 to fight without reward is to fight with grace. It's not for the money. Nor is it for the position. And these guys are nor is it for a sense of power. It's something else. It's pure, simple devotion to your idea. Hello and welcome to the Hamara Itihas Archives. We are at the home of the legendary artist Krishan Khanna. And so much of his work is bound to the history of India. Thank you so much Krishan ji for having us over in your home and your studio. Most grateful to you. Welcome. Thank you. Where were you born? Well, whether I was born at all in fact. I was born in Lailpur which is now Faisalabad in Pakistan. I had no memory of it of course because we moved very soon after I was born. I think a year or a year and a half. Krishan ji, I want to ask you when did you actually start drawing? I think there is a story of your father bringing up painting on Leonardo da Vinci home. Yes. It enters surreptitiously. I wasn't told to do this, told to do that. Nobody told me to do anything. But I was just inclined. I saw him doing things. And that spurred me on to do whatever I did and so on. Some day we used to have these drawing and painting sessions. The whole family value, not me alone. Everyone was drawing and painting. Everybody was drawing and painting. This family actually we were all brought up on drawing and painting. These are influences that crept in and this was taken not as a speciality at all. Quality didn't seem to matter. It was the action that mattered. You really got to be doing the work, the job. You've got to love your drawing. You've got to go percolate right inside what drawing merely means. Out of that little pencil head what are you going to get out of it? It can do so many things. And the discovery of those many things is endless. What's the journey from an idea to the final formulation of a painting? Do you know the final formulation? I don't even think that there is a final formulation for me now. If it happened probably when I died, it would be finished. So that's when it happens. That's when it's finito. But it goes on churning. I mean as one is not... You don't sort of learn drawing and then continue the same old thing year in and year out. It is not like that, you know. A common idea is that iski drawing got a cheer. As if that is a faculty which is learned, is there, he's competent and so on. Well, it may or may not be all these things, you know. But the main thing is the driving force inside. I can't even begin to describe that. But it is there which then forces you to find out what the drawings are about. How do you draw? People think that you're an artist and the world is at your feet. It is not. It's a hard, hard grind. I used to paint every single night. I'd come home at about 7.30 in the evening, 7.30 I was home. Then I had a bath and a change and dinner with the children around me. And that was nice. And then the church moved soon after that at 9 o'clock, about 8.30 they'd go to bed. And then my work would start as a painter then. And it would go on to 3 o'clock, 3.30 every night. Every night. So it's not easy. It's certainly not. I'm so glad you shared this. So at my first exhibition, I... That sounds really funny. You sell about the first exhibition? One painting. But that is something too. But you know, there are certain recurring themes. You said that when you were 7, you first painted the Last Supper. But then you seem to paint the Last Supper. You seem to paint Christ... I have painted the Last Supper many times. And you know, betrayal and... Yeah, but these are... You know, I mean, these things happened... We know the Bible. We know what happens in the Bible, for instance. But you see similarities happening right around you. You don't have to read the... You don't have to think about the... The thing is a very special instance in the way back in the past. It's right now. So where do you see Christ? You don't see Christ. You see the things happening, the betrayal. And Christ could be any man. Could be any good person. And you see betrayal all the time? All the time. Sure. In other words, what was necessary is conviction in what you're doing. Ethics. It's not for the money. Nor is it for the position. And these guys... Or nor is it for a sense of power. Something else. It's a devotion. It's a devotion which is endless. And a devotion which has no conditions. It's pure, simple devotion to your idea. And the idea for the politician to be... He's serving the country. Well, that is not happening today. And that brings me to another of your paintings. The blind king and the blind foolish queen. Yes. Yes. So that's the beginning of the Mahabharata. I mean this is what happened there. But you take off from the Mahabharata. But is it not an allegory of power today? Of course it's an allegory of power. Of course it is. I mean the Mahabharata is nothing new. It happened then. It's happening now. And we've not learned too many lessons. I don't think... I don't think... Morally we are better. You know what is it that keeps you going? Because you just had a birthday and you turned... Ninety-four. And you're going to have an exhibition very soon. Yeah. Which means age is just a number because you're still painting. You're active. And you're... Of course I'm active. At Vikram seat, the poet. He's a good friend of mine. He came. And he came. He was in my studio. We were talking around and so on. And we got on to the subject of dying. He said, you know, I just wish that when I'm... When I'm going, I will find my body at the bottom of my easel. You know. An unfinished painting. And he says, funny thing you say that. Because I just wish that when I die, it's the last sonnets that I'm writing with the last two lines missing. Oh. No. Please, please. This is amazing, no? You went to Bombay. You joined the Green Layers Bank. And you came in contact with a progressive artist group. There was the... Within a week of being there. M.F. Hussain, Raza, Sunza. You know, these... I don't know. These things happen. And I was a new boy to it anyway. So I had my lunch hour and I walked out. I didn't know Bombay at all. So I walked down the road and then came round to the... I saw Bombay Art Society. And there was... Sunza was having a show. And they thought Sunza's work was horrible. Yes. But there was a naked picture of Sunza. You see, then I