Shaping of my senses
In Bhaskar's own words -
"The first twenty years of my life was spent on the third floor of an apartment. It had a long balcony overlooking a huge, almost endless field in front of it that had stretched for miles till the banks of the Ganges. Beyond the banks, on a clear day, you could see the Ganges meandering into the horizon and merging with the sky.
Our school was just beside the Ganges, so close that the ripples from the river used to lap the walls surrounding the school building. From the classroom, if you had turned right, you could become oblivious of the presence of blackboards, the teacher and the class. Instead, you could spend hours looking at the Ganges and the eternal play of natural elements. The sky above Ganges would add on different layers to that beauty throughout the year. The monsoon would bring in the dark clouds arching over the river and the sky; during autumn white clouds would hover over in a lazy elegance; the winter would bring cloak the river with a slight, dim haze…
Life took its own turns somewhere down the line and somehow it took me away from the side of the Ganges to one of India’s ever-busy, ever-competitive, highly business-oriented modern metropolises. I was not a natural fit to this urban maze, but somehow managed to find my ways through it - mostly because of a conscious urge to keep away from its sinewy tentacles.
Somehow, the concrete urban maze has not been able to peel off the effect of a childhood shaped by the endless beauties and mysteries of nature. I have largely managed to remain romantic and aloof and may be, these twin selves have coalesced together within me to create an artistic sensibility that does not exactly follow the traditional sense of beauty. Things that on the surface seem ugly, infinitesimal and even irrelevant, often tend to coalesce together to create a new type and pattern of beauty. It has given rise to a sensibility that tends to look into a range of diverse subjects such as discarded objects, tension between human relationships, selfishness and more to find an unconventional sense of beauty. A sense of beauty that is probably more intense than our conventional sense of beauty. A sense of beauty that often permeates the visual world and goes into the realm of our feelings and senses.
This experience and feeling of life is the core driving force for my creations. If there is any appeal within this sense of art, it’s not just a visual appeal, not even an intellectual one, but something that is much closer to our sense of experience and feeling."
A Majestic Emptiness. Musings from the Mountains
In his own words -
"Mountains have a special place in my life. In normal scenarios, any relationship is based on mutual give and take. In this case, however, it’s just taking. Mountains have given me so much and in return I have nothing to give back. The only way to establish a bridge in this relationship is through creating images.
Unlike the river, my relationship with the mountains is not very old. It had started to evolve gradually after entering the professional life. For the last few years though, at least once a year, my small group and I become a little adventurous and trek to some remote ridges or valleys in the Himalayas. For some time, my son has also been accompanying us in these treks.
These treks have ensured that my relationship with the mountains have become more and more intense. Depending on the time of the year, the weather, and the state of the mind, the mountains showcase their beauty in a variety of ways, ranging from the majestic to the mystic. Among the kaleidoscope of beauty and feelings that these scenes evoke, the one that attracts me the most is a sense of vast emptiness."
Painting, photography
and the blurring lines between them
In his own words -
"My tryst with painting started much earlier than photography. The seeds of it were sown in early childhood by Shri Bankim Bandopadhhaya, a noted artist and a great teacher. Though later I didn’t have the chance to go through any comprehensive training in visual art, I was fortunate enough to be in close proximity with a culture of art. It has helped me to at least keep hovering around the periphery of the world to which I was introduced to by Shri Bankim Bandopadhhaya. I continue to move in this peripheral world, hoping to get a glimpse at the luminous core of this magical world some day.
The phase of photography, on the other hand, started much later for me. However, the main thread between painting and photography remained the same for me. I do not see any basic conflict between them. Both originate from the same core that shapes my sense of art and feeling. From the perspective of the end result also, i.e. when they are presented to a larger audience, they have a lot of similarity, especially regarding the appeal they create. The only difference is in the phase in-between, in the enabling medium. For one, the elements are paper, colors, brushes and for the other, it is the camera and some computer technology."
PHOTOGRAPHY
My imag (e-i) nation
This book is a collection of selected photographs and paintings of the author. The images in this collections are clubbed under five sections – two of which are about landscapes that have attracted the author the most, while the rest are about a personal quest.
Visuals & Comprehensions from Bhaskar, Transliteration by Apratim
Book available at - Amazon | Barnes & Nobel | Waterstones
Damodar a Riverscape
Landscape photo-documentary & fragmented chronicle of a little-known river
Visuals & Visage by Bhaskar, Chronicle by Apratim
Cross-Cultural Communications, Merrick, New York Publication
Book available at - Amazon | Barnes & Nobel | ebay
A River’s Rhythm - Colette Copeland in conversation with the author
