Sanjiban Biswa born in Chittagong (now Bangladesh) in 1913, came of an affluent Zamindar family, steeped in devotional and artistic tradition. He moved to Calcutta after his graduation and he taught at the Indian Art School there. He was on the cross roads of destiny, debating his choice between Literature and Arts. Sri Nirodbaran, returning to Pondicherry after his sojourn to Bengal, agreed to take the young man with him.
Mother had a good impression about him when She saw him during the February Darshan in 1933, and his fate was sealed.
She agreed to teach him drawing and painting. At their first meeting. She said, "People in the Ashram know that I can teach painting. I cannot teach everyone. But it seems you have some inclination. I will help you."
Mother, an accomplished artist from Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, was a painting teacher with a difference. She did not believe in tradition. She held that Art should always, have new forms, but they must be according to a truth of beauty which is universal and eternal – something divine. She did not impose any style. She liked the Indian work. What She tried most was, in various ways, to make the artist come in touch with their psychic and relate them with a world of true beauty.
Mother sent Sanjiban envelopes with pasted pictures them, cut out from illustrated newspapers, and asked him to colour them. Glancing at his efforts, Sri Aurobindo would smile and comment, "Oh! What a nice thing to look at."
Often, when the artist got stuck with some drawing, the peacock’s beak for instance, Mother would sketch the beak, as She said She could do no more for lack of time. On these occasions, Sanjiban felt She raised the consciousness of the student to facilitate his work.
Mother, one day, demonstrated to him how to paint a portrait in oil. She made Chinmoyee, one of Her young and close attendants to pose, and with swift masterful strokes, dabbing short and deft touches on the canvas, and explaining simultaneously the distribution of colours in a conversational tone, left a dazed Sanjiban with the sure conviction that She had made an artist art of him by that one single portrait.
The 1930s was a period of intense Sadhana and painting and Sanjiban’s letters to Mother are both poignant and revelatory of Sri Aurobindo’s and Mother’s compassion and concern to draw out the artist of his defeatist moods of despair and futility, to train him up, as The Master would encourage him, as "The Mother's artist."
Below are the excerpts of letters written to Sanjiban by Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
The Mother’s work is not only confined to what is directly done for Her use, but includes all work that She sanctions, approves or wants you to do. She wants you to develop your art (including the human form and all else) and to become Her artist. So you must not leave that work or any other which She wants to do.
Sri Aurobindo - 19th Jan 1933
You have skill of hand, but you must study regularly – copying things from nature, observing how to do things, getting a firm technique and power of observation. Then the right inspiration may come.
Sri Aurobindo - 8th April 1933
Painting also is sadhana; so it is perfectly possible to make them one. It is a matter of dedicating the painting and feeling the force that makes you paint as the Mother’s force.
Mother is not anxious that you should do music. She prefers for you to concentrate on painting for which you have a great capacity.
You can learn the song and sing… but simply as something to be done for Her service. Only you must not allow it to interfere with your painting which is your main work – that in which you are making much progress. That you must go on doing every day.
Sri Aurobindo - 7th Dec 1933
It is by doing that the hand becomes conscious and loses its clumsiness.
Mother - 28th Dec 1933
You should not allow yourself to be too much troubled by the suggestion of the vital ego.. Do your painting with the idea that it is for the Mother and disregard or quietly reject the insistence of the vital.
You must learn to do with patience and concentration – because you have a real gift and it would be a pity not to develop it to its best.
Sri Aurobindo - 9th April 1934 In the late 1930s Sanjiban was joined by Krishnalal Bhatt, Jayantilal Parekh and Nishikanto Roy Choudhury (popular as "Kobi" in the Ashram) who were seasoned artists, unlike Sanjiban who was exclusively trained and moulded by Mother and Sri Aurobindo. These gentelmen were groomed professionally in various Indian traditional techniques of the Bengal School, by Sri Nandalal Bose, one of the greatest artists of Modern Contemporary Indian Art.
Outdoor sketching was an important discipline of this school, and Sanjiban joined these artists to explore and sketch and paint the vast, rough often rocky and deep canyons of the Red Hills, the sites where the Jipmer Hospital and Auroville stand, and the Lake Estate, all virgin lands untouched by man.
On one such trip, the early golden morning sun breaking free of the dark clouds fascinated Sanjiban to transfer that on the canvas. Reviewing it, Mother commented to Sri Nolini Gupta, the Secretary of the Ashram, "All this while, he was in a cocoon. Now he was become a butterfly and flown away."
Mother had plans to build a studio for Her students at the site where Abhay Singh's room stands. She could look in at their work whenever She had free time, She said. But the World War II broke out and Her plans were stalled, much to the loss to the artistic efflorescence in the Ashram.
Sanjiban too left for Bengal during the Partition trauma on pressing family matters. Mother was unhappy about his decision to leave the Ashram and strongly warned him of the incompatibility between yogic life and family. Throwing caution to the winds, Sanjiban left for Chittagong, only to rue the decision till the last days of his life.
He visited Shantiniketan, and met Nandalal Bose, whose personality and genius overwhelmed him with awe and admiration. He spent a few rewarding weeks, sketching and discussing art, in the course of which Nandalal remarked "Whenever there has been a spiritual manifestation, art has flourished, as in Ajanta and Ellora. We too expect something meaningful from you people in the future."
The afflatus of the 1930s were spent and painting was no more the prime objective of the artists, when Sanjiban returned to the Ashram in 1953.
He took up photography, which he had learnt professionally in Calcutta, and printed thousands of superlative vignettes of Mother and Sri Aurobindo, always with a sense of offering; printed their life-size sepia portraits and painted them, most of which hang in the auspicious places of the Ashram, such as in Sri Aurobindo's Room, Prosperity Verandah, Central Hall of the main School building in the Main Library Hall, and a black and white life-size bust of Sri Aurobindo, installed in the Alipore Cell Calcutta.
Sanjiban rounded up his life by an honest self-assessment: he was not a great and creative artist, but a Karmayogin and a perfectionist, working to perfection any work assigned to him by The Mother – book-binding, cutting hair of sadhaks, concreting work in Golconde, painting portrait and landscapes, executing prolific and exquisite floral designs for Mother's saris and headbands, marbling work, batik work and leather designing.
He had led a full life, with the basic motivating mantra, a total dedication and surrender to his Gurus.
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