The first sight of artist
Ranbir Kaleka was a little disconcerting.
He was wearing a hat, inside the
Children’s Park auditorium, apart from a coat.
It was his signature dress throughout
his Kochi visit. Right next to him, on a large screen,
there was a picture of a haveli in a village in Patiala.
It was run-down, and of exposed red
brick. At the background a tower could be seen. “I lived in this house for the first
five years,” he says. “It was a very sheltered life.
I did not know how people lived outside. I spent a lot of time alone.
In fact, I did not know the passage of
time. Because of the slowness, every little
event was a moment of significance.
” So Ranbir would watch how the shadow moved from one end of the courtyard to the
other.
“Although I could not actually see it
moving,” he says.
“There were older parts of the house
which were closed and shuttered off.
My family moved away and I entered
these rooms only when I was 12 or 13 during school vacations.
” Once, on one such visit, he used a ladder and went up to the attic and found
a little box.
“It looked very dirty,” he says.
“But inside it was pristine and there
was a red velvet background.
There were little pockets and
instruments for making cartridges.
This led to a lifelong fascination with
objects and shapes.
” Ranbir was giving a lecture at the ‘Let’s Talk’ event set up by the
organisers of the Kochi Muziris Biennale.
The Delhi-based artist had come to
check out the sites selected for the Biennale.
Meanwhile, his reminiscences continued.
“I would draw with charcoal on the walls
as a child,” he says.
“Sometimes, my mother would say, it is
time for lunch.
I would tell her I have to finish the
drawing.
But once my uncle told me that the
Italian masters would take years to finish a painting.
That had a big impact on me.
I slowed down tremendously.
Later, in my career, I would sometimes take
three years to finish a painting.
” Ranbir went on to show paintings from his college days.
One called ‘I am Homesick’ is of a
pushcart in a railway station.
“There was a strong smell of pickle,
which reminded me of home,” he says.
“I painted this pushcart and put a
pickle jar on top with a granny-like figure inside.
On the right, there is a figure from
the haveli.
There were some dark rooms and I
imagined all kind of beings existing there.
” Ranbir had put a winding key on the knee of this figure to indicate that this
was an invented creature.
In a mixed media work, a nude man is on
his knees and keenly observing a spinning top, while two women stand at the
door and are looking outside.
It seems extremely real and with its
size, 73 x 55 inches, it is a very large painting.
If one were to see it in actuality, it
would have a stunning impact.
In a work titled, ‘Lion and the milk
bowl’, the animal stands near the door of a room, looking incongruous in that
setting.
A woman, with an exposed breast, is holding
a bowl of milk, while on the upper floor, there are several nude men wrestling.
The image is so unusual and odd, that
you tend to keep staring at it.
Most of Ranbir’s images look strange
and unreal with atypical titles like, ‘Ochre dust in a delusional paradise’, and
‘Man with beard or the itinerant librarian’s dilemma of choice and refusal’.
How did he imagine some of the scenes?
The art aficionados in the hall were 'oohing' and 'aahing’.
But clearly he will not win any
popularity contest with the philistines.
At the end of the show, there was a
video presentation which brought some of the paintings alive.
In all, he showed more than seventy pieces
of mixed media and paintings. Clearly, Ranbir is an exceptional artist
with a unique imagination and mindset.
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