Tome & Plume: Calligraphic Curves Bring Rabindranath Tagore, Victor Hugo To Bhopal

Tomorrow is dawning for the residents of Bhopal amidst the sun and flower in the form of a silent revolution. Yet it has less to do with the bustles of daily life. It is a cultural revolution the city is going through. Many youngsters are learning French at Alliance Francaise partly for jobs and partly for understanding French literature and philosophy.

Many also search for German learning centres. This change is the gift of the recent Global Investors’ Summit (GIS). There may be doubt where GIS will bring the investments as expected. But there are hardly any qualms that the summit has changed Bhopali's outlook towards globalism.

The residents of Bhopal have always had a penchant for learning Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. Many people still quote Urdu poets.  But there is a sudden change in the attitude towards appreciating other foreign languages and cultures.

This is the cultural development that has brought the two literary giants – Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and French author Victor Hugo – to the city of Raja Bhoj, also called by the endearing sobriquet, Bhopal. It is Tagore’s second visit to the city – to be precise – in the form of calligraphic art and that too with his French counterpart Victor Hugo.

Tagore personally visited the city in 1933. Tagore is a household name in India and in many countries across the world. So is Hugo in France and in many other parts of the globe. Les Misérables and Le Hunchback de Notre Dame have left a permanent imprint on those who have read these novels.

Like his Indian counterpart Tagore, Hugo was a poet, playwright, novelist, dramatist, essayist and visual artist. He was one of the most important champions of the Romantic Movement in France. Both worked for human rights.

A few know that Tagore rendered four poems of Hugo into Bengali. Those poems are: Kobi (The Poet), Bisorjon (Immersion), Tara O Ankhi (Star and Eyes), and Surjo O Phul (Sun and Flower). The calligraphic images of Tagore and Hugo and that of their poems in Bengali, French and English at Alliance Francaise limn the portraits of these two artists. They are two individuals from two different continents.

Yet they are one: The star and the Eyes of the world. Rupak Neogy calligraphed the poems of Hugo translated by Tagore. He also sketched two figures in calligraphic form. Neogy’s lines are so bright that the geographical boundaries between India and France get blurred. Only feelings remain; words become meaningless.  

Then there is the Eiffel Tower of Mohan Kumar Erappa, a work of calligraphy. Each line has a tale to tell. But when they blend into one, they just become Eiffel Tower and assume the forms of Kannada script. Yet one needs a spiritual eye to appreciate it. The works of Achyut Pallav also figure in the exhibition.

Pallav draws each line with a vision. He calligraphed a Gujarati poem Rimjhim Aya Varsha Rani with its translation in English and French (La Pluie Tombe, The Rain Falls). Behind the sketch, the poem is rendered in Gujarati script. Each line of the poem portrays the rhythm of rainfall. This is the elegance of Pallav.

Then a boat-shaped delineation in blue, light blue, light green, light yellow and red explains the rhyme of life. Ever heard of the calligraphy of Sanskrit Mantras? Yes, they are there at the exhibition. The curves of Sudeep Gandhi have chanted these Mantras of life. Every stroke of felt tip turns into a voice that delineates the path to divine happiness.

Each Sanskrit Mantra, like Om Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah, Sarve Santu Niramaya (May everyone be happy and healthy), has been rendered into French. A work of Tarun Deep Girdhar symbolises French architect Le Corbusier’s modernist style of buildings.

The contours of Girdhar exhibit a dreamlike world of sunlight and shadows. They depict concrete and brick works in Gurmukhi letter forms. There are many more to see and to cotton on that these works are barely a melange of lines and tinges. They are more than that. They render the thoughts of Tagore and Hugo into the cadence of life. They warble to each other: 

La vie est une fleur dont l’amour est miel (Life is a flower for which love is honey).