Art Ichol Journal

Detour to Kutch
There weren’t any sheep contentedly grazing but still I would describe Maihar as
bucolic. Idylls are more often the experience of the visitor rather than the local,
but places and spaces around the Art Ichol residency were, for me, idealistically
picturesque and serene, especially compared to the arid scrub (albeit sheep and goat
filled) of Kutch - my regular India haunt.
There was the languid day of perfect winter warmth sitting on thick grass at ‘Amariya
- The Writers’ Retreat’, absorbing the quiet stillness of the barely flowing River
Tamas, with the calming aural backdrop thud of clothes being rhythmically washed,
while I drew rushes and reeds from the water’s edge. What could be more perfect?
Answer: the sunset infusing the dark green water with red, orange, pink, yellow.
The photographers in our group were in a state of frenetic, precariously balanced
brinkmanship, on top of the riverbank as the light changed second by second. The
evening before, the blush was subtler - over an equally tranquil lake edged and strewn
with a delicate, irregular mesh of decaying plant matter.
rushes at amariya
photo credit: gopika nath
On the final day, those of us that went did not want to leave the Rampur plateau
with its picture-perfect vista of dense forest vegetation softened by winter mist. We
accessed the plateau through temple chambers in which the natural light was perfect
for photographic portraits of Tanya, Shalini, the local temple boy and me. All of us
willing models.
Luckily, to ensure that we were not completely sucked into an out of control vortex
of Arcadian cliché, Maihar also surprises with micro landscapes of flat, craggy stone,
deconstructing temples, limestone quarries, dust filled industrial stone-crushing, and
the intense heat and fire of melting and re-forming old pots and utensils.
The photographers had the advantage capturing numerous permutations of each
of these and any other scenario that triggered their imagination, in a flash and a
click, while I developed a serious bout of camera envy. In spite of always being highly
critical of out-of-focus, misty photography peddled as ‘interesting’ and ‘artistic’, I now
find myself in this position, courtesy of an iphone not quite equal to the photographic