AJA VILAP by M V Dhurandhar.

ajavilap, originally uploaded by abhitamhane.

Ravi Varma had entered his twenties when MV Dhurandhar was born. To his credit, Dhurandhar has a distinction to present a "second generation model" of the fine balance between popular commercial art and academic realism that Ravi Varma was known for. In his own right, as a dutiful teacher in the British-run Sir JJ school of Art and also a successful painter, "Raobahadur" Dhurandhar was to impress three generations of artists. His renderings resonate his obsequious persona. Although his use of brush was almost ascetic, he had a princely eye for detail. No wonder this kolhapur-born artist, who
retained his Indian, vernacular values in the same breath as the high English etiquette; refines this very dichotomy when he paints!
Light, in Dhurandhar's paintings, is peculiar. It is flat. The transparency of colour is amplified in the drapes and on faces.
'Aja Vilap' is about the pathos (karuN.-rasa) that occurs when the mythological King Aja weeps and cries at the sudden loss of his consort Indumati. The myth of Indumati, a celestial damsel mandated to live a human life was to be freed only when a celestial garland would fall around her neck, narrated by poet Kalidasa in chapter VIII of his 'Raghuvam.sha', is an archetype of a husband's love for his wife. Aja asks the five elements why they took his beloved away from him. A rare gesture of sentimentality of the Indian warrior-male is epitomized in 'Aja Vilap'. Aja, in the painting, holds the garland in his left hand as he is looking with a startled face toward the heavenly powers that have made Indumati lifeless. Their clothes show how unaware the loving couple was of the worldy fears, and the marble architecture in the painting is clearly an addition by Dhurandhar. Use of architecture to show the princely grandeur was essentially a colonial concept.
There is an autobiographical reference to this work by Dhurandhar: the artist's first wife had passed away at an early age.

-- Abhijeet Tamhane