Amonkar: The singer with an angel’s voice

I wanted to write about art but when heard about the demise of Kishori Amonkar, the singer with an angel’s voice, I couldn’t proceed further without sharing some moments with the temperamental singer. I will never forget my first encounter with her unpredictable nature. It must have been in the late 80s. It was the first Bhakti Sangeet festival and Kishori ji insisted that she will sing at 5.30 on a Sunday morning. Since I was covering it, I had little option but to go.

So after nightshift I somehow cajoled my worse half to drop me to the venue as no transportation was available from where we lived. To my utter surprise the lawns of the Sangeet Natak Akademi were chock a block full. She started exactly an hour late. The audience waited patiently. Such was her charisma. But what happened after the concert started was almost Chaplinisque for at the hour people probably needed to use the washrooms and since it was open air, she could clearly see every time someone got up and would get visibly irritated and disturbed. It came to a point that there were so many people getting up that she stopped singing.

While I can empathise with the situation from both the audiences’ point of view as well the artiste’s point of view but it was not fair to those who had come in time at the ungodly hour and waited for an hour. But then she was known to be extremely moody. I have myself waited for her several times sometimes even for two hours at concerts until it came to point I decided that I will never go for her concerts — I felt that it was unfair and unprofessional on her part to not value the time of hundreds of people as she tested their patience every time.

To an extent it was my loss but it was hers too. While my loss was that I was deprived of hearing her in person, she lost a good kansen who loved her music. In fact, I have never attempted to even interview her for the same reason. This is not to say that I am always on time, but of that another time! Who can forget her hauntingly beautiful rendition of several compositions of Raga Bhoop, but to me it always be the wistful title song from V. Shantaram’s film Geet Gaya Patharon Ne that I will always remember her by.

Summer has crept up on us sooner than expected thanks to equinox it is hotter than usual. Thankfully a few art camps are being organised in more sylvan surroundings in the hills. I love art camps for two reasons. In camps where artists are expected to paint, it gives them an opportunity to paint with fellow artists, understand newer techniques and just the experience of the bonhomie of painting with your own type of people — as it is I feel that most artists/artistes are misfits in so-called normal people. I use the description so-called normal very knowingly for philosophically speaking, what is normal? Its description keeps changing with each society, its norms and the times we live in.

In camps where one is there only to soak in the atmosphere, the fact is that the landscape does travel back with you in your heart and head and like water comes out in unexpected ways. I have myself realised it umpteen number of times that images from various travels have emerged on my canvases even years later. One of my most cherished visual is late night boat ride in a fireflies park that has been the trigger point of my many paintings even till date.

Talking of landscapes, artist Bikash Poddar, is showing a series of his recent paintings that celebrates nature in its myriad colours. Titled “Kaleido-Scapes: Nature in Vibrant Hues”, at Gallerie Ganesha, the show is exceptionally fascinating and unique for its use of Japanese wash technique, whereby a special paper is first washed with a light colour and then stronger colours are used to create features of landscapes, objects and human figures on them.

The paintings depict landscapes in miniature format with highly detailed architecture: Ruined temples, weathered habitations and boats by the waterside. The exhibition also includes his boldly coloured works that concentrate on objects of daily use. His works are dialectical and evocative and memorable for the quality of their execution.

“I paint in layers and try to extemporise, so as to give the dying art of wash technique a new dimension,” he says. Poddar finds inspiration from the rural hinterlands of Bengal.

Born in Kaliaganj in Malda district of West Bengal, his hilly hometown and the countryside has had a profound impact on his work.

Vast expanses of green, blue, and the angry red sky encouraged him to draw them on canvas. While Poddar's works are mostly naturescapes, they also feature human figures involved in conversation. The mood forged almost resembles the calm before a storm with the humans precarious and caught between situations.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com