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Looking at the wider canvas

A painter and a dancer exchange thoughts on the world around them and the varied paths they have traversed

ME TWO! Sanjay Bhattacharya and Ranjana Gauhar see eye to eye on matters of art versus commercialism PHOTO: R.V. MOORTHY

The intensity in his eyes speaks of myriad experiences that have been lived in all their intensity and depth. The thought process is volatile - again stemming from a passion that is their inherent strength. The work an attempt to explore and perhaps capture the realism of life in its miniscule moment. The aesthetics a perfect balance of being connected to the universal fount of creativity with the feet firmly planted on terra firma. Sanjay Bhattacharya is the quintessential angry young man of the art world. Outspoken, with a heaven may take the hindermost attitude, his views on art and the art world are definite as they are concerned.

Alka Raghuvanshi brings him together with Odissi dancer Ranjana Gauhar, who has explored mediums like theatre, filmmaking and even painting, before embarking on a tough journey through the labyrinths of the lyrical medium of dance. In the process she has reinvented her own dance to converge the experiences into an interesting blossoming and reinterpretation from a different standpoint.

Sanjay: How do you judge a civilisation? Kings may be forgotten, but art is remembered. The names of those artists who created that art too may not be known, but their work stands the test of time. And in this is the crux of the matter.

When we attach price tags to art, we are judging it from a single angle of commerce alone. A painting that doesn't escalate in price may not necessarily be an inferior work.

Ranjana: Exactly! It is unfortunate but true. Art should have a purpose. Not merely a game of price tags. In our field too, no matter how much sadhna may have gone into your dance, you are judged by those few minutes on stage.

Sanjay: Sure. Instead of one raja, we have a hundred nawabs! There is no serious patronage and yet at the end of the day it is about business. If you are a painter, you will sell it. Same goes for dance or music or any other form of art. So it will eventually boil down to money. It is the unfortunate fallout of art as commerce. But when you sell a painting, what are you giving for those 10 lakh?

Ranjana: But how do you assess? You perceive people the way you are. And where there is so much mistrust, the whole thing becomes like an extended tamasha. For fears too are self created and they feed on themselves. As it is, it is difficult to find a channel and outlet for creativity in our callous and insensitive society. But I take refuge in the old dictum of those who surrender to the Divine, the Divine takes care of them!

Sanjay: When people talk about art as a commercial activity, my contention is simple: Where in this world do you get 50 if you don't give a 100? All of us compromise. Earning money through whatever source, is not easy for anyone. But my problem is that with success starts a certain dishonesty, especially when you realise that it is the signature that is becoming all-important and you begin to get lazy. It is ego coupled with this attitude of access to easy money that ruins you.

Ranjana: Absolutely true. If Birju Maharaj had gone into cinema, he would have made 50 such houses which he is being asked to vacate! But the fact is, he chose to stay and work in an area where money is scarce. How can anyone undermine that contribution?

Sanjay: There is no unity in the art world. Why can't we all get together and be one community and be perceived as a united collective? This over-emphasis on individualism is weakening the cause of art as a whole.

Ranjana: It begins with our individualistic mindset. We don't think as a collective. This is exactly the way we see arts - in fragments. In my experience in theatre where I learnt to project myself and interact with space, I learnt to create characters who are not there. It was so useful as a dancer. I remember many years ago once I had gone to hear Pandit Ravi Shankar perform, and after he finished at 4 a.m., I was so charged up that I made a canvas out of old newspapers and painted!

Sanjay: I have also tried my hand at poetry, which has been published in the book "Visual Rhapsody".

If I ever write my autobiography, the last line will be: My entire life I was fed by the blind and the fools. My father used to say that you who don't study, will learn form the sign boards. And this is what happened. All through my life I studied life through the signboards strewn across the path of my life.

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