commented on this thing. I said, you know, therefore we see lots of naked people in the morning having a bath. At a pump. They're not... They're not shattered by that. The seat is a work of art. Yes, they're shattered. See, there's a... There's a kind of a commentary on what society wants, what they like, etc. Not all society. Large parts of it. The progressive artist movement has had a huge impact on art in India. It did. After the assassination of Gandhiji. Yes. And you also have a painting on that. Yes. And I did this one year afterwards. It's called News of Gandhiji's Death. People reading newspapers. Yes. This is exactly what I saw in cornered circles that evening. I mean, I was going home and, you know, this news had come out and we were all feeling pretty bad. And as I walked, as I went into the cornered circles, there's that island there for first to see that. And then there was one lamppost there and then everybody crowding around to read. Everybody was reading newspapers, sitting into the whole thing. And it made a lasting impression on me. It lasted enough for me to carry it for over a year. And I saw this thing happening, you see. And I painted it... Now, quite frankly, I don't think it was a great painting. It probably was... No, but it was very great in another way. And because, I mean, the subsequent history has proven that this lady who bought it, I mean, it's changed hands. It was stolen and all sorts of things happened. Yeah, yeah. So finally this lovely lady has it and she's thrown it all over Europe and all over Germany and everywhere and it's locked up in New York somewhere now. What impressed me, to fit into my canvas, all the communities were ready there. People with their fetch caps and people with the fuggries and all sorts of people going home on a bicycle, the chap just stops over there and to read a paper, you know. So it actually, and the newspapers become the foil through which everybody's heads are seen, hands are seen. And anxiety is written large on this paper. Even now when you see it, you get its anxiety. And did you have that idea when you started or does it happen while you were... It happens as you go. It begins with some little nodal thing which can disappear or extend itself and that happens. It's a fuzzy feeling. And then, you know, after you made your engagement with whatever you're doing, then the picture starts talking back to you. Well, that brings me to your famous bandwala. Yeah, but I mean, you know, famous or not? I mean, people call it famous. Okay, but what motivated you? Because you've done lots of work. Like all of us, we came from that part of the Punjab. The bandwala also had the company's great fellows who rejoiced at every wedding and so on. What a way to do, poor guys, you know. When they come here, nobody wanted to sort of play bands at that stage. They're concerned with living. How do you live? Living becomes the important thing. Not playing bands and music and all that kind of stuff. And they then have to improvise what they do. They live in little colonies, you know, across the Yamuna. And it was a pretty tough life and then they had to appear to be good but they were damn poor at that stage. They walked home, off with their uniforms and tattered and all that sort of thing. And then, you know, the family is the family. The whole family comes. The old man is also there. And we don't believe in them because they're old, abandoned them. So, you know, so the chacha comes along and they give him a triangle in his hand. So that's it. And this fascinated me. That this whole thing, you know, it's fascinating to see how people are making a living and yet loving what they're doing. Loving what they're doing. I think that's it. It's called vitreal. It's called vitreal. Or flaglation. That's the flaglation. This is the vitreal. To begin with, tell me, what do you mean by vitreal? Well, in the case of the Bible, the first meaning is that, that he said to the Romans, he says, how will we know him in this crowd? How will we know that that's Jesus? So he says, I'll go and kiss him. And thereby hangs the story of, you know, all the poetry. You know, the coward does it with a kiss. The brave man with a sword, you know. So he's vitreing Christ. And this is the real biblical sense of it. Now the other... What do you mean by vitreal? No, and the other thing is that he also believed that, okay, the Romans can do what the hell they like. They can do it. But he's God. So nothing can happen to him. Even I go and say, all right, vitreal, I'll go and kiss him. But nothing will happen to him. But he was so wrong, huh? No, but you have said that Christ is not an icon. You don't paint Christ as Christ. I'm not painting Christ as an icon. So what do you mean by vitreal today? No, by vitreal, what do you think is happening in the congress party right now and what do you think is happening in Karnataka? I think there are wholesale vitreals. You know, one would imagine that you're joining a party. Like when I joined the Progressive Painters group, if tomorrow I turned around and started cursing them and Hussain and so on and all the rest, we could discuss threadbare each other's work, and we did, you know. But to then go around talking about him that he's this, he's that, he's that and so. And what about flagellation? This is so powerful. Well, the vitreal out of him is still in gold, isn't it? I mean, you're talking... Well, we're reading the papers, but there's not a day that you find out the way the people are, you know... Being lynched? Yeah. Not lynched, well, that too, of course. But I mean the police when they get hold of them. They choose these methodology to get the truth out. So this is about authority beating the daylights of the poor, the marginalized or anyone? Yeah. Christ was not just a poor man. They were not afraid of the poor. This is not Marxism. This man has said that the spirit is weak and there's something fault there. The flesh is feeling weak. Yeah, he said that the spirit is corrupt. Again, this is very violent. This is untitled. Pennsylvania people. So what do you think is the evil of our times? The evil of our times. The evil of our times is... I wouldn't say that everything is evil. I don't. It's not that everything is evil. But what is evil? What is wrong, I think, is that money becomes the