Down the Memory Lane

Down the memory lane

                               By Parthajit Baruah

                                                        

                                                     Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, is a great Institute for many of us, but for the family of Narayan Gaikwad, it is not just an institute, but a temple , a paradise and a life . The family  is the witness of both the sweet and bitter memories of FTII. It was a way back in 1935 when the great Prabhat Studio was in  progress in Pune , then the Principal of FTII was V. Shantaram. .Narayan Gaikwad, a dhobi by profession, approaches V. Shantaram with an inexplicable expression of happiness to inform the latter that he became the father of a baby boy.   V. Shantaram, a man with the milk of human kindness, said to Narayan Gaikwad that as his marathi film ‘Sant Tukaram’ was about to come on floor, so, his new born baby should be named as Tukaram. Narayan Gaikwad was working as a dhobi in the Prabhat film Company when Tukaram was born. The Gaikwad family had been staying inside the studio campus for a long time. But the problem arose when the Prabhat Studio was taken over by the government. From the Prabhat Studio, it came  to be known as Film and Television Institute of India in 1961. The Gaikwad family who had been living in the FTII premises since 1935, came under threat as there was no provision for any dhobi post. The family was ordered to leave the premises. But the family was saved by Ganjanan Jagirdar, the first principal of FTII, in the eleventh hour. With the permission from the government. Gajanan told them that they could live in the quarters but the government would not pay any salary to his family. Their source of income would be only through laundry work. Since then, they had been residing at FTII premise in a small quarter .

           

                                                   The then baby Tukaram has grown up and is now 74 years old. He is fondly called by the FTII regular students and FA students as Tukaramji.But I call him Tukaji. He is soft-spoken and sober dhobi who welcomes everyone with a sweet grin. I met Tukaramji when I went to do the Film Appreciation Course at FTII. I asked him to tell some of the most indelible memories that he still cherished.   In a glittering evening,sitting under the wisdom tree , he goes on telling me about the past. Tukaramji told me that once Jaya Bhaduri who was an Alumni of FTII, borrowed the ornaments from his brother’s wife for a student’s diploma film. He also said that Shubhash Ghai and Asrani once took ten rupees as their money order did not come in time. With that ten rupees, they saw the film ‘Ganga Jamuna’. He also remembers humorously  that Shubhash Ghai was very sympathetic and while Asrani was miser by nature during his FTII days.

           

                                         Tukaramji, a man with a few words, still lives in the quarter of FTII premises and stands as a symbol of witness of long history.

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The Pathfinder by Parthajit Baruah

The Pathfinder

A profile of Pranab Baruah (1935 - 2002)
by Parthajit Baruah

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Artist Pranab Baruah paved a new path in the contemporary art movement in Assam with a unique style of his own. His death [in February, 2002] turned out to be a dwarf before a monumental figure, and could not snatch away his national fame. Pranab Baruah, as an artist, wanted to go, forever, beyond a world where the structures of relationships between man and woman means only a living death. There are some portraits having an individual style which still inhabit that world, and there is an implicit identification of his paintings with the substance of the artist’s life, understandable in view of the way, the metaphors enacted in them, taken together, are obviously intended to exhibit in full the structures which give shape to that life. The ideas and metaphors Pranab Baruah chose are imbued with exotic or bizarre associations derived from his experience.

Pranab Baruah, a versatile artist, born in a cultured and well off family in 1935. His home, a paradise like abode by Kolong paar, the channel, which had been the constant source of inspiration for many creative artists and writers of this region. Western style in art was in his blood, and so, Pranab Baruah, instead of joining Santiniketan for the Indian approach to art, studied at JJ School of Art at Mumbai for a more western background.

The greatness of Pranab Baruah as an artist lies in the narrative quality of his portraits and use of the monochromatic colour. Another feature of his composition is that he had a tendency to divide or distort the space and form with the help of the basic geometrical shape and moreover there is close resemblance of Pranab Baruah’s portraits with Picasso’s analytical cubism. History tells us that most of the world famous artists like Picasso, Duchamp, Manray, Ben Shann, Francis Bacon, were greatly influenced by social issues. On the contrary, Pranab Baruah, the pathmaker, declined to be swayed by any sort of movement, and stressed on his personal issues which he universalised and created a peculiar style marked by his unique individualism.

His paintings like Whispers, Gossip, Woman under the Hat, Vision of Truth, Three Windows in Storm evoke into the mind of the viewer some curiosily to explore beneath mere colours. Pranab Baruah, though atheist in nature, draws the figures of Christ, Krishna and Ganesha which symbolise ageless metaphors. His works, both group show and solo shows were exhibited in different parts of the country like Academy of Fine Art in Kolkata (1979), Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi (1981), Tribeni Kala Sangam (1990) and Guwahati Art Gallary. Sanjeeb Sarkar, a celebrated critic of Bengal wrote a review in the magazine Desh, while Homen Borgohain wrote an inspiring review in the weekly paper Nilachal. His famous paintings Protikhya and Samasya were exhibited at Academy of Fine Art of Kolkata, Lalit Kala Academy of Delhi, and Birla Academy ofKolkata. A prestigious art gallery in Mumbai has also preserved some of his paintings.

Though Baruah’s paintings were basically in oil, yet he also tried water colours, ink and sketch drawing. His works donot fall foul of modernist injunctions against personality and its richness is a standing rebuke to objectivism – are buke rendered more cutting because one layer of his paintings is constituted by vivid qualities of art.

The tragic death of Binu, his beloved sister, devastated the artist yet he never let the people know about his dejection, keeping it in his ‘ID’ part of his mind, trying to create portraits reflecting that past. His catholicity of outlook, sympathy towards every creature, his friendly behaviour, straightforwardness, humanitarian approach, his easybanter, and encouraging words to frustrated youths, made him a man of extraordinary popularity.

When the people of Assam in general and the people of Nagaon in particular were unaware of the art movement during the fifties and sixties, Pranab Baruah, like a torch-bearer revolutionised an art movement, setting up several art schools and organisations, and one of them is Kallol Chritrangana.

Nagaon, an Utopia for the artist, was chosen as the place from where he visualised everything. Baruah dedicated his whole life to art education, rejecting the post of the Director of Cultural Affairs, Govt. of Assam, and was given Bishnu Rabha Award in 2000 and artists' pension. But he deserved much more.

Courtesy: The Assam tribune (2003)