Books - A celebration and a prayer

Celebration and Prayer: Life and Light in Raza's Art

Ashok Vajpeyi

Speaking Tiger 

184 pages 

Sometimes a book finds you all of a sudden, and as if calls you. You pick it up, and as you read you are both surprised and happy. It reminds you that books and whim go well together, and that you are at the right place. 

I was at Arthshila's library then and am now keen to revisit, especially to meet the book again. I had not begun a new book for some days now despite more than a few unread lined up at home, but this was special. 

This book, with a few unfinished sentences and some blank pages, I could not complete then. But it touched me in a manner that many books which I have completed did not. 

This book talks of Raza's journey from a small hamlet in Central India, the teacher who introduced him to the Bindu, to France and to finally returning to India and painting daily in his 90s. 

Sample a few lines - 

• All the world is produced by touch. 
• I have nothing to say to you, I only wish to make you a companion in silence. 
• Major art is an infinite source of delight and discovery.

Is this a book by a poet on a painter? By one artist on another? By a Hindi poet writing in English prose? At the crux, this is a book by a friend on a friend. 

I had read, and loved Raza's Bindu a few years ago. 

A couple of previous posts on Ashok Vajpeyi. One on his books, and an another on his photograph with Kedar Nath Singh.