Cut out this bit about Ghulam Rasool Santosh (Srinagar, 1929 – Delhi, 1997) from docu “Contemporary Indian Painting” (1985) by K. Bikram Singh. [Full film here]. famous for paintings replete with tantric motifs. Trained under N.S. Bendre.
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| Gandharbal Kashmir by N.S. Bendre. Previously: Kashmir Canvas of Bombay Progressives |
G. R. appended his Hindu wife’s name ‘Santosh’ to his after marriage. Daughter married a Hindu and son a Sikh. Lived in Delhi.
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My favorite G. R. Santosh anecdote that I first heard at Hari Parbat from an uncle:
When pandits started building a ‘modern-updated’ temple on Parbat, G. R. Santosh was a much saddened man. He had spent quite some time studying the hill looking for tantric motifs in its rocks, offering an entire aesthetic theory based on what he saw in the hill. Now there was a wall coming around the main syen’der-ed rock. He pleaded, he cried, told them to stop and not mess with the yantra. The work continued. A new temple came up around a rock caught in between marbled walls. A work that still continues.
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