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Of visual appeal One of Rameshwar Broota’s works displayed at a recent exhibition.

Known for his command on etchings and oils, Broota, for the last three to four years, has also been exploring photography. New Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery and Triveni Kala Sangam exhibited his latest photo collection till this past Tuesday.

Broota’s pictures once again explore a subject closest to his heart – man and machine. But these are not just simple photographs. He fuses one still with another to state a point. For instance, one of his pictures depicts a huge open pipe from a shipwreck and connects it to a man’s leg. In another image, he fuses a still featuring a stack of colourful wine bottles to that of an uniformed guard whose face expresses the burden of the heavy weight that that he is carrying on his head.

Says Broota, “I never liked straight pictures. I always wanted to create something new out of them. So when computers came 10 years ago, I was the happiest man on earth. It gave wings to my imagination.” The veteran artist now uses high-power digital cameras to click pictures and then works on his high tech computer to crop them. “It has freed me me from the tedious dark room process,” he says.

But many don’t agree with ‘tempered’ photography. Broota differs. “You can’t see everything in a photograph that you want to. So what’s wrong if it is ‘touched’ to look more convincing? For instance, I saw a horse resting in a wide, green field. I took the aerial view of this picture, gave the horse a little reddish tinge and ‘tied’ a rope around its neck. I let the other end of the rope let loose. The photo turned into a pictorial story,” he drives home his point.

Behind Broota’s powerful works lie decades of struggle. “When my father fell on to bad days, I didn’t have money to paint. So, I would buy only one canvas, paint on it, rub it off and then paint again. I did so for several years.” He portrayed the plight of a common man, from that of migrant labourers to soldiers.

Soldiers because Broota himself wanted to become one. “I applied for the job in Indian Army but because I was too frail, got rejected,” he claims. But one subject that had stayed away from his canvas mostly is that of women. He reasons, “I liked painting muscled men, or men with great physical strength but I could never imagine a woman as powerful as a man. I would always see delicacy and beauty in her.”

And for the love of painting he used to even skip classes at school, he says. “My elder brother suggested me to join Delhi College of Art after I failed the Army recruitment test. It changed the course of my life,” he says.

But success didn’t quite fall on his lap very easily. He says, “I used to change three buses to go to Jamia Millia University where I taught fine arts for some time.” It was after he was offered a job at Triveni Kala Sangam in 1967 that his works took a new shape. “I was free to work the way I wanted. It helped me become what I am today,” he says with a smile. Known for very few shows, a media shy and an usually reserved Broota says, “I don’t do regular shows as I don’t work like a machine. I keep my standard. I feel really ashamed to ask for a price for my work, I don’t even sell those works that I don’t like. Even today, I sell two to three works in a year.”

Broota is also not for paying high prices for art works “except if they belong to those artists who have burnt midnight oil for the love of art”.

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