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With pen and paintbrush
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Returning... An Indian Odyssey is the fruit of writer and artist Ilaa Dev Pal's musings over a thirty-year passage through India
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PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.
ARTISTIC RECORD Illa Dev Pal's book which is a random collection of observations and images was released by novelist Shashi Deshpande (left)
What started off as a personal diary that she painted and wrote in, transformed into a book she had never intended. Over 30 years of travel and observation yielded Returning... An Indian Odyssey for painter-poet Ilaa Dev Pal.Carrying her pen and paintbrush wherever she went, she wrote, painted and wrote simultaneously and that is how the book is presented, making it a very distinctive attempt at what is being pegged as a coffee-table-travel book and beyond. But the 65-year-old author is quick to say: "I wouldn't call it a travel diary or book because these are just musings. And I wouldn't call it a coffee table book because that's something beautifully produced to just gloss over. This is something to mull over. I wrote fearlessly because I was writing for myself. I never thought of success but about bridging the gap between experience and expression," says the traveller, who's not really learnt art formally but is a clinical and educational psychologist.
Ilaa Dev Pal was in the city this week to release her book. This is her second, after the biography of mentor and friend M.F. Hussain Beyond The Canvas that she authored. Hussain, incidentally has this inscribed on the book — "Poetry to be seen. Images to be read." Ilaa has held over 25 solo exhibitions of her works in India and abroad and her work features in many art museums in America.
Spanning mainly across Mumbai — the city she lives in, Benaras — where she returns to often to find the meaning of life, and Udaipur — her magical city, the book presents a series of sketches and watercolours of moments, incidents, and people that have imprinted her life. "It's not got that gloss and glamour. It's not glitzy. You see everyone wants to see Incredible India... but this is totally out of the box," she insists.
One cursory look at the book and it becomes obvious that Benaras is what has influenced her most. And it was here that all the miracles happened, she says. While buying books at a store there, she asked for a writer's discount. Instead she was asked to meet the publisher (Pilgrims). Within 20 minutes of showing a collection of her artwork, she was ready to sign along the dotted line.
Whether it is the ghats of Benaras complete with pleas of "Yaha pishaap karna mana hai" and "Choron se bach ke raho" painted on the walls, or of the loud culture of Bollywood criss-crossed by Sholay's Gabbar Singh and Jai Santoshi Maa, they all figure in Ilaa's works. So do brides who walked out of marriages when dowry was demanded of mothers, daughters and bawdy bridegroom parties. In short, it is a random collection of observations and images that seem to be spurred in restaurants, by the banks of a river or sitting on the green grass. Sample this from the opening piece: "Tourists need Indian deities, as salad dressing, or trimmings to their tales of natives. Not that we need them much more."
"I have not overlooked the underbelly of our world. My parents were social reformers and educators and so many lives extended into ours. There was a surfeit of relationships and so I grew up with two different sides; one seeking reality and one seeking myself." And her portrayal of the country's underbelly is not dark, she says, but tinged with wry humour and sarcasm.
Brushing aside any "influences" in her writing or paintings, she says: "I give in to my compulsions and to the dictates of my pen and brush."
BHUMIKA K.
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