“everyone is trying to say something through their paintings, there’s such a clamour to be heard, it’s so loud”- samir mondal

“People are so restless now, so busy! Don’t seem to have seen such business earlier. The internet and other modern technologies are flooding people with a deluge of data. There is a huge change in the way people are viewing art. Artistic sense that evolved over aeons is breaking down, or you may say it is undergoing a metamorphosis” -Said artist Samir Mondal. And this time Arghya Dutta is chatting with him for a Vinnosomoy. And the Bengali interview translated into English by Supriyo Lahiry

Time and place- Calcutta of the mid- nineties. Location- Gallery 88 at Theatre road. The entrance of the gallery, the sidewalks and the street are teeming with a crowd of enthusiastic on lookers, passers-by, art lovers, celebrity hunters and the police. Even the balconies, windows and rooftops of the adjacent buildings are choc-a-bloc with curious people.

Reason for all this excitement is the appearance of none other than The Big B, Amitabh Bachhan who had just entered the gallery amidst loud cheers of his fans. He has come to inaugurate an Art exhibition there. Other big names from the silver screen and the world of art and culture like, Shabana Azmi, Anupam and Kiran Kher, Satish Kaushik, Maqbul Fida Hussain, Harsh Goenka, Ananda Shankar etc. are also present, as are many more distinguished personalities from Mumbai and Calcutta.

A thirty- something youth of medium build is struggling to reach the gates of the gallery in this pandemonium. But every time he is reaching the thresholds, the crowd and the police are pushing him back. But everyone inside the gallery is waiting for the youth’s arrival as the lighting of the ceremonial lamp to inaugurate the exhibition can’t happen without him. His name is Samir, water colour artist, Samir Mondal. This exhibition was called ‘Erotica’, quite an off-beat endeavour. Each of the canvases on display was a bold artistic initiative to wed the classical erotic poetry by Sanskrit poets like Kalidas, Bhartrihari and Amaru, translated by Pritish Nandy and visually represented by the paintings of Samir.

The novelty of the subject, its presentation, and the public interest this art event created, were unprecedented in the cultural history of Calcutta. Luxurious arrangements were made for the accommodation of the poet-artist duo, Pritish Nandy and Samir Mondal and all the guests, at The Taj Bengal Hotel. But the cherished memories of his childhood at Balti village on the banks of Sonai river and the dreams of his adolescence at Basirhat were ever alive in Samir’s consciousness. So, while the guests stayed at Taj Bengal, Samir couldn’t waste the chance of spending the two nights of this trip in the company of his Mom, renewing the connection with his roots.

A few years later, when I had become a Mumbaikar, I remember seeing the photographs of the same Samir Mondal regularly in page 3 of Times of India hobnobbing with celebrities in a variety of important social events. By then he was in his middle age, established and with a definite sheen of urban sophistication in his persona. 

Presently Samir Mondal, the water colour man of India is in Australia. He travelled there to visit his son and got stranded due to the worldwide lock down. I chat with him on phone often and did the same for this conversation. Through these heart to heart chats with Samirda, I tried to get a glimpse into the artistic soul of this man who has traversed the colourful creative path of becoming an internationally celebrated painter from the son of a schoolmaster in an obscure Bengal village.

As far as I know when you enrolled at the Government Art College at Calcutta, pursuing such a course of education was considered more as a hobby, fit for the boys and girls from very affluent families. You were the elder son of a village schoolmaster; so, was it an indomitable dream that drove you to enroll at the Art College?

Not at all. I didn’t really have a dream of taking up painting or becoming a professional painter, not in my childhood and not even when I was in the final year of school. I was not even aware that I had any special gift for painting, it seemed that many other boys in my village could do that equally well.

I think that in any discipline of the creative arts, two most vital faculties are, the powers of observation and representation. This representation can be painting, sculpture or even through writing, like you do. In our childhood, most of us have no idea what do we want to be. Which medium would fulfil our urge to express the sense of life and art within us? It seems probable though that some of us have an innate capacity for observation.

I remember dangling dangerously from the bow of an anchored boat and watching the water weeds and the flashes of colour of the small fish playing amongst them. The seasonal changes in our village, the village festivals, the kites painting the sky with myriad colours, the fearsome image of Goddess Kali at the burning ghat, village artisans transforming blobs of clay into beautiful images of Gods and Goddesses, I loved watching them all.

Like a sponge, I absorbed nature’s own colours through my eyes. Yes, I used to paint as well, but just like the other kids, using colours made by crushing leaves and flowers, collecting lamp-soot, stealing some of the red traditional foot-paint (alta) used by my Mom. A series of circumstances and incidents when I was in the tenth and eleventh standard, led me to the doors of the art college. That is another interesting story, I may tell you some day.

