Togetherness in vibrant colours, black & white

For photographer Kuldeep Soni, it is a joy to find his photograph in the same exhibition that shows the painting of the city’s much cherished senior painter Raj Kumar

What are art shows made of? The easiest answer to this query would be: art of course, in different mediums and forms. If one wishes to add more, then there is an inauguration by some dignitary. There is the cutting of the ribbon and then speeches on the history of art, its purpose and its relevance. There is the distribution of mementos and cash awards to those who have come out the best. There is also an overdose of piping hot pakodas, cocktail, samosas accompanying tea and coffee. All this was there aplenty at the annual art exhibition of the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi which opened on Monday at the Punjab Kala Bhawan.

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But once in a while, there is a heartwarming story that is to be found of sharing, caring and bonding and defying what is learned in the classrooms of art schools. And that is what went straight to heart in a nostalgic moment when photographer Kuldeep Soni, who is always busy clicking photographs of one and all at art shows, but this time his photograph was on display and not just that, but with a merit certificate. This was something cheery for the shutterbug, but what had elated him more was something else. He whispered elated, “I had never dreamt that one day my photograph would hang on the same walls with the painting of master painter Raj Kumar!”

A journey of heart and soul

For those who know the life and art of Raj Kumar who painted the life of the city like never before, this can well be understood. But those who don’t, it is worth recalling. Way back in 1970 a frail boy from Gurdaspur, named Raj Kumar, came uncertainly to Le Corbusier’s dream city of Chandigarh, hoping to study art. He wanted to pick up the application forms and walked by mistake into the Design Centre close to the college. Those days the centre had in its lobby a statue of a half-clad woman with her bare arm raised as she combed her hair. Raj recalls, “The light was against the figurine. I thought it was a real woman and walked out embarrassed”. This small town boy was to become one of the finest painters of the city life of Sector 17, where he later worked, from the balloon and lemon sellers to “A Photograph in Autumn”, which captured a couple getting a photograph clicked in the backdrop of the circular shaped KC Cinema, which was later demolished. One of the most respected senior painters of the city, he kept the door and heart of his room-set in Sector 15, where he lived some 43 years. These included well-known artists like Sidharth, Kanwal Dhaliwal and of course the youngest of them Soni. Raj Kumar made sure that none of his younger friends went to bed hungry. It was here that Soni realised that there was a candid street photographer hidden in him although he spent long years working as a medical photographer in the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).

The charmed circle

It was a charmed circle there with famous Punjabi story-writer and Laali Baba the Sawant holding forth on love, life, literature and of course struggle. It was here that Raj Kumar painted stroke by stroke his masterpieces, completing just about one painting a year with fine and minute details. The rare painter made sure that none of his younger friends went to bed hungry. It was here that Soni realised that there was a candid street photographer hidden in him although he spent long years working as a medical photographer in the PGIMER. It is only after being free that he has turned to devoting himself to capture the other side of the city. Indeed a matter of joy his black and white photograph of a “The car and the bicycle” shares space with Rajkumar’s masterly painting in vivid hues. Called “Bhanda Bhandaria”, it is based on a village game of the Punjab of yore he witnessed when he was a lad of four or five. Of course, this surrealistic work was painted on the terrace of the home he built in Kharar on the outskirts of the city. Such are the bonds of art, love and commitment beyond the calculation of the price art must fetch.