Only two years were left for him to pass
out from the school and sail for
England. But he never knew there was
a compelling force called destiny that
was smiling at him viciously. The
human history is littered with instances
of the cruelty of destiny twisting the
arms of the gullible, destroying the
compass of their life boat and force it
drift aimlessly and making them
helpless victims of circumstances. The
first jolt Kumudnath got was when,
instead of him another class fellow of
his was selected in the middle of the
school course to go to England for
higher study. As Kumudnath recalled,
a world famous Indian - not having any
apparent relation with Calcutta Art
School -- who knew him closely,
exerted influence on the government to
arrange for a seat in the Royal school
of Art, London for the chosen one and
not for Kumudnath. The course of
frustration was added into the curricula
of Kumudnath. Then came another
blow. Kumudnath's father who had
retired some years ago, rather
prematurely due to his eye-problem,
became totally blind and was terminally
down with other ailments. Kumudnath
haplessly visualized the plight of his
mother and his siblings, hundreds of
miles away, with many mouths to feed
without any means. Kumudnath,
however, used to send to his mother
Rs12 from his stipend money every
month and manage with the balance
Rs.13 for his school fees, hostel charges
and other essentials. But that twelve
rupees was a drop in the ocean for the
family. Kumudnath was thrown fully
out of gear when the news of his father's
death arrived. As an immediate
response to the situation, Kumudnath
applied for an advertised post of a
designer of oriental motifs in a British
firm in Calcutta. He got the job with a
fixed salary of Rs125 per month. After
bidding the art school a tearful adieu,
Kumudnath jumped into the pool of the
mundane of life without of course
allowing the Art-fire in him to
extinguish. He established a small
studio in one of the three roomed flat
he rented in central Calcutta. The City
Art Studio came into being. In 1927
Kumudnath had from his wife
Shashirekha his first son only to lose
him when the child was five years of
age who displayed many signs of a
prodigy. It was too much for the parents,
especially the mother to bear. She
wanted to leave Calcutta immediately
for Silchar to join her parental family
settled there since long. Kumudnath
also was wrecked and the couple along
with their first child, a daughter,
bundled themselves out and reached
Silchar. Gradually their injury was
healed and then came up Park Villa, the
residence of Kumudnath and his family.
Park Villa soon became the talk of the
town for its enviable, prime location
facing the municipal park, an esplanade
with a beautiful, sprawling flower
garden surrounded by a water-filled
canal called saap nallah for its
serpentine design. When the City Art
Studio made its debut in Park Villa, it
became famous overnight. Kumudnath
designed his studio in such a manner
and style that it may have easily been
mistaken as an art gallery in a London
suburb. Actually City Art Studio made
the European community of Silchar
quite nostalgic. Many of them not only
visited the studio often and on but also
became patrons of Kumudnath' s
venture. There was a successful
dovetailing between Kumudnath's skill
and the taste of the buyers. Another
gifted artist, Ananta Bhattacharya, a
very brilliant illustrator whose younger
brother Achintya Bhattacharya was a
well known CPI leader, joined hands
with Kumudnath and the two artists
together began producing hand painted
greeting cards. The highly elegant
sophisticated pocket sized artwork at
once caught up with the imagination of
the buyers, mostly Europeans. The City
Art Studio soon began to thrive.
Kumudnath then diversified the
business adding photography and
picture framing into the studio activity
giving it a look of a departmental art
store. His patrons were further
delighted and their beeline in the
direction of the studio remained mostly
constant till the latter part of the World
War II.
Meanwhile, however, Kumudnath
had made a long lasting contribution to
the art-education sector of Assam. He
authored a series of model drawings for
the school going children from class I
to class VI in six parts. The book was
titled Adarsha Chitrankan and used to
be published from Silchar by the author
himself. It was at once approved by the
Assam government education authority
as one of the subjects for school
education in Assam. After some
decades, while in Calcutta, Kumudnath
sold the copyright to a publisher in
Dhaka, East Pakistan, now Bangadesh.
A copy of the sixth part of Adarsha
Chitrankan that was in possession of a
grandson of Kumudnath from his
daughter carries on its cover page:
Approved by the Director of Public
Instruction, Assam (Vide Assam Gazette
No.146-G, dt. 25.11.59). It also carries
on it back cover: Circular No. 2 B/IT
3033 Shillong, 24th February, 1933
"Adarsha Chitrankan"Part 1 to 6 By
Babu Kumud Nath Bhattacharya
prescribed this year for classes 1 to VI
are specially recommended for use in
schools.
Sd
G. A. Small,
Director of Public Instructions, Assam
The cover design of the book was
found to be altogether different from
the original design which was by itself
a grand artwork inspired by the
structural design of Indian temples with
beautiful decorative motifs. This
unfortunately seems to have
permanently lost. Kumudnath also used
to accommodate at his cost, in the style
of 'guru-shishya parampara', young
students who wanted to learn art. A few
of them lived with the guru in his house.
They did not have any means to pay and
therefore, were let in for free for the
entire duration of their study. Kalachand
Singha from Manipur underwent art
training under Kumudnath and on his
study being over, was employed in the
Silchar Government H.E. School as an
art teacher. Kalachand-da retired from
the school in due time.
Following Japan hurling a bomb
on a nearby place, Kumudnath hurried
to send his wife and teenage daughter
Kanakrekha to their village home. The
bombing chased the make-believe
peace out of the British cantonment
and the inmates concentrated on guns
and shells instead of art. City Art
Studio began suffering a sharp
clientele-decline. The dusk of bad days
descended gradually maturing into
dark night. The War was over ushering
in the independence. Great chaos
gripped the country, its eastern and
western part in particular. Demonic
filth and dirt eclipsed the art. There
was hardly anyone local to patronize
Kumudnath. He somehow pulled on
till the beginning of 1954. As the
things touched their lowest ebb and the
very survival was at stake, Kumudnath
sold off his little property, packed his
bags and baggage and with his family
left Silchar for Calcutta bidding
Silchar an unceremonious but tearful
adieu.
Kumudnath never came back to
Silchar. Dust gathered on his memory
relegating it to oblivion.
4t h Issue, Oct ober, 2012
Regional Art Workshop-11,Feb.2012at
Aranayak Valley, Dudhpatil
Jointly organised by- Shilpangan & Gyanada art academy
Photo Essay
6
MAATI- The Ultimate Salute of Strokes Art Exhibition
on 27, Feb.2012 at State Art Gallery, Rabindra Bhavan, Guwahati
4t h Issue, Oct ober, 2012 7 !e !ey
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