It is said that Ganesh Pyne was influenced by Abanindranath Thakur and Rembrandt. Similarly, does your work bear the influence of any Indian or international painter?

It’s rather difficult for me to judge whose work I have been influenced by; It is the job of the connoisseurs and critics of my work. As a student, the person whose work touched and moved me a lot, was our teacher Gopal Ghosh. He was better known as a brilliant proponent of water colour than a teacher though. I have learnt a lot from studying his paintings. It’sin Gopal Ghosh’s paintings that I first noticed how he is breaking the conventional ideas of using colours. I have seen him paint blue trees, yellow water, red clouds, even a black sun! Later I saw the same thing in the works of Matisse. From another teacher, Bikash Bhattacharya, I have learnt how one subtle change in a photographic painting can bring in the touch of magic-realism, or how to add a tinge of drama to a canvas

. In this manner, I have learnt continuously by watching the works of other painters throughout my journey, got influenced by some of them and over a period of time came out of that influence as well. Chinese art has taught me how to take long brush strokes fluently. I have been inspired by many famous international painters; it is difficult to mention all of them here. However, it has always been my conscious endeavour to develop a style that is my own, free from the overt influence of anybody else. It is up to the viewers to judge the measure of my success in doing that. Don’t you think so?

Your life as an art student and as a budding artist spanned the tumultuous seventies, is there a distinctly discernible impression of that decade in your work?

No. Not directly. You might get that impression in the works of painters like Bijon Choudhury or Bikash Bhattacharya, who were established artists by then. Their sense and understanding of the political atmosphere had matured. At that time, we, especially I, was a recent transplant from the idyllic life in a small village. So, I was familiar, even close to the village in its natural setting but the complexities of life in the city and its politics was rather alien to me. But it does not mean that I was detached from my surroundings

I used to observe keenly and try to understand what is happening around us. And those elements were leaving an impression on my mind. Some of it must have reflected indirectly in my work of the time. A lame peacock that I saw once, became a metaphor in a series! There, the peacocks were not represented in their natural colour, but in black and brown! They were even shown foraging for food in a garbage bin! A universal struggle for existence. I believe that in the paintings of that series, my training to see beyond what is plainly visible to the eyes, the unrest of the era and its tendency to break loose from conventions were reflected well. It was well acclaimed.

A google search of your work just yielded some pretty images of flowers and some human forms, no depth of subject matter, only technical brilliance! Doesn’t the contemporary socio-political milieu affect your work much?

A google search throws up only what has been uploaded by different dealers, distributors, gallery web sites and their catalogues. Their motive is entirely commercial. As you know, google etc. are recent developments. If you are searching for my work on various complex and serious themes done in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, you won’t get it there. For instance, a series called ‘Shelter’ highlighting the accommodation problems in the cities, in which I used the shell of a tortoise as a symbol, had created quite a sensation. ‘Desh’ magazine featured one of those paintings on their cover.

The series ‘Torso’ (typically a subject matter for sculptors) to break the convention of traditional water colours, ‘The War’ and “The Butterflies’ at the time of the gulf war, the series on the theme, on the famous Shakespearean line “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”, that was done for an exhibition at the International Theatre Festival are some of my other theme based work. Like, I had painted a series on the way teen-aged girls enjoy games and sports in spite of the various taboos imposed on them, there was also a series called “Me’ celebrating the way our Indian girls conquered the world by dint of their beauty and intelligence.  ‘Mad’, ‘People for animals’, ‘Let’s Rock’ depicting the wayward, indulgent lifestyle of city youths, etc. were the other well-known series. You won’t get these in google, maybe in my personal archive.

Let me also tell you here, I had depicted many serious themes when I was young. In fact, more than thirty of my forty solo exhibitions were based on such themes. Now, often I feel that everyone is trying to say something through their paintings, there’s such a clamour to be heard, it’s so loud! We have forgotten that a lot can be said without uttering a single word, silence has got its own language, nuances. Enough of this din! What if I am selling flowers now? I heard an odd chuckle over the phone.

I said, “selling flowers?”

Yes, selling flowers. Just now you said that nowadays I paint only flowers. You are not the first one to pass such a comment, Arghya. Have you ever tried to understand what those flowers are trying to say? They are not just mute pictures; they are saying something. You may find some have turned blue in agony, some are hurt and won’t show their face to you, but some others are blossoming in delight! Some are still carrying the pain of shedding a petal early.

You seem to be interested in all the branches of fine arts!

