Drawing Room: Why Schon Mendes is a fan of Valay Shende’s artworks

Valay Shende’s Virar Fast, depicts more than Mumbai’s constant state of rush. Despite the struggle, there’s empathy too

I’m drawn to Valay Shende’s life-sized stainless-steel sculpture Virar Fast. It depicts a group of men, shoved uncomfortably close, clinging to an invisible railing. The viewer is struck by the precarious hold they have on the imaginary bar and how they seem crammed into the constrained space. Yet, the figures seem willing to adjust and accommodate, aware and empathetic of each other’s individual struggles. The train after which the work is named is conspicuously absent. It’s represented only by the negative space surrounding the figures. But to anyone looking at Virar Fast, the commute, and what it means in Mumbai, is immediately obvious.

Valay Shende created Virar Fast from thousands of tiny stainless-steel discs. (VALAY SHENDE, SAKSHI GALLERY)

Shende’s work, Mumbai Dabbawala with Bicycle (2008) is made largely from pocket watches. (VALAY SHENDE, SAKSHI GALLERY)