Page 38 - Studio International - October1968

Left Avinash Chandra

Below Simla, Punjab; bottom Christ Church and the Public Library on
the ridge (Simla), with Jakko hill in the background

Some personal notes To begin; my early upbringing.
Mine was an upbringing that taught me to think in straight lines but,
perversely, I had to think in circles. A European wants to go to, say,
Geneva; he takes up the map, studies it, and goes the straightest and
Avinash Chandra shortest possible way. But I go in circles, or contrapuntally if you
like, my only attitude being not to go in straight lines. It is just not
possible for me to think in terms of straight lines and get emotional or
excited about it. Therefore, naturally, I avoid the direct and obvious
approach—my method being to first find, recognize, and accept the
limits of a subject and then to work inwards.
What I learned in art school in Delhi about Indian Art was very
little, not feeling, at the time, any great interest or passion for the
subject. But, of course, we knew all about England and the English,
their culture, geography, viceroys etc.; and whenever a native artist
verged towards Indian sculpture or miniatures, he was told rather
curtly, 'Come on, do something like what's going on in Europe !' An
attitude, incidentally, that still exists, but now, for 'Europe' read
'U.S.A.' In those days it was never fashionable to indulge in or
appreciate Indian art and, perhaps as a result, some Indian painters
still bear a grudge because of this, blaming the foreign-trained
teachers for leading them astray and not having taught them
properly, never for a moment giving a thought to the possibility that
they themselves might through some mysterious mischance lack any
natural talent. So be it.
Nonetheless, we were discouraged from bathing in our own tradi-
tions and, alternatively, counselled to study—even imitate—other
alien developments in the art world. This attitude, coupled with
other social changes, seduced us away from our own national culture,
replacing it with strange new ones, ones without, for us, any historical
meaning or significance.
My parents are from the middle class — not wealthy, though never
impoverished, my father being a simple, honest, and very straight-
forward man, my mother happiest when cooking for all of us. It was