KOCHI: Ask any middle-class Indian household if they have members of their clan in distant shores and the answer would certainly be in the affirmative.
Until the 90’s, the annual return of these kinsmen was a spectacle indeed. As the yellow and black Ambassador taxi arrived at the doorsteps, ferrying the travel-weary passengers with their baggage precariously tied onto the roof, there was palpable excitement in the air. It reached a crescendo with the long-awaited opening of ‘The Suitcase’.
Yardleys and Camays soon briefly replaced the Lifebuoys and Lirils in many bathrooms while children were presented with toys and chocolates they had never seen before. The imported alcohol further elevated the status of the foreign returnee to dizzying heights.
Nothing much has changed except that the non-resident Indian now has a fleet of cabs to choose from and ‘The Suitcase’ has lost its sheen, thanks to our supermarkets stocking up on everything that once filled those bags.
Today, the 9th of January, is the day we celebrate this goods-laden traveller. It is Non-Resident Indian Day, originally celebrated to commemorate the return of Mahatma Gandhi to India from South Africa in 1915.
The art world has had its share of artists who settled in faraway lands from the 1940s onwards. Their brief or extended stay went on to influence their art practice.
S H Raza, one of India’s iconic artists, lived in Paris for the most part of his life. His journey began from Madhya Pradesh to Mumbai and led him to Paris.
After a visit to India in 1979, he started questioning the lack of Indianness in his paintings. Eventually, he adopted the bindu (point) as his muse, thus creating a new vocabulary.
His contemporary, F N Souza, on the other hand, who was born in Goa, was disillusioned after the controversy that broke out during his 1949 exhibition in Mumbai which featured nude paintings.
He even had to cover up his nudes with a fig leaf! In 1950, he left for London, and later, shifted to New York in 1965 where he started chemically altering the glossy pages of magazines to paint over it, creating a new medium.
V Viswanathan, lived in the Cholamandal Artists Village for years until he decided to leave for Paris where he now lives and works, still returning to his roots in Chennai annually.
There was also the sculptor Sadanand Bakre, who made his mark in Mumbai, and then shifted to London where life wasn’t initially easy.
Along with his wife, a German nurse, he sold his artworks from a wheelbarrow in Hyde Park. Although his artworks were noticed, he had to do odd jobs to support his family. He had to return to India in his twilight years under unfortunate circumstances when his wife eloped with his brother.
The humiliation forced him to settle in a nondescript town where he lived relatively unknown until his death in 2007.
The Indian diaspora has contributed immensely to India’s development. By taking the nation’s rich culture to foreign lands, the non-resident Indian has played a crucial role in our history, and marking a day in recognition is the perfect tribute to their significance!