See I am not a city bred fellow like you. After enrolling in art college, my situation was like that of Apu in Pather Panchlai. I was a complete novice in the ways of the city. Life had so many ingredients? So many ways of entertainment! In the village we had yatras and some amateur drama. Calcutta had just seen the advent of television then; The variety of performances that used to take place in the cultural functions in every neighborhood was mind boggling! Singing, dancing, recitation, playing the harmonica, mimicry, pantomime; I used to watch them all. All of them attracted me.

while I was a student, I had the good fortune of coming in close contact and getting the patronage of the famous cartoonist Chandi Lahiri. At the time he was engaged in making animation films with the most basic equipment’s. I used to help him in this work by drawing the pictures of the in-between frames and the backgrounds of these films. Animation attracted me so much that I was totally immersed in this work for eight long years.

You had also learned mime and Kathakali dancing. Hadn’t you?

Yes, pantomime moved me a lot; to me it looked like sculptures in motion. I felt, these forms and movements can be used not only to tell stories but also to create striking abstract visuals. So, I started learning pantomime from Yogesh Dutta and later started performing in shows; I must have participated in almost two hundred of them. I banded a few like-minded youths together and launched our own group to portray my ideas on stage. That is how productions like ‘Dreams of a doll maker’ or ‘Darbari Kanada in a graveyard’ came to see the light of the day.

Dabari kanada in a graveyard! What an evocative name!

Yes, I had chosen the name. The idea came from one of my painting trips to a graveyard; the mysterious solitude of the place moved me to think, suppose a young couple had died shortly after their wedding. Would they long to rise from their graves and make love? But since they don’t have a corporeal existence anymore, they wouldn’t be able to touch each other. What kind of movements would be able to express their yearning? Which raga can simultaneously express the joy of their meeting and the sorrow of not being able to consummate their love? Surely Darbari Kanada. That is the history behind that name.

Next, I took lessons of Kathakali dance from Guru Govindan Kutty. I felt this is the Indian form of mime. I was attracted to theatre as an art form right from my teen age. That drew me to be in close contact with legendary theatre personalities like Khaled Choudhury, Suresh Dutta and Tapas Sen. I learnt a lot about compositions and the use of light and shadow from these top technicians, that stood me in good stead later in my life, while painting.

There was a time when you used to write regularly as well, especially for children. Didn’t you?

Yes. That was quite interesting. I used to work in the art department of Birla Industrial and technological Museum Calcutta, popularly known as the Birla science museum. They had a great library full of science books from all over the world. You know me, I am inquisitive about anything and everything in this world. There I found a most interesting book called ‘The locks and keys”. It was a detailed account of the security systems used by man from the stone age to the elaborate security arrangements of the palaces and forts of kings and emperors, right down to the bank vaults of our age.

I got hooked and started borrowing books on various complex scientific topics like how to build an aero plane or the history of submarines or on reflection and refraction of light or even books on advanced mathematics! I used to make a genuine effort to understand however complex the subject might be. The joy of being able to do that was like a child discovering a whole new world. I came to love these scientific topics. Then it struck me. I was already doing illustrations for children’s books and periodicals. Why not write for them as well? If I can present the scientific topics in an interesting manner, they would love it. And I started, in Anandamela magazine; I wrote on various topics; birds, wars, ice-creams and many such. All written in simple language that would appeal to a child.

Nirenda, I mean poet Nirendranath Chakrabarty used to encourage me a lot. My column called ‘Buddhi-suddhi’ in the magazine ‘Kishor gyanbigyan’ had also become quite popular. Not only for children, I have written on paintings in magazines like ‘Sananda’ and ‘Ekkhan’ as well. Even Satyajit Roy approved my article analysing the illustrations by Sukumar Ray; it got published in the Sukumar Roy edition of ‘Prastutiparba’ magazine.

You had also come in close touch with poets like Sunil Gangopadhyay, Shakti Chattopadhyay and the actor Soumitra Chattopadhyay. Haven’t you?

Yes, I had the good fortune to be associated with many illustrious personalities and received their love and affection. The night is too short for narrating all those stories!

How did you decide to leave all this, writing in magazines, theatre, mime, the whole cultural world of Calcutta and settle in Mumbai?

It was not a decision; Obligation of a government job. And not Mumbai, first I was sent to Bangalore on promotion; I came to Mumbai a few years later. Initially, I felt homesick but later came to realize that these new environments in the new cities and their culture have enriched me, helping me to mature as an artist. The real decision I took was much later, the decision to leave the government job and to become a full-time professional painter.

A difficult decision indeed. Can you tell us a bit on the role of your wife, Madhumita boudi played at this point of time?

No, it was not only at this time, all through our life together, as a wife, Madhumita has always been extremely supportive and empathetic towards my artistic aspirations.  Before marriage she was a student of the famous artist Gopal Sanyal. She not only has an innate love of paintings, she possesses a good sense of composition, choice of subject matters, use of colours etc.

