Pracheen Kala Kendra

This is the story of two days – 22nd and 23rd Sept when I had a new type of experience in life. It began sometime in July when I got a letter from Mrs. Shobha Koser, Registrar, Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh. The letter was an invitation for me, a student of Pracheen Kala Kendra, to participate in an All India Fine Arts (Painting) workshop cum exhibition held in Patna, Bihar. At that time it wasn’t clear to me about what this would entail. I sent the necessary information e.g. my bio data, samples of my work etc. as requested by the organizers (which later made its way into the booklet published , see below):

In the end of August, I inquired about the details and found out that this was going to be a workshop cum exhibition, where 25 artists were invited from all over India. All the artists would get a chance to display 5-6 of their paintings at the exhibition and would paint an Acrylic painting on a canvas of size of 3 feet by 2 and half feet along with the other artists. I mention the size specifically, because I had never painted something that big before – the painting was supposed to be taller than me ;)

I discussed some ideas with my painting teacher, Sharmila Roy to figure out what I should paint in a workshop like this and on a canvas that big! She gave me some good suggestions based on her assessment of my abilities. All of this – the size of the painting and the thought of working in the midst of many other artists, outside the comfort zone of my home, made me a little nervous. Apparently, that wasn’t enough, a very big and septic boil grew on my left hand about 3 weeks before the event and it continued to well… grow. My hand swelled up like a balloon and it was so painful that it even prevented me from doing my daily tasks. So at that point, it was very difficult for me to even imagine painting a piece that huge. But I still tried hard to practice painting something before going to Patna. Only half finished it though…
A day before exhibition, we flew from the Kolkata airport in a small plane to get to the Patna Airport. My mother and elder sister accompanied me. The next morning, after having breakfast and of course my medicines including a painkiller I went to the “Bharatiya Nritya Kala Mandir” where this workshop cum exhibition was going to be held.

We had been asked to be there by 11 am for the inauguration ceremony. Before the inauguration, the organizers arranged the paintings that the artists had got along for display.

And then we waited… the ceremony began three hours late! This crossed the notion of “IST” as well we think :) The inauguration was done by Shri. Vinay Bihari – minister of Kala Sanskriti and Yuva Vibhag (Department of Culture & Youth), Bihar government and Shri. Patel – minister of Shiksha Vibhag (Department of Education), Bihar,  government. After that they called me on stage and gave me a memento and a bouquet of flowers. There were a surprising lot of press photographers and reporters and they took a lot of photographs.

After this ceremony was over, around 4:00 pm the organizers asked us to start our work. At first, I was a little nervous and felt some hesitation to work in front of so many people – professional artists, media folks and others as I had never done something like this before. But after some time I became normal but it was still difficult to enjoy working because of the tension to complete the work accompanied by the severe pain in my hand due to the boil. In addition, the reporters were creating some disturbance by asking questions, flashing cameras as they took pictures. I was mostly lost in work, I turned my head around just momentarily to see what’s going around and found that everyone else was also lost in working on their pieces. It was a nice scene!

At the end of day, by around 6:30 pm, I was able to push through to finish quite a bit. I was very exhausted, but satisfied with the progress. Everyone was asked to come at 10 am the next day in order to finish the remaining work.

The next day, I reached the workshop area around 9:40 am, once again after breakfast, medicines and a painkiller. I worked hard and was finally able to finish my huge painting.

We heard from the exhibition organizers that 8 newspapers had published my photo and an article about me. My sister went and got as many newspapers as she could from the Railway Station :). See some clippings below:

After everyone had completed their paintings, the organizers cleaned and decorated the hall and hung the paintings made by the artists as part of the workshop. This was the prep work for the exhibition that commenced next.

On the second day, the ceremony was inaugurated by two famous Indian artists Shri. Anandi Prasad Badal and Shri. Shyam Sharma. After that the local public and reporters started arriving for looking at the exhibits.

At the end of the second day, Pracheen Kala Kendra had given participation certificates and a rather hefty booklet about the event to every artist. Towards the end, the artists, organizers, family had group photograph sessions, which was fun!

All the artists also signed a big canvas to commemorate the event and leave a message.

I consider this a successful event of my life because of all the new experiences I had. It was quite exhilarating to work in a public location and alongside professional artists, the best part was that I was able to complete the painting and everyone liked it! It was also good to look at various different types of paintings and see some new techniques at work. It was very nice to observe the creativity of various artists. Meeting and getting to know some new people was equally exciting. This was a platform which gave me chance of sitting as an artist between various famous painters of India and also working surrounded with camera and reporters, can’t complain!

The return journey was somewhat adventurous too. Because of the press coverage, many people seemed to recognize me at the Patna airport and came up to say Hello etc. Even the security lady recognized me from the newspaper photo and we had a nice chat :).

It will sound funny if I say – I feel like a mini star/celebrity when I recall those two days spent in the midst of camera lights, reporters and the crowd of Patna, but I sure felt that way! I feel really lucky to have attended this event and thankful to my family and teachers because I could not have done it without them.