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Romancing the stars
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Anjanna Kuthiala captures stars in portraits and the romance of every woman embodied in Anarkali
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Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar
Brushing it off Anjanna Kuthiala feels Anarkali never got her due
She believes it was her divine calling to paint Shah Rukh Khan. When anyone says that, you are curious. More so when you discover that Anjanna Kuthiala was Miss India in 1975, largely paints portraits of women, is coming to Bangalo
re with a series of paintings titled ‘Anarkali Reborn’ and her cellphone’s hello tune is Jagjit Singh’s ‘Jai Jai Sai Ram’.
That’s quite a concoction of a person, you decide, even as you listen to her say “Shah Rukh was waiting for this to happen to him…he didn’t come and ask ‘Will you paint me?’ but even without his saying it, I heard it.” The Noida-based painter has painted portraits of Shobhaa De, Hema Malini, and is working on one for Priety Zinta.In 1998, she did a series of paintings titled ‘The Changing Face of Beauty in Films’ where she captured actresses from Devika Rani to Aishwarya Rai. “Today it’s a more international look that our actresses have.” All the actresses got to keep their portraits.
So when Anjanna met Shah Rukh and told him she was planning to paint a series on him and that till date she had only painted women, “Shah Rukh said ‘I’m beginning to wonder about my masculinity…I’m no Madhuri’. And I said ‘I’m no M.F. Hussain’.” Shah Rukh later passed on photographs and catalogues for her to paint from. “I had to immortalise him…it was a divine calling.” The six-pack-ab SRK of “Om Shanti Om” is not the one Anjanna relates to.
The series she brings to Bangalore is inspired by the legendary lover and courtesan Anarkali. “I feel Anarkali never got her due. Where do you see her kind of love in any case? Only women can have the capacity for a love that surpasses a man’s. A man’s love is not worth it,” she says. “There’s an Anarkali in every woman. And I wish women directed this love toward themselves…they live for others always. I’m not a feminist but if you can love yourself, you can love everybody else.” For about two years now she’s been conducting art workshops in Gurgaon and says she sees women who’ve got nothing for themselves and need to see psychiatrists. “Art for them is fabulous therapy.”
When she was crowned Miss India in 1975, at the age of 21, she says “Even if you did Miss India, it was a stop gap arrangement between college and marriage. Later on, some winners got into films. Today the world has changed, so have the people and the participants…they come with such killer instincts.” Today it’s a case of young beauty contest winners and models getting too much too soon. “In two years they do what they should be doing in 20,” says the former beauty queen who will soon be seen in friend Madhur Bhandarkar’s film “Fashion” after doing a cameo as herself in “Page 3”. “Today there’s far too much competition. Everyone wants to be an actress. There’s so much ambition, it kills.” She recalls how her first ever photo shoot was one to promote Indian tourism, with Shobhaa De. She’s now working on her autobiography and is busy writing and co-ordinating with her literary agents in London.
Three weeks ago she auctioned her first painting of SRK. I tell her I’ve heard it sold for a whopping US $30,000. “Really? Where did you hear that? I must check…,” she laughs it off tactfully. “SRK kept one of the series for his home. And then he asked me to sell the rest and make money for myself,” she laughs.
Anjanna Kuthiala’s exhibition will be on at the WelcomArt Gallery at The Windsor Manor from February 15 to 22.
This column features those who choose to veer off the beaten track.
BHUMIKA K.
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