Hyderabad: Trudging through the mohallas, chaubaras and bazaars of Chamba and Basholi, I went searching for living exponents of miniature painting tradition; the descendants of the masters who had created the Pahari schools of paintings, imbuing them with lyrical mysticism that perhaps comes from living in the mist covered, snow-capped mountains. The blues and greens that permeate the miniatures are a reflection of the myriad hues that light up the hills as the day goes by, and the unpredictable weather changes in a flash.
My search revealed just a sprinkling of actual practioners and a large number of forgers. The former were still trying to innovate and bring in new ideals and idioms, bringing in fresh flavour to time-tested sagas such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata as also the romantic heroines that belong solely in the realm of Pahari miniatures; seen in languid or sensual poses in the Ragamala and the Rasamanjari genres. The forgers were happily churning out the same but in a turgid, conventionalised format on tea-decoction stained paper.
The one thing that is common to both categories is the use of chemical paints such as poster colours though very few use gouache. But for the cognoscenti , who object to the opaqueness of colour and lack of layering, luckily for the artists this does not seem to present any great dilemma to those who are exposed only to modern versions of miniature paintings.
Far more interesting are the apocryphal tales with regards to the lack of recognition of the value of these paintings about a half a century ago. One hears of shopkeepers packing groceries in paper bags made of miniatures and of cracks in windows being papered with the same. This of course fuels the imagination of every antique hunter, the present writer included, but till date I have not come across any such windfall. From being considered waste paper to being valuable enough to be forged, Pahari miniatures have come a full circle. May the vibrancy of their themes and colours live forever.
