MUMBAI, Oct 29: While the world remained silent to him for 62 years, Satish Gujral used this time to polish a talent that has the power to make a stone speak. Down the decades his sculptures, painting and architecture have spoken eloquent volumes to people who saw them. Yet, this 70-year-old artist says that the hearing which was restored to him earlier this year is a proof that he actually exists. And Gujral's latest exhibition in Mumbai, two-thirds of which was sold out before the opening, resounds with the cheer of a new phase in the life of an artist whose work embodies a landmark in Indian art. Why did you choose to open this very important exhibition in Mumbai and not in your home town Delhi?
I had made this booking three years ago. So it is by chance that it coincides with the flowering of this current phase. Most of these works have been done in the past 6-8 months.
That is a lot of work in a small time. Is it the result of the euphoria of hearing again?
I have always workedvery fast. Fifty years ago, my father borrowed money to send me to Mexico. I was on a scholarship but it did not include the fare. There I divided that borrowed sum into the number of days I would be spending there and was horrified to realise that I would be wasting eight hours each day sleeping. I vowed to cut that down to as little as possible. I work every minute that I can to show my gratitude to the heavens for the life and the gift that I have been given.
What does this restored gift mean to you?
For me it is a new life. If you can't hear, it becomes very difficult to convince oneself that it is a real life and not an illusion. Life is worth living now.
And this also reflects in his work. Chirping birds, bleating goats, anklets with bells -- all done in colours which have the freshness of a new day.
Naturally everything has brightened up. I look around the world as if for the first time and it is full of sound. Also I have to learn to recognize sounds again. I hear something and Iask my wife what it is. Then she'll tell me that it is a bird chirping so the next time I am able to identify it. It is like learning spellings.
How have you managed parallel careers of art and architecture?
In olden times, one person did all these things. Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor and an architect. It is only now that everything is divided. The result is that the mind is also departmentalised with one side not knowing the other. I was trained in the old school.
Is that the reason for your high respect for and concentration on craftsmanship?
Craft is what builds art. It has just become a fashion in some circles to call wrong grammar poetry.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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