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It is only rarely that the public gets to know the sculptor. Pal is aware of this phenomenon.

SMILE OF SUCCESS Gautam Pal in Geneva after the sculpture was unveiled.

In the middle of that garden, covered by a sheet that flaps a little in the merciless wind, stands a statue whose inscription can just be discerned.

It is obviously a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. Even in this international city, almost synonymous with peace talks and peace-loving people, such a sight is a surprise.

This is a special day for Indians in Geneva. A statue of the Mahatma is about to be unveiled in the Ariana Garden, on the aptly named Avenue de la Paix (Peace Avenue), just a short walk from the United Nations building.

And among the Indians seen about is one who must be feeling especially proud. But he is modest and soft spoken. Gautam Pal, the man who cast the 600-kg bronze statue, has flown in from Kolkata for the ceremony. But as he and his wife Smita put their heads down against the wind and make their way towards the Ariana Museum within the garden, they could be mistaken for just any tourist couple.

But then such occasions are in a way old hat for Pal, a sculptor trained first under his father, K.C. Paul, and later at the Government College of Art and Craft, Calcutta. A brilliant career was heralded when he was admitted here straight into the third year. Under the guidance of professors like Chintamoni Kar and Sunil Paul, he passed with flying colours. Then he went to Milan for further studies at the Accademia Di Bella Arti Di Brera, where he studied sculpture under Lucino Minguzzi and casting under Mario Valcamonica. Receiving his diploma with distinction in 1974, Pal returned to India, eventually setting up his own studio in his native Krishnagar.

One of his early works was a bronze bust of Pope Paul VI which he presented to him at Vatican City. The artist, who set up a sculpture garden in Vatjungla near Krishnagar in 1983, was invited to create a statue of Mahatma Gandhi for Moscow city in 1988. “That was my first. It shows him in the Dandi March,” he says of the string of such statues he has placed around the world. In 2000, his Gandhi statue was unveiled in Washington DC. His works can be seen from Edinburgh to New York, Bahrain to Palanco and other cities of the world. In India, they are far more numerous.

His statues of Gandhi and Vivekananda, besides a host of other historical luminaries, dot the landscape at various venues across the country, cast in bronze, white cement, plaster as well as marble.

Last year, he was in Spain’s university city of Valladolid, where Indian and Spanish agencies collaborated to set up the Casa de la India, or India House. For this occasion, Pal created a statue of Rabindranath Tagore. For the Geneva statue, he is back to the Father of the Nation, whom he has depicted this time in a seated posture reading a book.

The statues remain as landmarks wherever they are set up. It is only rarely that the public gets to know the sculptor. Pal is aware of this phenomenon, but he also knows he is eminent in his quiet way.

And as India’s ambassador to Switzerland, Amitava Tripathi points out, “The right people take notice of him!”

And the inscription on the statue he stands before in Geneva, “My life is my message” could just as well apply to the artist as the subject. Because for Pal, sculpture is his “life, dream and deity”. So his work has its own reward.

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