Artistic Day

What an interesting weekend it was......Refreshing, Rejuvenating, Inspiring.

Although I have been residing in Fort Area for over 20 days now, but this was effectively my first weekend when I was here.

Having spent a beautiful Saturday morning, playing a wonderful game of cricket at Oval ground, the day was spent watching Movies - the most advanced form of art, humans have developed.

Sunday saw me growing up as a person when I decided to have a dekko at Art Gallaries of Bombay. It all began with a visit to Jehangir Art Gallery(JAG) and opening the long lost world (from my frame of mind) of paintings and sculptures. Hall number 1 was displaying paintings by a Prof. at Sir JJ School of Art. His paintings, with geometrical figures and an abstract pattern in the non abstract paintings, demanded a lot of time to grasp the possible meanings. Among other halls, were Sculptors in wood and marble, Cone art and paintings from UP . The most interesting and unheard thing came in form of Garbography exhibition at Hirji Gallery (at First floor of JAG) by Sanjay Yamgar, aptly titled, " Faces from the unknown world." For the uninitiated, garbography is the art of arranging garbage to give it the form of art.....you may also call it Garbage Photography. Sanjay, a product of E’cole Supérieure des Beaux , France has become a known name now in the field of Garbography.

Moving out of JMG, my next stop was Pavement Art Gallery at Kalaghoda Art District. Pavement art galleries have been a popular across the world - a mode to promote talented but poor artists.

My third spot for the day should have been Chhatrapati Shivaji Vaastu Sangrahalya (Prince of Wales Mueseum) but I gave it a pass and instead walked towards the National Gallery of Modern Art, on the MG Road, Kalaghoda, next to the age old Elphinston College. There was no specific reason for skipping the prince of wales mueseum, and I have kept it on my list of places to visit next weekend. NGMA was much better organised as compared to Jehangir art gallery and there was proper description against each piece of art. Also, there were rare art books - chinese, french, italian, available for sale. Atul Dodiya's painting, Tomb's Day (2001) makes parodic references to one of India's stereotypical icons, the Taj Mahal. Executed in the visual style of billboard painting, the work is an ironic commentary on the media furor that surrounded President Clinton and Putin's visit to the monumnet.

I hurried out from NGMA after seeing my watch...it was 5.30pm and I had planned to catch up a play by Mahesh Manjrekar at NCPA, called "Double Deal" , at 6.30pm. Since walking is my favourite pastime, I walked down from NGMA (near Gateway of India) to NCPA (near Nariman Point) and reached in half an hour. Fortunately, last few tickets were still available. This 2 hour play directed by Mahesh Dattani and enacted by Mahesh Manjrekar and Achint Kaur, is an adaptation of "Killing time" by Richard Stockwell.

With this my day came to an end, with memories of my own paintings and drama acting while in school and college. Those were the days.....