Mallika Sarabhai: Treasure in the middle of nowhere!

I had landed in that central Indian town that afternoon, my last visit being in 1980. The airport seemed unchanged. The roads same. More vehicles for sure, with rougher riders. Rains had made puddles on the road and our going was slow. I was to give a lecture and was determined to make the most of this visit. I had an evening to spare before my speaking engagement and decided to revisit the history of the town. Being housed in a historic building was a good start. The town, I saw, was like every other town and city n India, cheek by jowl between the old and the new, sporting a mall on a no road, squalor everywhere. Bustling.

My surprises began that evening when I was invited to dinner with my host's family. We drove a few miles out of town and arrived at a sprawling home, obviously new. What took me by surprise was the beauty and understated lines of the modern home, and art on the walls. This was not your normal filigree and Plaster of Paris new rich family. The taste was impeccable, the art an interesting combination of known and unknown painters. My host was absent, called away by an emergency, but I soon learned that art was his passion. "Wait till you see the organisation tomorrow," I was told.

Indeed. Large outdoor sculptures gleamed in the sunlight as we approached the compound. Winding our way through the buildings and research laboratories, there were sculptures till everywhere the eye could reach. The artists had worked in wood, stone, steel and bronze. They had come from Peru and Japan, Honduras and Ethiopia, Mithila and Vadodara. The work was an eclectic mix of the ultra-modern, the figurative, abstract and installation art.

The insides of the buildings were equally delightful. Each wall in every room and each landing of every floor of every building had public art on display. The place was steeped in art like nowhere else I had been, anywhere in the world. The American sculpture gardens seemed bare in the midst of this bonanza.

"We have sculpture camps every year. We invite artists from all over the world. They come, stay and leave their work behind thus our collection grows every year. We encourage all our students to interact with them, learn from them and train under them. We have over 400 sculptures out in the grounds, and not a single one has ever been defaced," I was told.

Who had this vision, I wondered. Was this an investment? Here in the middle of dusty middle India? Where did the money for all this come from? I could only get my answers from the collector.
He missed my visit completely. Unable to contain my curiosity, I e-mailed him my questions, and got a wry and amused response.

He got involved with artists when he was going through a lull in his career. He needed to get away. He started going to exhibitions, galleries and got hooked. He decided that if he were ever in a position to, he would encourage art and artists — for life was meaningless without being surrounded by beauty.

Thus, 10 years ago, he started his mission. "No, no it is not for investment or for evading taxes," his e-mail read. I could hear the amusement in his voice.

"Please don't write about it or me. It's a private thing and I want to keep it that way." So dear readers, no names and no indication of where I was. But somewhere there, is a treasure trove of art, collected by one with passion and taste, where future generations will be able to see the best of world art created by a local patron. If only more of our institutions made art so easily accessible to the general public, what a world of good it would do to counter our only aesthetic marker - Bollywood, and its trivia of course.  

— The writer is a noted danseuse and social activist