Elegy By A Painter

What do you have to do to get director Girish Karnad, poet Keki Daruwalla and writer B C Ramachandra Sharma to inaugurate an exhibition of paintings? And to follow that up with a line up of readings by 11 poets the next day, including the likes of J P Das, Makarand Paranjape, K Satchidanandan and Padma Sachdev?

If youre artist S G Vasudev, then you start the ball rolling six years in advance. In 1992, Vasudev began work on a series of drawings based on the work of the poet A K Ramanujan. Originally, Ramanujan was supposed to give a poetry reading at the inauguration, but he died in July 1993. Vasudev decided to carry on with the exhibition but now as a tribute to a dearly loved friend and a wonderful poet. A Tribute to A K Ramanujan, a collection of 35 drawings, goes on show in the Capital today at the India International Centre. Karnad, Sharma and Daruwalla three of Indias finest poets will be giving a reading this evening.

 

I first met Ramanujan in 1966, when I was an art student in Madras. Girish Karnad introduced us. I had never read any of his poems before, but I felt from the beginning that he was a fantastic person to be with, says Vasudev. Shortly after they met, Ramanujan asked him to design the dust jacket for his first collection of poems Hokkulallli Hoovilla. I was thrilled, says Vasudev. I read his poems, then did a cover with a dark grey background with white letters. And, in a fledgling beginning to this show, he used one of Ramanujans poems for the back cover, writing it out and then illustrating it.

Over the years, the young artist and the poet who was to become one of Indias best-known writers developed a close and lasting friendship, almost a symbiotic relationship. Ramanujan hadnt received much exposure to art in his younger years, so Vasudev took him round to the important shows of the day. In return, says Vasudev, Ramanujan gave him a new perspective on the world of art. The two would spend hours standing in front of a painting, discussing it in such detail that friends say they often lost track of time and had to be gently reminded by the museums personnel that closing time was at hand.

For Vasudev, this is not the first time that poetry has stood in as his creative Muse. Ive been inspired by the works of various other poets as well, he admits. There was a poem called Kaya Vruksha Vrindavana, by D R Bendre, one of the best Kannada poets. Vasudevs ruminations on this one poem grew into the celebrated Vriksha series of paintings the works that he is most identified with even today. Later, Gopal Krishna Adige and B C Ramachandra Sharmas works lent themselves to creative interpretations by the painter.

For the literary buff, Vasudevs drawings work as a surprisingly illuminating window into the world of Ramanujans poetry. I have done drawings only on the poems that I could react visually to, though Ive liked quite a few of his poems. Ramanujan himself did not select any poems for me. He appreciated my choice, even though I had done only about 5-6 drawings while he was alive, explains Vasudev.

The drawings are not intended to be illustrations, and therefore arent necessarily faithful to the letter of the poetry. They are my reactions to his poems of all the forms of literature, I believe that poetry is closest to art, says Vasudev earnestly. The drawings capture some of the raw sensuality of the originals, and add an extra dimension of their own. You cant read Hymns for the Drowning again without thinking of Vasudevs stark line drawing the figure of a man etched with a few sparse lines, his hands outstretched in what could either be resignation or a plea for help. A light froth of bubbles drifts up, covering the words of the poem like so many escaped full stops.

Towards Simplicity uses figures on the edge of abstraction much as Madhubani paintings or Australian aboriginal art. Among the most spectacular works on show is The Sack of Lanka, where Vasudevs mastery over the deceptively simple medium of ink on paper comes to the fore.

A Tribute to A K Ramanujan can be seen as the culmination of a spectacular career. You cannot talk to Vasudev without receiving the impression that he sees more, hears more, soaks in more than the rest of us do. Its not just that he marches to the beat of a different drummer: its more as though the drummers always been there, but Vasudevs the only one who can hear him. And his career as an artist has been marked by an almost organic growth.

In the eighties, when Bendres poem inspired him to do the Vriksha series, Vasudev found the concept of the Tree of Life growing on him. It was a powerful concept that has been visualised in almost every other culture that you can think of, in some way or the other, says the founder of the Cholamandal Artists Village outside Madras. In the late eighties, the Tree of Life took on a darker aspect, becoming the Tree of Life and Death when his wife, Arnawaz, died.

His next set of major works was a series of line drawings that explored the theme of erotic love between men and women. From there, he went on to do a series of outsize heads in the early 90s. Then the head itself began disintegrating, as the artist recalled in a conversation with art critic Geeta Doctor. The eyes became leaves, the nose took the shape of a trunk, the body itself appeared to be growing branches.

This was a time of great changes in his life he had met and married Ammu, he was mixing with a motley crowd of activists, and thinking more about womens issues, environmental questions and the role of society than he had ever done. Then came Soundscapes the collection of compositions by various musicians which led to Vasudevs identically titled series of works.

Over the years, much of the colour has leached out of Vasudevs works as hes returned to the rigour demanded by the line. He has designed book jackets for many authors apart from Ramanujan, and very few of his jacket designs use more than two or three colours. Vasudev recalls, When I designed the jacket for Ramanujans first collection of poems, it was in dark grey and white. And he asked me, dont you want to use any more colour? And I said: eeeeeeNo, with your poems, I can only conceive of them in black and white.

J P Das, one of the eleven poets who will be giving a reading tomorrow in tribute to a master of their kind, might disagree. Vasudevs drawings bring out so much of the original, he says. You can almost smell the scent of earth, see the protagonists. They are at your elbow, you feel that you only have to turn around after seeing the drawing and they will be there, vibrant and alive. One might almost add, as large as life and twice as colourful.