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LECTURES SEMINARS WRITINGS
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At the end of my year at the Arts School in Chandigarh, I went to spend few days with my parents in the village. My father was a carpenter, and I had learnt the skill to use wood working tools and had discovered the delight of making objects from an early age. I found a piece of dark Indian wood just 3"x3" and probably 20 inches long in my father's workshop and borrowed his tools to carve it in to a dark slender female figure. It was a semi-abstract figure. It had only one breast and no arms but very voluptuous thighs. After finishing and polishing it, I took it to the nearby town, where I could get it photographed. Halfway the holidays, I went back to Chandigarh and showed the photographs to one of the Museum Curator. Who liked the photograph and asked if he could borrow it to show to some of his colleagues. When I returned to the Arts School to join my second year of studies, I had the good news waiting for me. The Curator handed me a letter that the Museum Purchase Committee liked the piece and had offered to purchase it for the collection. One could not ask for a better start of ones career when your very first carving has been purchased for the Museum Collection. Next year I carved four more pieces in wood, and they were exhibited at the same Museum in an exhibition. One day same curator of the museum told me that the chairman of the Museum Purchase committee came to look at the exhibition and he was very fond of my work. It was most likely that all four pieces would be again bought for the collection. I was not really ready to part with my whole years work in one go. So I had to withdraw 2 of the four pieces from the show before the show closed. It was sure that remaining 2 pieces were purchased for the Museum Collection. So this how it all started that so many of my worked ended up in several collections. Few years ago when two members of the Purchase
committee for the Arts Council Collection visited my studio and
offered to purchase one of the smaller works, I did not want to
sell just a small work for an important collection. Though, I ended
up selling none of the work for this collection. But I am not sorry
for it, I know sooner or later it my work has strength one day it
will find its way to its rightful place.
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