I am sharing the story of another nice event in my life as an artist. It was an exhilarating experience of being in a lovely, albeit a little known natural retreat, Laxmeshwar and getting a chance to spend time with many talented artists as part of the Artist Camp held during the Puligere Utsav 2020. This is sponsored by Infosys Foundation and organized by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan at Lakshmeshwar, Gadag District.
I say exhilarating because, for a person living in a big, crowded, polluted city, it was simply wonderful to stay in the midst of beautiful coconut trees with nothing around except muddy roads and some nice folks. There were no tall tall buildings, no crowds and not even too many shops around. It was a natural retreat (and not advertised, hence pristine)! Being there I felt like I was in paradise, breathing pure and fresh oxygen, feeling the cool breeze and covered with a warm blanket of sun.
Technically, Laxmeshwar is a small town but felt more like a village in terms of how pristine everything is. This is primarily an agricultural trading town and is a newly created Taluk in Gadag district, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The nearest airport is in Hubli, about 55 km away.
Laxmeshwar has many important religious buildings, the most famous one being the “Someshwara Temple (dedicated to Lord Shiva). There are also two ancient Jain temples, a beautiful Jumma Masjid, and many smaller shrines. In summary, I found Laxmeshwar to be a sweet symbol of unity!
So, getting back to the festival which I was there for – this was the fifth year in a row, it was being held and started on the first Friday of January for 4 days. During this Utsav, there are extensive song and dance programs for which teams travel great distances and prepare for months. They also organize an artist’s camp involving 10 selected artists. This year I was selected among those 10. Each artist works on two paintings of size 2 ft x 2.5 ft, the theme being Laxmeshwar landscapes.
I did not know anything about this place before Mr. Ashok Kumar (Executive Deputy Director, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bengaluru) called me and told me about this camp and that the committee had selected me as one of the 10 artists. In the beginning, I was filled with mixed feelings of surprise, excitement and worry! I couldn’t commit to participating right away, because I did not have any experience of being in such a camp or living in a place with minimal facilities as would be the case in a small town. But finally, I decided that I would like to attend this camp, experience something new and meet other artists.
I reached there the evening before the day, the Utsav was going to begin. We stayed in a small bread and breakfast, the “Cocohut”, where the owners prepared some lovely meals for us and also took care of our other needs. The next day, post breakfast, all the artists were taken for a tour of the Shri Someshwara Temple. During a tour of Someshwara Temple, the priest and his helpers showed us every nook and corner of the temple and narrated stories behind the various sculptures. The stone sculptures were very beautiful, the high walls of the Someshwara temple lent it a feeling of a fort. There is a very well behind the temple and the water from it is used for pooja (worship and other temple needs. There are several small temples surrounding this big temple, each of those also boasts of rich architecture and beautifully carved sculptures. This is a superb specimen of Chalukya art and architecture. The principal deity that is worshipped in the temple is Lord Shiva.
After the tour of the temple, the priest did a special pooja and then we commenced the inauguration of the Puligere Utsav 2020.
I was asked to light the lamp as part of it and several people gave speeches, songs were sung, etc.
As part of the inauguration of the artist camp, I was asked to paint something on the canvas as an inauguration. At that moment, when they asked me to paint something all of a sudden, at first I was blank and could not figure out how to paint something… we were outside, the sun was hot and it was very bright… I was very tense since I was the one asked to do this inauguration painting sample when there were so many other talented artists standing around and that too in front of all the organizers, many school children, local media, other locals, temple trustees, priest, and his helpers, etc. However, in all the excitement, I was able to paint a bit and everyone was excited and happy.
Post the inauguration we went on a really enjoyable tour of the city and other religious monuments. We saw the Trikuteshwar Temple, 1008 Anantanath Thirtankar Digamber Jain temple, Jumma Masjid, etc. All of these were made of stones and each has a lot of rich architecture and beautiful sculptures. Each had a beautiful mythological story which I found very interesting :). I am still amazed at the construction of the buildings and the stone sculptures because in those days equipment and machines like we have today did not exist.
During this tour, all the artists took photographs so we could create the paintings by looking at them.
Later, I selected some from the photos we had taken and started making my two paintings. The first one I chose is part of the Someshwara Temple as I was very impressed with its stone sculptures, the overall architecture and the mythological stories behind it which the temple’s priest narrated to us. For my second painting, I thought a lot about what to paint and how to bring a combined vision of the Someshwara temple and the beautiful views of the Cocohut I had in my mind come alive on the canvas. After spending a considerable amount of time thinking, I finally came up with a beautiful image in my mind. And transferred it onto the canvas with my paints and brushes. As you can see, in this painting I have tried to capture the beauty of “Cocohut” and the Someshwara Temple – the lovely coconut trees, the pollution-free blue sky, just like a dream :)! I completed both the paintings in a day and a half and handed them over to Mr. Ashok at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bengaluru. I was happy to see that he liked my paintings and appreciated my work!
Overall, it was a beautiful experience, I met some wonderful people, got to visit Laxmeshwar and enjoy the pristine environment there as well as marvel at the architecture of the ancient temples!