value and everything is measured thereby. Which is very, very sad. I think it's very sad. Art world is also very much party to that. Why should one be a party? I don't want to be a party to it. But people do measure the success of the artist by the sale of his paintings. They're not looking at the work. How much did you get for it? There are all sorts of ways in which you can drive. You can go through auction houses. You can get pictures to people. You know, that phony bids being made to jack up the bids. All this is machination, isn't it? But what does this good do to your spirit? I want to talk to you about the rising of Lazarus. There's so much. There's this drawing. This is the story of Lazarus. Christ wasn't actually involved in this. He was. They asked him. He was talking about good actions. He said, what good actions? Somebody asked him this. And he said, I'll give you an example. That the man comes in to the city somewhere. He's belaid by robbers. They beat the hell out of him. And they disappear. It's a common factor. You read any newspaper now. It's got the story in it. So, the one man goes and he says, oh, well, you know, these things happen. And you go on. And you have the other guy who says, oh, what happened here? And he stops by. He winds him up in cloth. And that is Christ. And it's not Christ. It's not Christ. It's what Christ says a good person does. So, a good person. He is from Samaria, obviously. A trader from Samaria who did it. So, it's a good Samaritan music. Here, I love your work on the subaltern. The Tea Drinker at Nizam. Of course. The Dhabbas are the equivalent of the pub. And what about Gyana Ji ka Dhabba? Yeah, that's the same thing. Same thing. And then you've done a lot of... You've thought that, you see, Gyana Ji produces the best naan and the best daal. Sub-majanya, if you don't know. And then it becomes a great talking thing inside. People talk and all this kind of things happen in there. So, I think that... I'm surprised that Dhabba hasn't been taken up as a subject matter by Indian painters anymore. I can't think of one. But you have. Many. I think the Dhabbas are central. It's a club. The Dhabba is the club where people meet. Of course, you're famous musicians. Of course, I love musicians. I was involved with all these guys. They used to play in my house and in the dress. I knew them all. And I must come to something I absolutely love. The blind came and... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you trying to say? This is an amazing, amazing, amazing one. I mean, actually, it's quite evident. It's quite evident what you're saying. Yeah. I think basically when people say, what does it mean? I say, you're looking at it. You'll find out what it means. Those who knew us are blind. And these are your wonderful sculptures, which I think are lovely. I think it's wonderful the way you are to experiment with various, various forms. No, I have. I've done that. I've delved into several things like, you know, graphics as well. I've entered into graphics and stone. Actually, that I did long before I even started painting here. Graphics and all from litho stones. I worked in a printing press before partition. After I left college. You were an apprentice to a printing press? Yes. And I then finally became the works manager of the press. And then the partition happened and I took eight days leave and never went back till much later and went back as a painter. You're supposed to be a master of lines, but I see that you don't feel... You give us the feeling. Sometimes it depends. And then you even had a group of the progressive artists as... That's in this book, I think, isn't it? That's the last supper there. Yeah, that's hardly the last supper. Who is that Hussain? This is Hussain in the centre. This is Baal Chawla. This is Tayyub Mehta. This is Suza. That's Suza. This is Akbar. This is Bhopin Khakha. This is Jairam Patel. And that's Jogin Chaudhary. This is Gayatunde from the back. This is Manjeet Baba. And this is Raza. And this is Swami Natham. Lovely. Beautiful. Beautiful. I did this as a... You know, what's his name? He said, why don't you paint me a picture of all the artists? I said, yes, I'll paint them for you. I gave away this painting. They were much sought out. How did you give it to? I think it's finally a bit... to saffron art. They bought it. I just love these. Yeah, yeah, I did. I've done a lot with them. Yeah, yeah, I love doing them. Now I want to ask you as we end this wonderful time with you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the message for this coming generation. Having lived life so fully with so much color and with so much passion, what do you have to say to the new generation? Do the same thing. Just do what you want to do and do it with full speed ahead. Don't think about it. Don't think of... Don't think of consequences. There's a wonderful line in Herbert Reed's poem. It talks about war. It's one of his war poems. And he says, to fight without reward is to fight with grace. But so does the Geeta tell you that. So don't think of the reward. You don't think of reward. The reward is, you know, you become a shake chili, you know. Consequences and there's no end to that kind of stuff. So follow your passion. Yeah, if you follow your passion, there's no end to it. And what about politically? I mean, you live through partition. What do you have to say to us? The quote of T.S. Eliot again. He has said, to communicate with Mars, converse with spirits, read tragedy from fingers. All these are pastimes and drugs and features of the press. And always will be. It's from the shores of Asia to Edgewood Road, its curiosity searches past and future and clings to that dimension. But to comprehend the point of intersection of timelessness with time is an occupation fit for the saint. No saint either with something given and taken in a lifetime of love and self-surrender. Beautiful poem. It's a long poem. Well, I thank you so much for giving your valuable time to our Hithi Haas Aakai and for sharing your beautiful poetry and paintings. Much gratitude. Thank you so much. No tutorial. You just heard the legendary painter Krishan Khanna speak to us about his life, his work and his art. A life lived with passion, integrity and compassion. Thank you for watching the Himaara Hithi Haas Aakai.