 So, to her, painting was not different from many other important things one must do in their married life. In fact, she used to help me in various ways, from buying paints, polishing the canvas frames, lugging the paintings to the galleries or even playing the role of a hostess for the guests at the exhibitions. As the first viewer of all my paintings, she was my first critic and I respected her opinion. To tell you frankly, I felt that we were painting the pictures together.

I came to know of you as a page 3 celebrity; used to see your pictures splashed across the newspapers either in the birthday parties of Amitabh Bachhan or Amir Khan, some painting exhibition or some other social event!

See Arghya, I didn’t have to put any extra effort for all that. The times were changing. There was a sudden boom in the publicity of paintings, their marketing, the overall commercial activity and investments in art. So, we painters suddenly found ourselves in the limelight. The media was instrumental in glamorizing the artists, it started publishing our pictures alongside the celebrities.

 After I did the paintings for the climactic scenes of ‘Taare Zameen Par’ even the common public became interested in me. This was before social media became so important, so page 3 was the best source of glamour news and events around the city. So, all that celebrity like status came by default. I concentrated only on doing my job better.

You have also had the rare opportunity of giving art lessons to an ex-Prime minister.

Yes, for six years. It was he who considered me as his teacher. Former Prime Minister, V.P. Singh. He was a poet and painted as well. After his retirement from politics, he decided to learn painting seriously. He must have seen some of my work somewhere and liked it. It was he who took the initiative to contact me. We met at the Governor’s place. At the time he used to visit and stay at Mumbai for his treatment frequently.

For six years we used to meet whenever he came to Mumbai. We have spent a lot of time together and our relationship went beyond paintings. I have even designed the cover of his book of poems, yes, a lot of memories. I can’t possibly recount all that here and now.

You have been working with water colours for more than fifty years! Would you care to say something about your contribution to water colour painting in India?

Oh! Should I comment on my own contribution? Samirda chuckled a bit and then said, as a student we got painters like Ganesh Halui and Shyamal Dutta roy as our guides. Conventionally water colour meant only landscapes and portraits done on small pieces of paper. The subject matters and techniques of the artists I named just now, helped break that convention. But compared to large oil paintings done in heavy colours, the small water colours done in lighter hues seemed somewhat insignificant. At that time, I had done an exhibition at the Academy of fine arts that featured water colours painted on paper pasted on huge wooden boards. It earned critical acclaim as well as prizes. I could prove that it is possible to paint water colours in large canvas size and create the heavy effect of oil paintings with them.

At Bangalore I got associated with Art Fair and have done workshops for the common public. The idea was to popularize water colours as a medium of painting. After coming to Mumbai, I used to do full page water colours for prestigious magazines like The Illustrated Weekly and Sunday Observer every week. To devote a full page for water colour painting in such commercial magazines was quite an exception. The film star portraits that I did for them became extremely popular. I experimented quite a lot with medium as well.

Not only paper, I have done water colour paintings on leather, wood, canvas, glass and even on mirrors. I have conducted workshops in the art colleges throughout the length and breadth of the country. Frankly, like classical music, water colour painting was fettered by traditions. For the last fifty years, I have consciously tried to popularize water colours and improve its perception as an art medium that is as important as oil paintings.

Not only in India, I have attended and conducted many seminars and workshops abroad as well. Today I and other artists from India are invited to send our work to water colour exhibitions abroad. No doubt the situation has changed a lot and there is some contribution from my side, even if it’s little. However, I am hardly the right person to comment on this, it will be best to leave it to the art historians.  

His last comment brings a smile to my lips, I steal a glance to my watch, it is 10.30 PM here, means 1.0 AM in Australia and it’s cold, severely cold there. I say, Samirda, thank you for taking me down the memory lane. I really enjoyed learning these facts and listening to your anecdotes. Stay blessed. Good night.

Thanks to you too Arghya. People are so restless now, so busy! Don’t seem to have seen such business earlier. The internet and other modern technologies are flooding people with a deluge of data. There is a huge change in the way people are viewing art. Artistic sense that evolved over aeons is breaking down, or you may say it is undergoing a metamorphosis

 Still I feel somewhere someday the Neroes will pick up their old violins. I am an optimist. Maybe man will find newer mediums to express their artistic sensibilities. It was lovely to talk to you. I wish you and the readers of ‘vinnoSomoy’ all the very best. Samirda, the water colour wizard kept his phone.

(due to reader’s /viewer’s demand we are republishing this Bengali interview in English. we are greatful to Mr. Supriyo Lahiry for this beautyfull Traslation)