Adventures of a Salesman in Art World – Part 5

Through this series ‘Adventures of a salesman in art world’, Mr Chandrashekhar Ojha, former DGM Marketing of Camlin continues to share his insightful memories. Throughout his career spread across four decades, he gathered a wealth of insights about the art world through his interactions with artists and art lovers. In this fifth part, he shares his experiences about the art practices followed by schools in his territory which helped him to learn about art.

Part 5 – ‘Learning the Basics of Art’

My years of field observations tell me that though most of the schools were not very particular about art education, there were many with good art practices, which helped me learn the basics of the subject. Let’s talk about ‘Happy Hours’, a pre-school running in Ajeet Bhawan, a palace belonging to a branch of Jodhpur royals. I learnt that the one of the daughters of the family was passionate about ECE and had started it. Where I was struggling my way through sketch pens & colour pencils, this pre-school was using premium poster colours. They had specially fabricated mini easels with 4 colour pots, on which they used waste papers with clips. The children would paint with long handle brushes.

Surprised when I asked the reason for using messy poster colours in place of easily manageable crayons, I was told that the crayons cause lot of fatigue to their tender hands whereas the liquid colours give them just joy. Liquid colours are the best for young children, however the schools and parents don’t opt for them because they require better infrastructure and management. It was a very valuable lesson and I tried to pass on this information to many schools.

Bal Niketan is another school which had great philosophy and practices, including art practices. It was based on the ideals of famous Gujarat educationist, Giju Bhai Vadheka and had Hindi as the medium of teaching. There was no peon in the school and the students used to open the rooms, clean the campus, washed their utensils and maintain their garden too. I am confident that in my entire career I have visited thousands of schools, across the county and the spectrum, but I have not found students more courteous and confident than Bal Niketan. The art teacher used to discuss and motivate the children to draw, but he would never draw himself. For five days of the week, teachers would drive the agenda, but on Saturday the students would drive it, so whatever may be the subject, teacher would teach whatever the children would demand. I was so impressed with it that I got my son admitted there, but I was soon transferred to Delhi so he had to leave.

I can’t forget Birla Public School, Pilani and their art master Mr Shom. I saw a very impressive painting on the art room wall and asked him, whether it is original? Yes, was his answer, which raised another question in my mind, why such a valuable original is wasted in an art room, it should be in the lobby or principal’s office. On this Mr Shom smiling told me what it will do in a lobby, here it is inspiring the students!

This was a big revelation to me as while growing up children need role models to follow, and a real art in their surroundings can just do that. Art teachers do lot of work with children while teaching them, but it is not their creation, it’s a demo and that too at the level of children. So in my opinion the art teacher must expose the students to the real art, by displaying own work in the art room or by taking them to galleries and museums to spark their creativity and love of art. I have been mooting this idea among the educators ever since and I think it might have worked to some extent.

But I found my biggest influence in a small town Bheenmal, of all the places. Sharmaji was an octogenarian art teacher of local government school, used to run a framing shop. He was almost blind but was painting regularly and the surprising fact was that his paintings used to lapped-up by his old students. In the very first meeting, we became friendly and he showed me his studio and gallery at his residence. He was very curious even at that age and he asked me about the liquid floating on the top of poster colour bottles.

He was an artist and educator to the core and had worked with many famous British headmasters. He very proudly told me that he was good at drawing but was unable to draw a donkey till one of his students taught him how to. He also gave me a good SOP to initiate the child in art and put him on a path of self-improvement. His life experiences and guidance proved very valuable in my life. His passion, curiosity, zeal to learn, sense of humour and attitude towards life were great life lessons. He may be an unknown artist for the world but for me he was like a light house.

He was on my To-Do list on every visit to this ancient town of Sanskrit Poet Magh. On one such visit there was a Bharat Bandh so the market was closed. Somehow I visited some dealers at their residences and conducted the required business, but still there was a lot of time on hand and hence decided to visit Sharmaji. When I reached his door-step the situation I saw was very depressing. He was lying on a bed with his mouth open and his relatives were using hand fans silently. I thought he is not well and will it be right to disturb him in such a situation? However, keeping my dilemma on side, I announced myself, and lo and behold, he sprang up and welcomed me. We had a nice long discussion with rounds of tea, and with these memories I bade goodbye to him.

All these people and institutions played a big role in shaping my career and I would always be thankful all to them.

Chandrashekhar Ojha