On B N Goswamy (the storyteller of Art) with love

                            

                                            

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For a rabbit-holed country bumpkin like me to write on B N Goswamy is what?  Asking a molehill ant to climb a mountain, perhaps? For, Art historian B N Goswamy who shuffled off his mortal coil on the 17^th of November was no less than that: a towering, glittering summit in terms of his erudition, scholarship and his immense contribution to all things called ‘Art’. Without an iota of exaggeration his passing away leaves the shocked, sobbing world of art so much the poorer. While the gleeful gods somewhere above must be having a ball to have amidst them this elegant and gentle genius to regale them with the wonder and splendour of Pahari paintings, the Mughal miniatures, the murals, the spell-binding sculptures of Ajanta Ellora, Konark and Khajuraho, the carvings and the frescos; as also numerous stories about artisans, craftsmen and the old masters of Art like Manaku and Nainsukh … and a lot more!

But enlightenment and then the glory and adulation that eventually succeed, do not happen overnight but after sweat and toil. It is thanks to BNG’s painstaking labours and travels both within the country and abroad- wheresoever anything called ‘Art’ led him to - that he could attain those Himalayan heights of scholarly erudition. Well-versed in Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian (and even Tankri to delve into old bahi khatas), he also had to pore over the vanshsavalees maintained by Haridwar’s pandas for any trace or whisper in his quest for art. No fort, no temple, no home, no personal collection and place howsoever distant or remote, no wall or vault where objects of art lay fading and forgotten could escape the eager eye of this tapasvi, this Sufi mystic of Art. Much of great Indian artefacts might well have perished but for this colossus who brought it all vibrantly alive before the whole world.  By deciphering Indian Art in all its wonderous manifestations and in his own limpid and heartfully warm style of eloquent expression, he made it accessible to the common man, and ignoramuses like me. He has given the world his great books, each one a masterpiece in itself and a collector’s item. Of them, a delectable, ‘The Indian Cat: stories, paintings, poetry and proverbs’ is his latest.

What a sublime life did BNG lead till the very end and lit the world with his torch of an Art historian. Perhaps he was another Ananda Coomaraswamy reborn to make this soulless world of cement, stone and mortar, so ethereal, fragrant and beautiful. While we mourn his death and grieve over the loss that leaves a gnawing void that can never be filled, the wealth of his works will however keep on illumining us, and injecting some raga and rasa into our mundane lives and calloused souls haunted by this cacophony of hatred, abuse, shocking shenanigans of our lawmakers and social media blitzkrieg happening day in and day out.

I, one of the mourners, will miss his regular column ‘Art ‘n Soul’ in the Tribune which was like ambrosia that descended from heavens every alternate Sunday. Reading it for me was like a holy dip in the Ganga or a deep dive into the sea on BNG’s broad shoulders to come ashore enlightened, sparkling with a new awakening. For, I knew not a jot about the fine subtleties of ‘Art’ until I began reading this column.

Goswamy ji, alas! we will have no more of your balmy, gracious presence and ‘Art ‘n Soul’ to sunbathe and nourish our poor, famished minds. How much your passing away has impoverished and diminished us!