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In the birth centenary year, ‘Gaitonde’ book in English
Yesterday, 10th of August was Gaitonde’s death anniversary. Gaitonde’s birth centenary year begins after another three months, on 2nd November. However, for the first time in the history of ‘Chinha’, we could not provide readers with an article about Gaitonde. The reason being that our website was down for two days due to a major technical problem. But now it has been solved. Today we are publishing the article on Gaitonde written by Satish Naik, the Editor of Chinha, despite his ill health. This article provides details of the upcoming English book on Gaitonde to be published by Chinha on Gaitonde’s birth centenary.
Publication of international standard by ‘Chinha’…
Yesterday was 10th August 2023. 22 years ago on this day, painter Gaitonde passed away in New Delhi. Gaitonde’s birth centenary year begins three months later, on November 2nd. In fact, the name Gaitonde is considered as the topmost in Indian painting. But even so, I don’t think that the Maharashtra government or the Goa government or even the Central government will celebrate Gaitonde’s birth centenary in any form. I corresponded with the concerned departments of Maharashtra Government in this regard few months ago, but in fact unfortunately there has been no response.
Nowadays we get to see every news in newspapers and channels, related to the way Maharashtra government is working now. Not just us but all Indians must have watched the live telecast with open eyes, about its repercussions in the Parliament. The whole of Maharashtra must have been humiliated by the unmatched attribute of the parliamentary debate of yesterday. It is certain that no other topic than the elections will be there in any of our discussions this year or next year. Therefore, it would be foolish to expect any program from the government during Gaitonde’s birth centenary year.
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Gaitonde passed away on 10th August 2001. The next day, the news of his death appeared in just six lines in a Mumbai based English newspaper, which is considered a national newspaper. That news made me very upset. An abstract painter who can be called India’s best dies and his death is reported in just six lines? It was decided to revive ‘Chinha’ on the same day. The 2001 Diwali issue of ‘Chinha’ was published, which had a special supplement of about 30 pages on Gaitonde, which was admired a lot. The issue received an enormous response. ‘Chinha’ was resurrected with that issue. Thereafter in 2006, ‘Chinha’ published ‘Gaitonde Special Issue’ of more than 150 pages. That issue created immense curiosity about the name ‘Gaitonde’ not only in Marathi but also amongst English speaking individuals. Many people who did not know Marathi got the articles in that issue translated into English and read them. (Some even did not hesitate to plagiarize from it. But that’s a different story and I’ll reveal it later) By then, the prices of Gaitonde’s paintings had skyrocketed at auctions around the world. Thereafter, once again in 2007 ‘Chinha’ released another Gaitonde special. That also became immensely popular.
After making available more than 200 pages of extremely rare text on Gaitonde, it was felt that books on Gaitonde would be published using this text. But unfortunately, nothing of that sort happened. Not a single book on Gaitonde has been published in the past seven years. Keeping this in mind, ‘Chinha’ has now decided to publish the famous Marathi book “Gaitonde” in English as well.
In fact, ‘Chinha’ had decided to publish this book on 2nd November 2023, that is, on his 100th birthday. But some difficulties arose, and the entire program had to be postponed a bit. However, it is certain that the English version of the ‘Gaitonde’ book will be published in this birth centenary year itself.
The work of translation is going on in full swing. Since we are trying to make this book of international standard, we have canceled the earlier draft at the last moment and started working again. We are acquiring very rare paintings and drawings of Gaitonde and his photographs for this book. In fact, we are also trying to include all the paintings of Gaitonde in this book.
Not everything can be revealed now. It is not right to do so because the experience when the Marathi book came out was terrible. Therefore, we are making this announcement with caution. As of now I am just letting everyone know about this book that we are leaving no space for any sort of deficiency in the creation of this book. Our entire team is trying to make this book of international standard.
And most importantly, we are making special distribution arrangements for this book so that it will be easily available anywhere in the world. Therefore, we have not kept any pre-booking etc. From about three months from now, that is from 2nd November 2023 for the entire next year we will post something or the other every week on our website of ‘Chinha’ www.chinha.in about the ‘Gaitonde’ book. Through those posts we shall narrate, How did we search about Gaitonde? How did we try to get photographs, his articles, and information about him?
We believe that How we discovered about Gaitonde is as much worth reading as the ‘Gaitonde’ book itself. So don’t forget to visit the website of ‘Chinha’. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter and Telegram. Another simple thing we have done is that we have created WhatsApp group of ‘Chinha’. Through this group we send links to articles published in ‘Chinha’ to members. By joining this WhatsApp group which is admin only, we are providing the link to get our updates easily.
Click on the link below to join the ‘ Chinha updates ‘ group for our exclusive English content – Features and Art News.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FJ1cRAeM3NNKkgTlTKmZYU
Please feel free to share the link with art enthusiasts and friends alike!
💥Note: Those who have joined any update group of ‘Chinha’ earlier need not join this group again.
They will get all the updates on the previous group.✒️🎨🎨🎨
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