No Black or White - Life is full of colour for Manjit Bawa

The colourful canvases on the walls of the Alliance Francaise gallery are trademark Bawa. “Bawa did the paintings specially for this show,” says Geetha Mehra, director of the Sakshi Art Gallery. Sakshi organised the exhibition of Bawa’s portraits last weekend.
The genial, bearded painter, wearing startling white, is at his casual best. Missing is the wild hair and the flowing robes that characterise his pictures. “He’s quite a natty dresser you know,” confides a close friend of his.
He appears like one of his paintings, smooth and flowing, moving through life in a background of happening colour. This showing of his is totally about people, there are no Bawa animals to be seen. Are they portraits? “No,” says Bawa, “I have captured a spark in a personality, something that caught my eye...” The paintings show people in various attitudes - a girl reading a book, a man looking into space, in thought. There are no violent emotions portrayed - a smooth calm is all-pervading.
Bawa hit the headlines recently when he withdrew a miniature painting just as it was to come under the hammer at the auction house, Christie’s, saying it was a fake. A former apprentice of Bawa’s, Mahinder Soni, backed by art gallery Arushi, claimed that all Bawa’s miniatures were done by him. Allegations rushed back and forth and the controversy continues to simmer. Does it bother the painter? “No-o-o,” says Bawa. “I knew this could happen some time... That was a copied painting.”
“It’s only illiterate people who whip up a controversy,” he declares, “If someone copies my work or style, it cannot become his. Everyone has been copied, Jamini Roy, Ravi Verma... But they remain just that - copies.” Bawa talks at length about the dearth of real art appreciation and art critics in the country. Nobody takes art seriously, is his grouse.
When he’s not painting, Bawa loves to have people over and cook for them. “I love good poetry, I love good cinema,” declares the footloose painter, “I love to travel too.” Bawa says he watches Manirathnam films and enjoys A R Rahman’s music too, other than some favourite classics of his. No, films can never become an obsession for him, like it did for M F Husain. And yes, there’s cricket too, when the boys are playing well.
Talk about colour and Bawa boasts, “I buy the best colours in the world when I travel. I pick and choose, the best shades, those that dry fast...”
That’s Manjit Bawa for you. No blacks or whites!