NEW DELHI: Towering above the deep blue sky, peeping through the thin sheets of pale white clouds, stood the mighty Eiffel Tower being watched closely by artist Neha Dasgupta. Squinting her eyes from the sharpness of the sun, she sat there on the footpath to capture its intricacy in her little black book of drawings. This wasn’t just a diary of doodles, but also a book of dreams. The more she drew in it, the more she wanted to draw. From the little surface of the book, she’s reached the large canvases that adorn the walls of India Habitat Centre, in her first exhibiting called A Touch of Madhubani.
Among the works on display, is the Eiffel Tower she drew that day. As a student of history, her magnetism towards monuments is only natural. In her showcase, you’ll find The Statue of Liberty, Colosseum, Tower Bridge, Qutub Minar, among others. “Over the course of time, I started making pieces which were inspired by countries instead of just monuments, to put down my travels on paper, and this would also encourage me to travel more,” she says.
Dasgupta is self-taught. She disbelieves in copying pieces from the net, but she does go through books when she feels stuck. It’s easier, she says, if you take inspiration from something you have seen and work on it by adding your own elements.
When she was in class 9, she attend a two-day workshop on Madhubani painting. She soon realised that even drawing a straight line was a challenge. She sullenly took a sheet of Madhubani paper (cow dung paper) and began to draw.
Not pleased by what she was doing, Dasgupta waited for the day to end. But her teacher thought of her work differently and her words brought with it, a gush of positive reinforcement. “When she was on her rounds, she stopped by mine and said ‘you are doing well and if you put in some more effort, it will be just as good as other Madhubani artists’. Funnily enough, that praise was all it took for me to come to school the next day, and create the best art that I could,” she says.
Usually, the regional form is characterised by human figures, natural elements and animals. Dasgupta never enjoyed making these. Working on borders of any drawing made her happier. “The order and balance in these is what draws my attention. I am generally messy person, but for me these borders need to be in a certain format,they need to set together in a certain way,” she says, adding, “The centre of the painting what people focus on, but that’s an after thought for me, unless of course someone has ordered a piece with certain specifications.”
Her days since she got a slot at the centre have been rather adventurous. Every morning at 10 am, she sets out her board and begins to draw. She changes room everyday because it allows her to start afresh. In the background, she always has music playing or netflix running. Her family has provided a nurturing environment for her creativity to prosper. Her younger sister Ria is a severe critic of the artist’s work, but like all good advice, her’s too comes at a price. In their case, the barter is it’s pizza or french fries.
Family means everything to Dasgupta. The sombre events of the last few months have made her introspect a lot. The death of close family members was a rude alarm to how unpredictable life is. “It’s got a funny way of making you revaluate everything, and these events made me even surer of having an exhibition, because one must work towards the things they love. You don’t know whether you’ll get another chance,” she says. She also wanted to stick to her family like glue and decided that, at least for the next few months, she would work from home in a way to paint through the grief, she says.
Before Dasgupta decided to take drawing professionally, she was in a media house as a researcher but soon realised it wasn’t her place. One night, at 4 am, when she sat on her desk under a pile of papers, her left eyelid began to flutter. It was her body’s way of telling her she was deeply stressed. When it persisted, she realised it was time to leave the job for good. As one door closed, Dasgupta set foot inside another.