Return to Calcutta

Calcutta did not inspire me as did the hills with their colourful, laughing people. But I was with my children again. I had to continue with my painting to maintain familiarity with my materials. Calcutta was a place where I did not feel like roaming around too much. I asked my erstwhile sponsor if he could let me have some money to live on, until money came from the sale of “Storm over Tibet”, which had been sold, I was told in Cairo. He said he would give me Rs10 per week. He would also give me a studio in Central Calcutta which he had rented for himself but he did not want. This studio was acceptable because the room at home, where my children were, was badly lighted, light coming from all directions, confusing me.

I bean in the studio, with a last memory of the hill people. “Nepali Women Winding Wool”, a young girl on the ground, sitting back on her heels, holding a skein of wool between her parted hands, while a squatting woman wound it on a ball. I felt it was not a good picture, painted as it was away from the people. I had to look at the people of Calcutta.

My daughter was now a college girl submerged in college affairs, always in the company of other college girls, discussing, chattering, arguing, hardly a glance at anyone outside their generation and social environment. This became my subject; my daughter with all the college girls usuing the college with its flight of steps and arched entrance (all imaginary on my part). I noticed the different ways they had of carrying their books gesticulating, not one of them noticing the little naked beggar by imploring alms. Their moving saris were as an accompaniment to their arguments, discussions and gestures. I named it “College Girls”.

Then came “Saris in the Wind” a Bengali woman and girls trying to keep their shoulder pieces in order as they walk against the wind; behind them laundered saris put to dry over a balcony, blowing in the wind.

Each day, turning the corner of Deshpurya Park into Landsdowne road, I passed the newly erected stalls of the refugees from what then East Pakistan, each one just a table with an awning over it and a few little pieces of children’s’ clothing offered for sale. The women of the locality were quite ready to bring( maybe buy )their custom, the stalls being so conveniently near home. It resulted in the picture “Hawker’s Corner” showing a stall, two women and a child surveying the wares, a hawker squatting on the table while displaying a length of cloth.

Catching the tram on my way to the studio I observed the buildings, the crowded buses and trams and the traffic. Out of this came the picture “Graces and Disgraces”.

The graces were the three Bengali ladies, noses in air as they approached three Bengali youths, clad in their starch-laundered white dhotis eyeing the girls in Punjabis. Near the curb a hawker squatted with one toy for sale. In the road the traffic passed by, a bus with white clothed youths hanging on from door and windows. Behind the traffic the typical Russa road houses. I tilted the “Graces and Disgraces” for the only reason that ‘disgraces’ was the opposite of ‘graces’. That was to give fuel to my detractions in time.

A letter came one day from Japan. An American there said his friend had bought my picture. “What have they to laugh about?” He said he liked it very much. So did Mrs. Roosevelt. Could I do a copy of it for him? I replied that I never copied my work. A copy would never have the same spontaneity in it.

A second letter came from him- then could I send him another of my pictures. He would leave the choice to me. Would I like payment in cash or in kind? Here was a problem. I considered “Girls in the Rain” and decided against it. He might not like the backs of girls. Then- there would be the problem of trying to get it packed and despatched at a reasonable cost. There was money for me in the future but no money now. I ignored the second letter.

So! “What have they to laugh about” had been sold in Japan but Delhi people had not told me about it. I wrote to them saying I had Heard that another picture of mine had been sold in the Far East and they had not informed me. I did not give them the name of picture or of country in which sold, for fear there was some monkey-business going on. They replied quite curtly “Cinema Fans” had been sold in China, “What have they to laugh about?” in Japan. If I had been following their publication I would have known it. Money could not be sent me yet owing to foreign exchange difficulties.

I had not sent a subscription for their publication. I had not enough money for food. Leave alone literature.

One day I was in my room in Monoharpukur road when I heard an unusual commotion outside. Looking out from my first floor window, I saw beneath me a crowed of bustee people pulling a reluctant victim into the comparative seclusion of their quarters.

Thinking no more of it I went on with what I was doing until interrupted by my young son. He had followed them in and been a witness to all that took place. He described it to me in stark detail. I was horrified and so filled with guilt for not having gone down to find out what was amiss and stop what had happened that I had to put it down in paint so drawing all this feeling from me. I had a board, eight feet by six and used that. I knew it would not be a painting that anyone would buy. Perhaps no-one would see it. There was the outstretch victim, his head floppy, his dhoti coming away from his almost naked body. Two men were pulling his arms; one man was holing down his feet. Two men with bamboos were belabouring him. The brutal faces of the tormentors, eyes glaring white in their faces darkened by the hot blood of anger and revenge. As a background to them was a crowed of voyeurs, men and children, taking in all that was happening. It proved a fine composition. The low-ceilinged, long room of the studio could contain it. A foot of space at the bottom of the picture was reserved for the title and a quotation from Shakespeare: “He Stole a Pen” ‘Oh Judgement, thou art fled to brutish beasts and men have lost their reason’.

The man had actually stolen a pen when in a bus and had been caught at it.

Soon after completing this picture I heard there was to be an exhibition of pictures on Social Evils in the town. A prize was offered. My picture was all ready for it. I sent it in. In a short while it was returned with the message that the exhibition was not taking place. No explanation was given.

Loneliness and hopelessness were beginning to get me down. My studio began to take on the dimensions of a sarcophagus. Even the road that I walked down to get my bus home, tree-lined, its branches intertwining overhead seemed to be tomb-like. What was I to do?

I’d write of my life to the children of the future. Perhaps they would feel for me and love me as I had loved Van Gough after reading of his miserable, lonely life.

This free-lance life with no work coming in and no money was driving me crazy. I must get a job.

I went to Desmond Doig who had helped me set up my exhibition the previous year.

“Do you know of any job for me?”. He thought a bit. “Come in a couple of days and I will let you know.” I did. “Could you look after 25000 children?” he asked.

I was puzzled but answered:

“I’ll try”.

So began my job on the Editorial Staff of the Statesman, Calcutta, being there to entertain the children who were always in search of the popular Uncle Jack who wrote the weekly letter to them in the Children’s page of the Sunday Statesman. I was not only there to greet them when they came, but to answer the letters of those who wrote from afar.

I was no sooner in a 9 to 5 job, six days a week at Rs450 per month than a commission came in for me- to do a mural for Air India. They wanted a map of India. I said I’d do it on three 8x6 boards, to be put one on top of the other, in my studio. It was not an inspiring subject. I did the map, put in groups of figures here and there in the various costumes of the large sup-continent. Then I surrounded it with the various birds of the area, flying around it. It was set up on the wall of the A.I. office eventually. I asked for some arrangement to let me put in finishing touches. They rigged up a plank of wood between two ladders so insecure; a step back to survey what I had done would have meant an accident. They complained of a slight wasp in one of the boards. That prevented it from meeting the one below and caused a shadow when the light was turned on.

“Light it from the bottom” I advised

No sooner was I in the 9 to 5 job than the money came in from the sales abroad. But I wasn’t taking any more chances. There was little spare time in which to paint and I knew that if I did not paint regularly I’d be turning out work that didn’t compare with my previous work and I’d be discontented with myself. I packed away my oil paints.